Innovation and the Interrelatedness of Core Competencies: How Taiwan's Giant Bicycles broke into the US Bicycle Market

I argue that capabilities and barriers to entry are, in certain circumstances, interconnected in such a way that sacrificing one of them can lead to the subsequent vulnerability or erosion of another capability or barrier to entry. I illustrate this through a study of the US bicycle market in the 1980's in general, and Schwinn Corporation and Giant Manufacturing in particular, arguing that both the barriers to entry and the firm capabilities were interrelated. A specific set of decisions by Schwinn had broad and unanticipated effects that went beyond the capacity they explicitly relinquished. In this case manufacturing and distribution were tightly linked in such a way that without some form of tight link between them successful incremental innovation became difficult. Seemingly unrelated capabilities and strengths become mutually reinforcing or interconnected. Instead of being able to choose to add a single capability, or choose to discard one, companies may instead be choosing between sets, groups of interlinked, or patterned capabilities. A seemingly small change may require a major reorganization of other core capabilities that its ostensible status belies.international strategy, outsourcing, capabilities, barriers to entry

The Evolution of Relational Property Rights: A Case of Chinese Rural Land Reform

The most notable, or at least the most noted, form of property evolution has been the transfer of exclusive rights from collectives to individuals and vice versa, such as the farm collectivization in Soviet Union and the establishment of the People’s Communes in Mao’s China and their reversals. Such radical moments, however, constitute only a small part of history. For the most part, property rights evolve quietly and incrementally, which is hard to explain if we take exclusive rights as the core of property, or, to put it more generally, if we are focusing solely on the question of who owns the things. To describe the evolution of property rights in China, we employ the concept of relational property. It is a concept that is heavily influenced by Joseph William Singer’s “social relations model” and Ian Macneil’s “relational contract” and, in particular, their emphasis on the determinative role of social relations in the construction of property and contract rights. The bundle of sticks metaphor is at the heart of relational property because it recognizes that property rights can be, and often are, disaggregated as they adapt to changing social, economic, and technological demands. As we show in the context of the reform of Chinese rural land, the combination of the metaphor of separable interests — the sticks in the bundle — and the dependence of property interests on social relationships can explain the evolution of property rights more accurately than a perspective that stresses a single central meaning of property.postprin

The role of social identity in institutional work for sociotechnical transitions: The case of transport infrastructure in Berlin

Generally, sociotechnical change requires that agency is exercised across multiple, connected levels or contexts. Yet there is very little work in the sociotechnical sustainability transitions literature that theorises these connections in ways that acknowledge the individual-level processes involved. Here we show how identity theory can connect macro- and micro-levels of analysis, with identity construction being a social psychological process that is also involved in institutional work. For empirical illustration we use the case of emerging mobility transitions in Berlin, Germany, in particular aspects of institutional work for infrastructural change in favor of cycling. The study shows how the construction of a common identity among varied actor groups has been key to a citizen campaign for safe cycling infrastructure. The construction of a socially inclusive identity relating to cycling has been made possible by prioritizing the development of a campaign network comprised of weak ties among stakeholders, rather than a closer-knit network based on a more exclusive group of sporty cyclists. The findings are discussed in the light of both social psychological models and sociotechnical transitions theory. The implications for scaling niche practices for sustainability are considered

Energy in low carbon cities and social learning: A process for defining priority research questions with UK stakeholders

City-level decision-making requires timely access to a wide range of relevant and comprehensible data and information. Although a wide range of research on energy and cities is on-going across the social, engineering and natural sciences, it cannot be taken for granted that the questions being asked and the way questions are structured reflect practitioner perspectives and requirements. This paper discusses the ways in which research questions are formed and interpreted by actors in academic research and research user communities. We also report a set of research questions produced via an initial trial of a two stage, participative process consisting of (a) a survey targeted at city-focussed practitioners in the United Kingdom (UK) with an interest in lower carbon energy futures; and (b) a workshop integrating practitioner and academic perspectives. Comparing the set of research questions identified with themes in the academic literature, we find that research and practitioner communities concur on the importance of reducing energy demand and also on a number of cross-cutting issues. However, we also find that academic research places a greater emphasis on the interfaces between the energy system and other urban systems. We conclude that the two stage, participative process followed can serve to generate and legitimate city-related research questions through collaboration between stakeholders and academic researchers

