Discontentment and knowledge spillovers in an emerging high-tech industry: a study of the emergence of the RFID industry

This thesis is an inductive study of how entrepreneurs and their collaborators use or encourage knowledge spillovers to fuel technological innovations during the emergence of a knowledge intensive industry. Drawing on theories of the entrepreneurial process, innovation during industry emergence, and knowledge spillovers, this thesis seeks to explain the process by which entrepreneurs, facing market, organizational and technological uncertainty, use their existing knowledge to procure, share and create new knowledge during the early stages of an emerging industry. The core research question is why, when and how do knowledge spillovers occur in an emerging industry? The thesis is based on an extensive case study of the RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) industry, including both interview data and analysis of patent data. The approach of data collection, analysis and theory development follows the systematic methodology articulated by Glaser and Strauss (1967), Glaser (1992) and Strauss and Corbin (1998) for developing a grounded theory. The qualitative research involved 57 in-depth interviews (45 interviewees) from around the world with the inventors and entrepreneurs who have shaped the emerging RFID industry. The thesis makes a number of important contributions to existing literature. First, it provides a comprehensive description of the emergence of the RFID industry in the United States and Europe with a focus on patent activity surrounding specific innovations and the nature of information flows between firms in the value chain. Second, core findings are that the discovery, evaluation and exploitation of opportunities by individuals in the RFID industry were the result of knowledge spillovers that resulted from extensive social interactions; that knowledge spillovers can be instigated by entrepreneurs or their collaborators by molding or recognizing discontentment in potential knowledge workers, a process which is described as "discontentment provocation"; and that a core generative process to the emergence of a new industry is knowledge spillover. Contrary to existing literature, patents played a relatively insignificant role in knowledge spillovers relative to social interaction in the emerging RFID industry. Furthermore, knowledge spillovers were not geographically bound and localized within spatial proximity to the knowledge source. Third, the analysis of the empirical data identifies the dimensions "discontentment", "human agency" and "social interaction" as underpinning the process that fostered the generation and propagation of knowledge during the emergence of this industry. The discontentment dimension, originating from negative forces, acts as a catalyst to trigger the process of human agency, the decision to pass on information and knowledge to another party. Human agency then leads seamlessly into social interaction, resulting in the acquisition, interpretation and/or sharing of information and knowledge. Discontented individuals were the knowledge conduits who diffused information and knowledge to entrepreneurs and their collaborators through social interaction. Fourth, this thesis also advances the theory of knowledge spillovers in an emerging knowledge intensive industry by expanding upon the "Entrepreneurial Motivational Model" proposed by Shane et al. (2003). It introduces the triggering events that motivate an individual to seek change prior to the discovery of an opportunity and the social exchanges which take place during different steps of the entrepreneurial process. Overall, this study has important implications for those studying the entrepreneurial process, the emergence of new industries, and knowledge spillovers

Dynamics of the trade balance and the terms of trade: the S-curve

We provide a theoretical interpretation of two features of international data: the countercyclical movements in net exports and the tendency for the trade balance to be negatively correlated with current and future movements in the terms of trade, but positively correlated with past movements. We document these same properties in a two-country stochastic growth model in which trade fluctuations reflect, in large part, the dynamics of capital formation. We find that the general equilibrium perspective is essential: The relation between the trade balance and the terms of trade depends critically on the source of fluctuations.Balance of trade

Relative price movements in dynamic general equilibrium models of international trade

We examine the behavior of international relative prices from the perspective of dynamic general equilibrium theory, with particular emphasis on the variability of the terms of trade and the relation between the terms of trade and net exports. We highlight aspects of the theory that are critical in determining these properties, contrast our perspective with those associated with the Marshall-Lerner condition and the Harberger-Laursen-Metzler effect, and point out features of the data that have proved difficult to explain within existing dynamic general equilibrium models.International trade

Classroom Capsules: Additivity ⊕ Homogeneity

A Classroom Capsule is a short article that contains a new insight on a topic taught in the earlier years of undergraduate mathematics

Development of thermally formed glass optics for astronomical hard x-ray telescopes

