An antiviral disinfectant research and development process model for small to medium enterprises based within the United Kingdom

Viral infections have produced commercial drivers to develop products to treat and reduce viral outbreaks and infections. Antiviral disinfectants have found particular favour in limiting new infections. The nature of viruses has however necessitated a continued stream of products successfully moving through the research and development (R&D) stage into commercial usage. With high product failure rates in R&D, and difficulties for executive and R&D managers to communicate effectively in the R&D stage, there was a perceived need from within the sector to further elucidate antiviral disinfectant R&D. Prior research had shown that the R&D stage is technically sophisticated with a requirement for management to engage in the technical, scientific and business aspects. This can be challenging for management decision-making, as many aspects of R&D, have different levels of knowledge required as well as language used. The use of models has received much attention in simplifying the R&D stage, but with little attention paid to creating shared meaning between different managers. In this study, executive and R&D managers from antiviral disinfectant UK based R&D SMEs were examined, using semi-structured case study interviews within a phenomenological paradigm. Explicitation was used to draw out meaning from respondent interviews, which showed that executive and R&D managers were from business and scientific backgrounds respectively. This resulted in difficulties in communication about R&D between manager types, which added to the opacity of R&D. It was noted that executive managers had greater knowledge of wider organisational aims for R&D, but little knowledge about what was carried out in the R&D stage. Conversely, R&D managers had greater knowledge about the scientific testing carried out in R&D, but little understanding of the business drivers of R&D. Using interview information, an alpha and beta model were constructed that showed a linear path through R&D, based predominantly on technical stages. An expanded view of the model was utilised to aid in R&D and executive management sense made of the R&D. This model contributed to the knowledge base through shared and warranted knowledge between R&D and executive managers as well as expanded model views of each of the R&D process stages. Both of these factors are novel and have created new academic knowledge as well as this model currently being used by three respondent companies

Nanoscale silver: Thin-film structure and antimicrobial functionality

Since antiquity, silver has been used as a material to reduce spoilage. Over the past decades, there has been an increasing scientific and commercial interest in developing silver surfaces due to the increasing number of drug resistant microorganisms. In this study, the effect of nanostructuring silver films as an antimicrobial against the bacteria Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) was examined. Films consisting of 3 nm chromium adhesion layers and nominal 20 nm silver surfaces (assuming flat deposition) were deposited by thermal evaporation and nanostructuring was controlled by varying the incident angle of the silver onto the substrate. Four substrate angles were used including 0 °, 18 °, 40 ° and 70 ° to the horizontal. Examination by atomic force microscope, Rutherford backscattering and ellipsometry showed that as the incident angle of deposition increased, so did the nanostructuring and surface roughness. This was coupled with a decrease in film thickness. Incubation of the nanostructured thin-films in bacterial broths with E. coli and S. aureus showed that as the surface roughness increased the antimicrobial activity was enhanced – both in solution and for bacteria adhered to the thin-films. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry was used to measure silver leaching from the thin-films and showed a negligible loss for all films, with corresponding low-levels of antimicrobial activity. Further indicating the enhancing effect of nanostructuring as an antimicrobial. All thin-films showed biological fouling after prolonged exposure to the bacterial solutions, which reduced antimicrobial activity. Cleaning the films with IPA showed that the films could be regenerated but with some loss of antimicrobial activity. The mechanism of thin-film antimicrobial activity is at this time unknown but it is speculated that nanostructuring is capable of penetrating the cell envelopes of bacteria, which enhances the antimicrobial activity of silver

How do marketing communications influence nanotechnology sensemaking in B2B sales?

