Strange Bedfellows in the Personal Computer Industry: Technology Alliances between IBM and Apple

Until recently technological development in the personal computer industry could be characterized by the competition between two basic designs. The current dominant design in this industry is associated with the IBM and Microsoft personal computing architecture. The other version of personal computing originated in the Macintosh computer from Apple Computer Company. In recent years we also see an increasing number of alliances between IBM and Apple. Joint technological development appears to be a major and somewhat surprising objective of these alliances. This paper analyzes the technology alliances between these companies in the context of recent technological changes, focusing on the timing and the objectives of these alliances. Technology partnering between these proponents of competing basic designs are found to only materialize several years after the DOS-based design of IBM and Microsoft had become dominant. This study is of a qualitative and exploratory nature, using both a small data set and two case studies.management and organization theory ;

Webs of War in the Congo: The Politics of Hybrid Wars, Conflict Networks, and Multilateral Responses 1996-2003

Since 1996, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been the battleground for was within wars, where networks of conflict interact to produce patterns of local resource extraction and patterns of local and regional violence, resulting in one of the most devastating, yet surprisingly understudied, humanitarian disasters of our day. This dissertation explains the complex political sociologies of the three Congo wars and tests key assumptions in the new war literature through empirical observation of the wars and a case study of the Mouvement de Liberation du Congo (MLC), one of the principal rebel movements in these wars. This project challenges the assertion that contemporary conflicts are exclusively intra-state (or civil war) phenomena. There is no neat dividing line between the external and internal dimensions of the three Congo wars, as actors are linked together in transnational networks of war, and the local is never truly local. This dissertation also argues that the discursive emphasis on the economic functions of violence and the economic agendas of actors—particularly non-state actors—to the exclusion of political grievance articulation against the state or rival groups, offers only partial and at times even faulty explanations. Political contestation in the Congo is being restructured into violent, networked insurgencies and proxy movements, and public authority is contested and reshaped by a multitude of actors, state and non-state. The complexities of these wars have deeply challenged the United Nations and others in their efforts to end the continued violence. Interventions to end the violence have failed—not because local dynamics have been ignored in favor of national ones, but rather because the linkages between different scales of violence (local, national, regional, international) have been poorly understood. There is a need for new ways to conceive of and characterize what appear to be hybrid wars structured around complex, transnational networks linking a diversity of actors. This study thus represents an effort to develop a network-centered approach to explain contemporary war, in which the network is the primary unit of analysis

Global and local (GloCal) knowledge logistics for innovation and competitiveness. ACES Working Papers, August 2010

The increasing engagement of firms within global knowledge and production networks and their ability to source knowledge globally as well as locally (GloCally), for the development of innovation capacities will shape the future of UK's knowledge resources and its role in the global economy. Practices such as off-shoring R&D activities are widely adopted, creating challenging, and not very well understood, issues related to cross-country and inter-firm knowledge and technology flows. We seek to address the internationalisation and networking of research and innovation activities, including the roles and strategies of enterprises, universities, research centres, governments in a cross-country and inter-sectoral way, to assess the impact and the implications for sustaining and enhancing the competitiveness of UK firms and other British knowledge producers and users

Confidentiala "Mode 3" Systems Approach for Knowledge Creation, Diffusion and Use: Towards a 21st Century Fractal Innovation Ecosystem. ACES Working Paper (Report) No. 4, 2007

"Mode 3" allows and emphasizes the co-existence and co-evolution of different knowledge and innovation paradigms: the competitiveness and superiority of a knowledge system is highly determined by its adaptive capacity to combine and integrate different knowledge and innovation modes via co-evolution, co-specialization and coopetition [sic] of knowledge stock and flow dynamics. What results is an emerging fractal knowledge and innovation ecosystem, well-configured for the knowledge economy and society. The intrinsic litmus test of the capacity of such an ecosystem to survive and prosper in the context of continually glocalizing [sic] and intensifying competition represents the ultimate competitiveness benchmark with regards to the robustness and quality of the ecosystem's knowledge and innovation architecture and topology

Why Schumpeter's Creative Destruction? Everything has changed, so it is the same: Towards "Mode 3". ACES Working Paper (Report) No. 5, 2007

Of what value is examining creative destruction and diffusion theories that Schumpeter introduced to the world? A variety of factors causes economic changes, but he argued that entrepreneurial innovation was central. Today, even those who create new products and processes hardly know who Schumpeter was, or what he did. It is difficult to believe that his contributions are not more popularly recognized today. Schumpeter's theories are as valuable and important within the contemporary environment as they were when he wrote about them over four score or seventy years ago

Strategic knowledge serendipity and arbitrage & intellectual venture capitalists: An emerging breed of knowledge entrepreneurs; and Part II: Global and Local (GloCal) knowledge logistics for innovation and competitiveness. ACES Working Papers, August 2009

Strategic Knowledge: While entrepreneurship may occur as a natural result of personal drive, it occurs most often, most robustly and is most sustainable in an environment designed to encourage it. Potential entrepreneurs become active entrepreneurs when the conditions are most supportive of their commercial opportunities and their business thus helping channel the two key qualities they exhibit as individuals obsessed maniacs and clairvoyant oracles (Carayannis, GWU Lectures, 2000-2005) and (Carayannis et at, 2003a) towards the generation of sustainable wealth. So far, entrepreneurial scholars who turn into intellectual venture capitalists by founding knowledge-driven companies remain one of the least explored specie in the territory of entrepreneurship. GloCal: The increasing engagement of firms within global knowledge and production networks and their ability to source knowledge globally as well as locally (GloCally), for the development of innovation capacities will shape the future of UK's knowledge resources and its role in the global economy. Practices such as off-shoring R&D activities are widely adopted, creating challenging, and not very well understood, issues related to cross-country and inter-firm knowledge and technology flows. We seek to address the internationalisation and networking of research and innovation activities, including the roles and strategies of enterprises, universities, research centres, governments in a cross-country and inter-sectoral way, to assess the impact and the implications for sustaining and enhancing the competitiveness of UK firms and other British knowledge producers and users

