WHEN GOVERNMENT IS NO LONGER EMPLOYER OF CHOICE; WHAT MAY THE SECTOR PERCEPTIONS OF PUBLIC MANAGERS BE LIKE AFTER THE ECONOMY RECOVERS?

In today’s economic climate, government is now considered by many to be the “employer of choice.” However, employers at all levels of government may eventually lose their recent gains in the war for talent, as the economy improves. Accordingly, it is important to explain how public sector managers viewed the relative advantages and disadvantages of government employment before the economic downturn along specific parameters, including opportunities for women and minorities, managerial autonomy, and employee talent and innovativeness. This paper assesses these views for state-level public managers across a broad range of public services, using survey data that preceded the economic downturn. Specifically, it examines how their past public and private sector career experiences, controlling for their contemporaneous government work experiences, affect their views of the public and private sectors. The study emphasizes career experiences not because past work experience are the only or the most important predictors of sector perceptions generally, but because career trajectory may be the most important consideration for developing strategy for response to government workforce dynamics once the economy improves. Thus, the findings are explained in terms of the related processes of workplace socialization and attitude formation and change, which see public and perhaps also private sector occupational norms and expectations and experiences, past and present, amalgamating to render personal values conducive to favoring one sector over the other. The importance of sector perceptions for human resources management and for broader government workforce concerns as the economy recovers are discussed, as well theory development regarding the career trajectories of public managers

Searching for Patterns of Competitive and Relational Contracting over Time: Do Prime and Subcontractor Networks Follow Similar Patterns?

This paper explores and compares two sets of contractual relationships over a twelve-year period: the patterns of contracting between a state transportation agency and its prime contractors providing engineering design services, and between the prime- and sub-contractors. We find evidence that patterns of relational and competitive contracting may co-exist in the same contracting context. While the patterns of agency-prime contracting are indicative or relational contracting, the patterns of prime-sub contracting imply relatively more competitive processes. Implications for policy and theory of outsourcing are discussed

Research and Development: Bibliometric Analysis of Knowledge Flows of Brazilian Research 2005-2009

Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy 2011This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder. ©2011 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.By examining the knowledge in- and outflows in Brazilian research 2005-2009, we undertake comparative bibliometric analysis of the dynamics of knowledge creation in development context. Specifically, we analyse knowledge creation dynamics to find out how knowledge flows between developing countries and the North shape research and its exploitation.Tekes - The Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovatio

Effects of university characteristics on scientists’ interactions with the private sector: an exploratory assessment

University-industry relations, Technology transfer, Hierarchical linear modeling, Organizational context, O31, O32,

Student Centrality in University-Industry Interactions

This thesis proposes and estimates a model of university scientists interactions with the private sector; in this model students are conceptualized as an important enabler of such interactions. The results of the study show that university scientists student-related behaviors such as grant support of students and research collaboration with students, and student-related attitudes such as mentoring orientation positively affect the probability that scientists will enter interactions with industry as well as the intensity of such interactions. Behaviors such as teaching and advising of students are not related to interactions with industry. This study is motivated by the increased emphasis on closer relationships between universities and industry as a means to facilitate the commercial application of university research. Today, numerous policies and programs attempt to achieve such goals. As a result, university scientists are called on to perform many tasks which on the surface seem misaligned. There is substantial study of conflict between the teaching and research missions of universities, and a growing body of study on conflict related to university based commercial and technology transfer related activities. Fewer, there are studies suggesting that these activities are not so misaligned after all. This study falls into the latter category as it posits a complementary relationship between university scientists student related activities and their work related interactions with industry, research and otherwise. Speculations regarding the importance of students in university industry relations and indirect evidence are scattered through the relevant literature, but little or no systematic empirical tests of their importance exist. This study uses data from a national survey of university researchers to discern the centrality of students to university-industry interactions. Theoretically, students are conceptualized as a dimension of university scientists respective research capacities that enable cross-sectoral processes of accumulative advantage and thereby help to enable their interactions with industry. As a component of scientists scientific and technical human capital, students help university scientists to identify and act upon on research opportunities originating in the private sector. Moreover, students increase the appeal of university scientists to industry agents seeking research partners in academe. Implications for theory and policy are discussed.Ph.D.Committee Chair: Bozeman, Barry; Committee Member: Corley, Elizabeth; Committee Member: Fox, Mary Frank; Committee Member: Gaughan, Monica; Committee Member: Kingsley, Gordo

A preliminary assessment of the potential for "team science" in DOE Energy Innovation Hubs and Energy Frontier Research Centers

President Obama has called for the development of new energy technologies to address our national energy needs and restore US economic competitiveness. In response, the Department of Energy has established new R&D modalities for energy research and development designed to facilitate collaboration across disciplinary, institutional, and sectoral boundaries. In this research note, we provide a preliminary assessment of the potential for essential mechanisms for coordinated problem solving among diverse actors within two new modalities at the DOE: Energy Innovation Hubs and Energy Frontier Research Centers.Research collaboration Team science Organizational design

Influencing scientists' collaboration and productivity patterns through new institutions: University research centers and scientific and technical human capital

This paper analyzes the effect of university research centers on the productivity and collaboration patterns of university faculty. University research centers are an important subject for policy analysis insofar that they have become the predominant policy response to scientific and technical demands that have not been met by extant institutions, including academic departments, private firms, and government laboratories. Specifically, these centers aim to organize researchers from across the disciplines and sectors which, collectively as a research unit, possess the scientific and technical capacity relevant to scientific and technical goals of the sponsoring agencies. In this paper, we measure the productivity and collaboration patterns of university researchers affiliated with a relatively large-scale and "mature" university research center to discern the effects, if any, of the center mechanism on individual scientists and engineers. Based on an analysis of longitudinal bibliometric data, the results from this case study demonstrate affiliation with the center to be effective at enhancing overall productivity as well as at facilitating cross-discipline, cross-sector, and inter-institutional productivity and collaborations.University research center Research collaboration Bibliometrics Science and technology policy

Journal of Public Procurement : Volume 11 Number 3 Fall 2011

427 hlm.; 23 cm

The effect of informal industry contacts on the time university scientists allocate to collaborative research with industry

Technology transfer, University-industry relations, Informal interactions, O31, O32,