Embedding Stand-Alone, ‘Local Buzz’ and ‘Global Pipeline’ Firms; a Plea for a Less Traditional Regional Innovation Policy

This paper deals with the policy implications of a research project based on a non-traditional approach to innovation measurement in a Dutch region. This region is characterized by an ‘innovation paradox’, as it lodges large numbers of ‘creative’ people while it also underperforms in traditional innovation measurements. A survey among experts regarding regional innovation yields large numbers of innovative firms in a wide range of industries, which in traditional studies would partly go unnoticed. Further data analysis reveals that innovation in the region has no clear face in terms of firms and sectors. This is due to the embroynic state of clustering in different subsectors, the mostly social and informal nature of network ties between entrepreneurs in the region, the international level at which much innovation-oriented networking takes place, and the lack of connectivity between the latter networks and local informal networks and the embryonic clusters. In terms of their innovation profile, firms in the region are strong in creative, non-technical and combined forms of innovation. So, dynamic capabilities especially show up ‘downstream’, connecting novelty with clients and markets, and translating this into change management and new practices. Next, we found that firms strategically engage in innovation ventures, in the three ways that were explained before by Bathelt et al. (2004), i.e. seeking and combining international knowledge with one’s own (constructing ‘global pipelines’), strengthening regional ties, identity, contact and linkages (‘local buzz’), and relying on one’s own resources for innovation (‘stand alone’ strategy). One challenge for policy is to exploit these three strategies of firms. Such can be done in three ways. One is to use the abundant social capital in the region, with a view to strengthening the economic relevance of existing local networks by constructing and extending ‘global pipelines’. The second is to display leadership and formulate a ‘community argument’ for innovation (dealing with the following sub questions: why must I innovate, why must I interact in networks and clusters, and why should I do so at different spatial scales?), thus strategically reorienting the available ‘local buzz’ and enhancing its economic relevance. Together, these two proposals serve the purpose of stimulating knowledge flows ‘outside-in’ and ‘inside-out’ (cf. Wolfe & Gertler 2005). The third is to correct for the policy myopia on cluster and network initiatives. The price we pay for the Porterian approach to clustering (cf. Martin & Sunley 2003; Hospers 2005) is that a significant number of firms in the region under review that individually engage in innovation processes, are not part of ‘global pipeline’ and ‘local buzz’ processes. Hence, they do not enrich nor benefit from these processes, and may thus relatively easy leave the region. Finally, they may be less effective in innovation, in terms of speed and the market fit of new products and processes. So, both from a regional and firm-level perspective, stand-alone firms merit attention.

Ethical human resource management: a critical analysis

In modern day, Human Resource Management (HRM) is seen as a mere variant of management control aiming intentionally to ‘colonize’ the identity of the individual employee which points to the contradictions between the idealised HRM theories and its practice commonly referred to as the difference between rhetoric and reality. These critical analyses suggest that HRM reflects a historical shift in the way work is defined and managed and research has to be undertaken on how morality and ethics may be represented in the discourse, lived experiences, practice and broader context of HR professionals. The HR function will continue to face challenges in balancing business imperatives and ethical values but as long as the corporate and HR leadership remains committed, no challenge may be insurmountable

Introduction

This is the introduction to the special issue on Robert K. Meyer and the philosophy of arithmetic

The "empty shell" approach: the setup process of international administrations in Timor-Leste and Kosovo, its consequences and lessons

State-building under the aegis of international administrations has faced various hurdles and obstacles in Kosovo and Timor-Leste — failures that came to full light in March 2004 in Kosovo and in May 2006 in Timor-Leste. However, the international conception buttressing the set up of international administrations — I dub it the "empty-shell" approach — is still present in certain policy circles. This article aims to analyze this international conception by clarifying how the UN came to impose its authority over the two territories in a very similar process. While the literature on each state-building experiment is vast and com- pelling, few authors have attempted to contrast the two case studies, especially regarding the mental conception informing the governance process of these territories since 1999. This article links the empty-shell approach with the delegitimization process that came to be experi- enced by the UN in both cases. The article describes the international policies put in place by the UN to expand its control over the two terri- tories, a mix of co-option of local elites and the marginalization of the local population. Finally, the article reveals some possible solutions in order to avoid the more blatant difficulties pertaining to state-building conducted from the outside-in

Manager Unethical Behavior During The New Economy Bubble

This paper investigates factors that brought about the surge in manager unethical behavior within the US economy. Key structural causes are the weak internal control, perverse incentives related to managers’ compensation, conflicts of interest in the banking and auditing sectors. Unethical behavior was further enhanced by the large economic noise specific to the IT bubble, which emerged in the late nineties against the background of increased deregulation in the goods and financial markets. The US administration opposed to the proliferation of CEO unethical behavior the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002; we argue why some of its provisions might be taken one step furtherUnethical behavior; CEOs; Financial deregulation; Activism; Sarbanes-Oxely Act

TINA Go Home! ALBA and Re-theorizing Resistance to Global Capitalism

Centred around Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony, this paper employs a critical globalisation theory framework to argue that the 1990s notion of ‘changing the world from below', understood as resistance to capitalist globalisation through a ‘transnational civil society', requires re-theorisation in the light of the contemporary developments in Our America. I make a methodological case for a neo-Gramscian approach to argue that ‘counter-hegemony', together with an adequate theorisation of the state and power, should be the preferred concept over the inherently apolitical and under-theorised ‘alter-globalisation'. Whilst the alter-globalisation movement's ideational and normative challenges to hegemony (captured in ex-British prime minister Thatcher's There-Is-No-Alternative-Doctrine, TINA) are undisputed, the transformation of the global geographies of power through local actors alone has remained illusory. Rather, the experience of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America - Peoples' Trade Agreement (ALBA-PTA) strongly suggests that counter-hegemonic globalisation theory will have to consider the roles of both the ‘state-in-revolution' and the ‘transnational organised society'. This will be shown through the analysis and theorisation of the ALBA-PTA as a multi dimensional inter and transnational counter-hegemonic regionalisation and globalisation project that operates across a range of sectors and scales