THE POTENTIAL OF TSUNAMI GENERATION ALONG THE MAKRAN SUBDUCTION ZONE IN THE NORTHERN ARABIAN SEA. CASE STUDY: THE EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI OF NOVEMBER 28, 1945

Although large earthquakes along the Makran Subduction Zone are infrequent, the potential for the generation of destructive tsunamis in the Northern Arabian Sea cannot be overlooked. It is quite possible that historical tsunamis in this region have not been properly reported or documented. Such past tsunamis must have affected Southern Pakistan, India, Iran, Oman, the Maldives and other countries bordering the Indian Ocean.The best known of the historical tsunamis in the region is the one generated by the great earthquake of November 28, 1945 off Pakistan's Makran Coast (Balochistan) in the Northern Arabian Sea. The destructive tsunami killed more than 4,000 people in Southern Pakistan but also caused great loss of life and devastation along the coasts of Western India, Iran, Oman and possibly elsewhere.The seismotectonics of the Makran subduction zone, historical earthquakes in the region, the recent earthquake of October 8, 2005 in Northern Pakistan, and the great tsunamigenic earthquakes of December 26, 2004 and March 28, 2005, are indicative of the active tectonic collision process that is taking place along the entire southern and southeastern boundary of the Eurasian plate as it collides with the Indian plate and adjacent microplates. Tectonic stress transference to other, stress loaded tectonic regions could trigger tsunamigenic earthquakes in the Northern Arabian Sea in the future.The northward movement and subduction of the Oman oceanic lithosphere beneath the Iranian micro-plate at a very shallow angle and at the high rate is responsible for active orogenesis and uplift that has created a belt of highly folded and densely faulted coastal mountain ridges along the coastal region of Makran, in both the Balochistan and Sindh provinces. The same tectonic collision process has created offshore thrust faults. As in the past, large destructive tsunamigenic earthquakes can occur along major faults in the east Makran region, near Karachi, as well as along the western end of the subduction zone. In fact, recent seismic activity indicates that a large earthquake is possible in the region west of the 1945 event. Such an earthquake can be expected to generate a destructive tsunami.Additionally, the on-going subduction of the two micro-plates has dragged tertiary marine sediments into an accretionary prism - thus forming the Makran coastal region, Thick sediments, that have accumulated along the deltaic coastlines from the erosion of the Himalayas, particularly along the eastern Sindh region near the Indus River delta, have the potential to fail and cause large underwater tsunamigenic slides. Even smaller magnitude earthquakes could trigger such underwater landslides. Finally, an earthquake similar to that of 1945 in the Makran zone of subduction, has the potential of generating a bookshelf type of failure within the compacted sediments – as that associated with the “silent” and slow 1992 Nicaragua earthquake – thus contributing to a more destructive tsunami. In conclusion, the Makran subduction zone has a relatively high potential for large tsunamigenic earthquakes

Forms and role of the cluster initiatives in fostering innovation in post-industrial regions: A comparative study of environmental clusters in British West Midlands and Spanish Basque country. ACES Working Paper No. 8, August 2008

The objective of this research is to present cluster initiative approaches in post industrial regions characterized by similar economic history and challenges, with additional emphasis on their role in promoting innovation among regional businesses. The research is based on a comparison study of two environmental industry clusters: Environmental Technology Cluster (ET) from British West Midlands and ACLIMA from Spanish Basque Country. The study analyzes clusters' design and their role in fostering innovation based on environment industry clusters. In both regions environmental industry clusters represent strong potential for further dynamic development with grow opportunities driven by legislation introduced at EU, national or regional levels. The paper compares clusters' heterogeneity, goals and priorities, financing schemes, management structure, types of projects, character of private-public partnerships, challenges, as well as clusters' collaboration at regional/national/international levels. Also focus is given on how the clusters enhance innovation and what types of projects are executed by the regions in this field

DDR and return in the DRC - a foolish investment or necessary risk?

Tatiana Carayannis and Aaron Pangburn argue that it is time to rethink Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration programs in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Home is where the heart is: identity, return, and the Toleka bicycle taxi union in Congo’s equateur

Since the end of the 2006 post-war transition, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the international community have struggled to design, finance and implement a host of national and regional disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programmes. The weak capacity of implementing institutions, widespread corruption, funding gaps, Western-driven processes and a misdiagnosis of local needs have all been raised as core reasons behind failures. Little is known about how processes of ex-combatant return shape and reshape public authority, where former combatants return to, how they negotiate and experience ‘return’ and how viable ways of life are successfully constituted post return. While many ex-combatants in the DRC continue to be re-recruited into militia groups, one group that has reintegrated successfully is the Toleka—a several-thousand-strong group of ex-combatants who returned (or remained) in the provincial capital of Mbandaka (Equateur province). The Toleka formed a bicycle-taxi organization and unionized its membership, providing protections and collective-bargaining authority to the group, while providing a public good. It also helped to reshape identities, produce a sense of civilian solidarity and provide a bridging function from life in the military. This article looks at how this organization was formed, how the former fighters identified and capitalized on a local need and the conditions that allowed them to successfully unionize and protect their rights as they re-entered civilian life. Based on extensive fieldwork and interviews, this article seeks to understand a case of ‘successful’ return in a region with few such successes