Demand structure and technological change: The case of the European semiconductor industry

This article proposes that the structure of demand is one of the major factors that affect the rate and direction of technological change and the evolution of high-technology industries, both over time and across countries. This article presents an analysis of the semiconductor industry in Europe, the United States and Japan, although particular emphasis is placed on the European case. The decline of the European industry (1960s) from a position equal to that of the American industry (1950s) can, to a large extent, be explained by the dominance of electronics consumer goods demand (rather than public procurement or computer demand) in the structure of demand in these countries. The later technological convergence of electronics final markets (1970s) played a major role in the commitment of the European semiconductor industry to LSI technology. This commitment, however, came too late to allow the European industry to catch up with its American and Japanese counterparts.     

Public accountability and the project-grant mechanism

The project-grant mechanism is a major determinant of research styles and the direction and degree of scientific progress. Insofar as such research increasingly serves as the source of technology, and thus of economic, social and political change, the mechanism also influences, if only indirectly, the societal condition. In its current form the mechanism permits the support of significant amounts of research to be determined on the basis of scientific merit. The result has been the substitution of scientific progress for the achievement of tangible technical ends as the measure of public accountability. Given the increased appearance of undesirable social consequences based, in part, on scientific accomplishments this substitution is now seriously questioned. It has given rise to several attempts to make academic research more responsive to public needs while attempting to preserve the essentials of academic freedom.     

研发竞赛中的技术偏袒策略——基于公共产品技术创新理论

公共产品技术创新与企业技术创新相比具有不同的特征,研发竞赛作为一种有效的技术获取方式,在公共产品技术创新中得到较多应用。把技术偏袒规则作为政府部门决策过程中的内生变量,分析政府部门应用研发竞赛获取技术过程中如何制定偏袒策略问题是研究重点。在构建模型基础之上,分析研发竞赛中参与企业研发实力的差别程度,以及政府能否充分了解企业研发实力以及能否对企业提供的产品进行准确评价等因素对政府制定偏袒策略的影响。最后进行总结,分析理论研究对政府部门制定策略的现实意义。     

Foundations of technology development,innovation and competitiveness in the globalised knowledge economy

With the growth of high‐technology industries and knowledge intensive services, the pursuit of industrial competitiveness has progressed from a broad concern with the processes of industrialisation to a more focused analysis of the factors explaining cross‐national variation in the level of participation in knowledge industries. From an examination of cross‐national data, the paper develops the proposition that particular elements of the domestic science, technology and industry infrastructure—such as the stock of knowledge and competence in the economy, the capacity for learning and generation of new ideas and the capacity to commercialise new ideas—vary cross‐nationally and are related to the level of participation of a nation in knowledge intensive activities. Existing understandings of the role of the state in promoting industrial competitiveness might be expanded to incorporate an analysis of the contribution of the state through the building of competencies in science, technology and industry.     

Decision-making and reorganization of the British nuclear power industry

That the British nuclear industry has been in difficult straits for some time is not a particularly startling observation. What is more disappointing and worrisome is the failure of successive British governments to come to grips with the fundamental organizational and technological sources of the problem. The Atomic Energy Authority dominated the civil nuclear project and relegated the private industrial consortia to a clearly subordinate role. The troublesome British reactor technology stood outside the mainstream of world reactor development. In dealing with the nuclear question the Government tinkered with organization and only belatedly addressed itself to the choice of technology.Explaining this hesitant approach suggests a look at a politics of self-interest in which the major public and private actors lobbied to protect their own interests. Inflated expectation of a future nuclear bonanza encouraged the belief that a little reform at the margins would set everything right. Efforts to adjust the structure of the private sector (the reorganizations in 1968 and 1973–1974) were politically easier to make, but their superficiality left the more fundamental questions entouched. A certain technological hubris and an almost unyielding political commitment to British technology in general blinded many to evidence contrary to their beliefs of British superiority until 1974 when the weight of events resulted in the adoption of a new technology and of a more reserved approach to nuclear power ordering. By this time, however, British influence in the world reactor industry had slipped badly.     

