Changing Configuration of Alternative Energy Systems

Recent and rampant regulatory changes for sustainable development are seeking to transform current energy systems towards cleaner and greener forms of energy sources. In this scenario, alternative energy technologies are considered the building blocks towards this transformed energy system. This chapter will show how the alternative energy market since the 1970s changed, in response to external oil price shocks and to other selective pressures and institutions. It will observe that the configuration of the market has been changing since 1970s, in terms of firm-composition, size and types of technologies considered in the green energy mix. It will further provide three explanations explaining why there are changes between firms, policies and these energy technologies. These three processes are considered important in determining technological innovation among firms in clean and green energy technologies.Renewable Energy, New Technologies, Firm Competition, Technology Policy, Energy Technologies

Le capitalisme fondé sur la connaissance et le changement dans les stratégies des entreprises industrielles

This paper explores the changing nature of contemporary capital accumulation focusing in particular on the increasing importance of knowledge inputs in the production process. The growing knowledge-intensity of production reflected in the role of design, research and development, marketing, management and advertising in the growth strategy of the firm, has had numerous consequences for the nature of competition amongst firms and for the internationalization of production. As increased knowledge-intensity of production gave rise to ever more rapid technological change in industry, the need for greater flexibility in production and labour processes became acute, more so as the global economic crisis deepened and competition from newly industrializing countries rose.Automation and sub-contracting were important new strategies. So too was the segmentation and delocalization of production processes to cheap labour countries in the Third World and Eastern Europe. More recently, as the costs and risks involved in R&D escalated, large corporations have also begun to decentralize knowledge production itself by funding research and development activities outside the MNC, and by internationalizing knowledge production itself through the establishment of research laboratories abroad or the implementation of a System of world product mandates for selected manufacturing subsidiaries

Divides and rules:the impact of new wave technologies on learning and innovation in the south

Access to knowledge and the opportunities and capacities needed to innovate are now key to competitiveness in a broad range of traditional industries. With the emergence of new wave technologies, such as biotechnology, that are science based, research and patent intensive, strengthening the knowledge base and linking it to users is all the more critical. New international rules do not make this task any easier and for most developing countries technological divides and knowledge gaps have emerged in rapid succession as they struggle to deal with the challenges to which new wave technologies are giving rise. To avoid further exclusion, high priority must be given to the indigenisation of learning and innovation processes in the South. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Atelier national de recherche sur la politique technologique au Rwanda

Appendices in Frenc

Clustering, long distance partnerships and the SME: a study of the French biotechnology sector

This paper examines the relationship between clustering and long distance partnering from the perspective of evolutionary economics and the innovation systems literature. Specifically, it brings into this framework business and management approaches and regional economic theories to analyze the preference for co-location in clusters and the extensiveness and degree of complementarity or substitutability between long distance and local partnerships pursued by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the biotechnology sector. The study covers the partnering activity of 25 dedicated biotechnology SMEs located within six clusters on the periphery of France