Deep MOS Spectroscopy of NGC 1316 Globular Clusters

The giant elliptical galaxy NGC 1316 is the brightest galaxy in the Fornax cluster, and displays a number of morphological features that might be interpreted as an intermediate age merger remanent ($\sim$3 Gyr). Based on the idea that globular clusters systems (GCS) constitute genuine tracers of the formation and evolution of their host galaxies, we conducted a spectroscopic study of approximately 40 globular clusters (GCs) candidates associated with this interesting galaxy. We determined ages, metallicities, and $\alpha$-element abundances for each GC present in the sample, through the measurement of different Lick indices and their subsequent comparison with simple stellar populations models (SSPs).Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Organisational aspects of public engagement in European energy infrastructure planning: the case of early-stage CCS projects

Recent years have witnessed a proliferation of studies on public perceptions of carbon capture and storage (CCS), accompanied by efforts to translate such knowledge into toolkits for public engagement and communication. At the same time, both literature and toolkits have paid little attention to the organisational dynamics and views of project implementers with regard to public engagement. Here we investigate the views of project development consortia employees in five European CCS projects, focusing on their experience of organisational norms and structures relating to engagement. Finding that planning for this engagement has, in several cases, been hampered by a lack of shared internal vision on engagement and communication within the project consortia, at least initially, we draw upon the socio-technical approach to technology embedment and new institutional theory, to observe that internal organisational alignment is crucial in multi-organisational projects when seeking effective public engagement and communication. We observe that this aspect of internal organisation is not yet reflected in the toolkits and guidelines designed to aid engagement in CCS projects. Engagement guides need to direct the attention of project implementers not only in specific outward directions, but also towards reflexively considering their own internal structures, perspectives, motivations, expectations and aims in relation to engagement and communication practice

Connecting dots: multiple perspectives on socio-technical transition and social practices

This Crossing Boundary hosts contributions accounting for experiences and theoretical perspectives which may look distant for how they address the socio-technical transition in the energy field but, we believe, when put in conversation, help common questions and tentative answers come to the fore. Giorgio Osti, Paul Upham, Paula Maria Bagel and Paula Castro have been engaged in reflecting on their respective disciplines in relation to socio-technical transitions. Recalling and valorising the STS basis of MLP and SPT in connection with other disciplinary approaches may contribute to enrich on one side STS debates and on the other empirical research on socio-technical transition in a historical juncture where such an endeavour looks definitely urgent.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Evolution of the largest mammalian genome

The genome of the red vizcacha rat (Rodentia, Octodontidae, Tympanoctomys barrerae) is the largest of all mammals, and about double the size of their close relative, the mountain vizcacha rat Octomys mimax, even though the lineages that gave rise to these species diverged from each other only about five million years ago. The mechanism for this rapid genome expansion is controversial, and hypothesized to be a consequence of whole genome duplication or accumulation of repetitive elements. To test these alternative but nonexclusive hypotheses, we gathered and evaluated evidence from whole transcriptome and whole genome sequences of T. barrerae and O. mimax. We recovered support for genome expansion due to accumulation of a diverse assemblage of repetitive elements, which represent about one half and one fifth of the genomes of T. barrarae and O. mimax, respectively, but we found no strong signal of whole genome duplication. In both species, repetitive sequences were rare in transcribed regions as compared to the rest of the genome, and mostly had no close match to annotated repetitive sequences from other rodents. These findings raise new questions about the genomic dynamics of these repetitive elements, their connection to widespread chromosomal fissions that occurred in the T. barrerae ancestor, and their fitness effects ? including during the evolution of hypersaline dietary tolerance in T. barrerae.Fil: Evans, Ben J.. Mc Master University; CanadáFil: Upham, Nathan S.. Mc Master University; Canadá. Field Museum of Natural History; Estados Unidos. University of Yale; Estados UnidosFil: Golding, G. Brian. Mc Master University; CanadáFil: Ojeda, Ricardo Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas. Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas; ArgentinaFil: Ojeda, Agustina Alejandra. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas. Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas; Argentin