Making sense of technology products is a challenge faced by B2B actors, and one that is particularly acute for high technology products. Sitting in the isthmus between organisations are sellers and buyers who predominantly communicate through talking to position themselves as legitimate sources of knowledge to facilitate selling and buying, while often experiencing identity-based tensions. Research gaps from extant studies show limited investigations examining how sellers and buyers discursively negotiate high technology sales related to their identities to more easily make sense of these often-misunderstood products. This study therefore considers these aspects through the exemplar of nanotechnology, which is regarded as an ambiguous, opaque and complex collection of products, capable of triggering a need for sensemaking, based on the use of marketing-based spoken communication. Throughout this study, respondents who undertake nanotechnology selling and buying within UK companies (SMEs and MNEs) are engaged with via in depth semi-structured interviews. Using an interpretivist case study approach, discourse analysis is used to unpick social structures relating to selling and buying, as the respondents ‘see’ and discursively construct them. Three main themes are drawn out of this study. The first is the importance of a centralised scientist role identity to guard against the stigma of carrying out marketing activities, where respondents can be quasi-legitimised scientists engaged with selling and buying, while discursively negotiating how to construct these activities. Many sub-themes of power, othering and internal contradictions are explored for this and other main themes. The second theme highlights the potential for using spoken interpersonal marketing communications as a vehicle to induce homophilous discourse, resulting in shared meaning, where sense can be made more easily for complex product functionalities and identities legitimised/delegitimised. The third theme indicates how product simplification and linguistic tools, drawing on cultural references such as science fiction metaphors and militarism can aid in sense given and made between sellers and buyers. Drawing these themes together suggests how the scientist role identity is centrally enacted alongside minor identities of the marketer, seller or buyer to aid in sense giving and sensemaking for high technology products through spoken discursive cultural resources

The pseudoscientist ‘priest’: religiously selling nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is the pinnacle of high technology, increasingly coveted by non-scientist buyers seeking science fiction rather than fact. This B2B ethnography deepens our understanding of scientist sellers rejecting orthodox technical sales talk, in order to guide culturally distant non-scientist buyers into more similar sense via religious pseudoscience (scientism). Although heretical, scientism is a powerful proselytising tool, enabling (pseudo)scientist sellers to reimagine themselves as powerful ‘priests’, while obligating buyers to have faith in their teachings, or face excommunication from the ‘church’ of nanotechnology. Within this sales-based ‘theocracy’, the metaphoric methodological ‘God’ Science is the ultimate form of validation, duplicitously manipulated, and overtly drawn on to facilitate the diffusion of poorly understood ‘salvific’ innovations, while supporting an apocryphal religion for high-technology sales

The enchanted snake and the forbidden fruit: the ayahuasca ‘fairy tale’ tourist

This ethnographic study increases our understanding of Westerners seeking genuine fairy tale experiences of magic, transformation and enchantment within South American psychedelic ayahuasca tourism. Examining 63 tourists, this study shows how vision-based spirit sensegivers facilitate individuals in exorcising demons, to make sense of themselves as spiritual beings within an enchanted universe. However, and with this potion quickly wearing off upon returning to the West, tourists feel abandoned by their spirits, and disconnected from the fairy lands. Coupled with not wanting to re-experience intense inner tensions from stepping in and out of a fairy tale, further tourism is rejected. As such, ayahuasca tourism becomes a ‘forgotten’ fairy tale, rarely told

Science ‘fact’ and science ‘fiction’? Homophilous communication in high-technology B2B selling

This study deepens our understanding of the processes underpinning the diffusion of innovation by critically exploring the language that scientist sellers and buyers employ to facilitate sensemaking in their spoken marketing communications. Pervasive complex technical terminology within business-to-business (B2B) high-technology sales relationships results in numerous sensemaking challenges. Using a discourse analytic methodology, sellers and buyers from nanotechnology companies are interviewed to better understand how culturally close (homophilous) or culturally distant (heterophilous) sales talk influences sensemaking. Although a need for ‘marketing’ is begrudgingly acknowledged, these boundary spanners all appear to enact centralised identities as ‘scientists’ engaged in selling and buying. Working towards maintaining homophily, participants claim to jointly use linguistic tools such as metaphors and popular cultural references to enable a functional level of sensegiving and making