The next major observational advance in hard X-ray/soft gamma-ray astrophysics will come with the implementation of telescopes capable of focusing 10-200 keV radiation. Focusing allows high signal-to-noise imaging and spectroscopic observations of many sources in this band for the first time. The recent development of depth-graded multilayer coatings has made the design of telescopes for this bandpass practical, however the ability to manufacture inexpensive substrates with appropriate surface quality and figure to achieve sub-arcminute performance has remained an elusive goal. In this paper, we report on new, thermally-formed glass micro-sheet optics capable of meeting the requirements of the next-generation of astronomical hard X-ray telescopes

W/SiC x-ray multilayers optimized for use above 100 keV

We have developed a new depth-graded multilayer system comprising W and SiC layers, suitable for use as hard x-ray reflective coatings operating in the energy range 100-200 keV. Grazing-incidence x-ray reflectance at E = 8 keV was used to characterize the interface widths, as well as the temporal and thermal stability in both periodic and depth-graded W/SiC structures, whereas synchrotron radiation was used to measure the hard x-ray reflectance of a depth-graded multilayer designed specifically for use in the range E ~150-170 keV. We have modeled the hard x-ray reflectance using newly derived optical constants, which we determined from reflectance versus incidence angle measurements also made using synchrotron radiation, in the range E = 120-180 keV. We describe our experimental investigation in detail, compare the new W/SiC multilayers with both W/Si and W/B4C films that have been studied previously, and discuss the significance of these results with regard to the eventual development of a hard x-ray nuclear line telescope

Using coupled micropillar compression and micro-Laue diffraction to investigate deformation mechanisms in a complex metallic alloy Al13Co4

In this investigation, we have used in-situ micro-Laue diffraction combined with micropillar compression of focused ion beam milled Al13Co4 complex metallic alloy to study the evolution of deformation in Al13Co4. Streaking of the Laue spots showed that the onset of plastic flow occured at stresses as low as 0.8 GPa, although macroscopic yield only becomes apparent at 2 GPa. The measured misorientations, obtained from peak splitting, enabled the geometrically necessary dislocation density to be estimated as 1.1 x 1013 m-2

Core-Clickable PEG-Branch-Azide Bivalent-Bottle-Brush Polymers by ROMP: Grafting-Through and Clicking-To

The combination of highly efficient polymerizations with modular "click" coupling reactions has enabled the synthesis of a wide variety of novel nanoscopic tructures. Here we demonstrate the facile synthesis of a new class of clickable, branched nanostructures, polyethylene glycol (PEG)-branch-azide bivalent-brush polymers, facilitated by "graft-through" ring-opening metathesis polymerization of a branched norbornene-PEG-chloride macromonomer followed by halide-azide exchange. The resulting bivalent-brush polymers possess azide groups at the core near a polynorbornene backbone with PEG chains extended into solution; the structure resembles a unimolecular micelle. We demonstrate copper-catalyzed azide-alkre cycloaddition (CuAAC) "click-to" coupling of a photocleavable doxorubicin (DOX)-alkyne derivative to the azide core. The CuAAC coupling was quantitative across a wide range of nanoscopic sizes (similar to 6-similar to 50 nrn); UV photolysis of the resulting DOX-loaded materials yielded free DOX that was therapeutically effective against human cancer cells

Wetting and Minimal Surfaces

We study minimal surfaces which arise in wetting and capillarity phenomena. Using conformal coordinates, we reduce the problem to a set of coupled boundary equations for the contact line of the fluid surface, and then derive simple diagrammatic rules to calculate the non-linear corrections to the Joanny-de Gennes energy. We argue that perturbation theory is quasi-local, i.e. that all geometric length scales of the fluid container decouple from the short-wavelength deformations of the contact line. This is illustrated by a calculation of the linearized interaction between contact lines on two opposite parallel walls. We present a simple algorithm to compute the minimal surface and its energy based on these ideas. We also point out the intriguing singularities that arise in the Legendre transformation from the pure Dirichlet to the mixed Dirichlet-Neumann problem.Comment: 22 page