Lock in, the state and vaccine development: Lessons from the history of the polio vaccines

Over the past two decades pharmaceutical industry interest in the development of vaccines against infectious diseases has grown. At the same time various partnerships and mechanisms have been established in order to reconcile the interests of private industry with the needs of public health systems (especially in the developing world). The general assumption is that, lacking resources and competences, the public sector has little or no role to play in vaccine development. Drawing on the concept of ‘lock in’, and the history of vaccines against poliomyelitis, this paper advances a different set of considerations relevant to the role of the public sector. It was thanks to public sector R&D, driven by technical and public health considerations, not commercial ones, that a vaccine that had been virtually ‘locked out’ of the world markets was improved, and expertise in its production sustained. This vaccine now plays a crucial role in current attempts at eradicating polio. It is suggested that despite subsequent changes in vaccine technology, their different incentive structure requires acknowledgement in current discussion of the potential contribution of public sector vaccine institutes to vaccine innovation.     

浅析SketchUp在建筑、室内设计应用中的特点

计算机技术的不断进步,让计算机软件在室内设计中的应用从早期的尝试性探索逐渐地替代了传统的手工设计过程,成为了辅助设计的主要技术手段。     

浅析SketchUp在建筑、室内设计应用中的特点

计算机技术的不断进步,让计算机软件在室内设计中的应用从早期的尝试性探索逐渐地替代了传统的手工设计过程,成为了辅助设计的主要技术手段。     

Entrepreneurship, Flexibility, and Policy Coordination: Taiwan's Computer Industry

In just 15 years, Taiwan has emerged as a leading producer of hardware for nearly every major computer vendor in the world, despite little previous experience in high technology industries. By 1995, Taiwan ranked fourth in the world in computer hardware production and exports through its strategy of being a 'fast follower.' Taiwan's success in the computer industry has been due to a coordinated government strategy to support private entrepreneurship by a large number of small, flexible, innovative companies. Taiwan's computer companies have responded rapidly and effectively to continuing changes in the international market and avoided many of the problems encountered by their counterparts in Japan and South Korea in recent years. They have done so by emphasizing close supplier relationships with multinational computer companies all over the world as a means of promoting exports and keeping apprised of market conditions. They continue to show great adaptability as Taiwan's computer industry moves toward diversification both upstream and downstream, full-service OEM (original equipment manufacturing) for multinationals, and industry consolidation for scale economies. The government has closely complemented the efforts of industry by carrying out research and development and transferring technology to the private sector, by conducting market intelligence for private sector use, and by providing engineering and technical manpower. As a result, Taiwan is probably Asia's best positioned country for continued success in the global computer industry.     

高技术产业空间格局演变规律及相关因素分析

从空间格局演变上看,世界高技术产业聚集形式依次发展为最初在大学附近的聚集、以科技园特征表现的边缘城市和专业镇、由专业镇和边缘城市连绵的产业带和企业分蘖发生异地聚集等四种形式。同时,在高科技产业空间演变中政府的作用不可忽视,高技术产业集群的出现还有赖于独立于大学和城市的信息服务业、技术服务业、公共服务业和金融服务业的发展。     

促进生物产业发展的战略思路与建议——以广州为例

在文献综述基础上,对比分析国内外有代表性的生物产业特色园区,从产业规模、产业集群、产业发展环境和产业技术支撑等方面,系统梳理和总结广州市生物产业发展现状;广州生物产业发展面临的挑战和问题有:国内生物产业竞争态势激烈,缺乏对生物产业统筹规划布局,孵化器和公共服务平台建设滞后,科技金融结合不够紧密;促进生物产业发展的对策措施有:完善招商工作,引进研发机构,培育生物产业总部经济,推进孵化器建设,构建公共服务平台,探索科技金融结合之路,开创协同创新模式,拓展中欧区域政策合作,加大对创新创业人才扶持。     

公共风险资本与市场失灵

探讨风险资本发展过程中公共风险资本的价值取向,试图解决高新技术企业的融资瓶颈问题、推动风险投资产业的发展、从整体上提高社会资源的配置效率。同时指出政府在风险投资发展过程中应从三个方面拯救市场失灵:产品的技术发展阶段、企业的生命周期以及经济的区域发展不平衡;并提出私人风险资本的意义在于弥补传统金融市场留出的融资缺口,而公共风险资本的作用在于弥补私人风险资本留出的融资缺口。     

Trends in the substitution of production factors to technology—empirical analysis of the inducing impact of the energy crisis on Japanese industrial

Japan successfully overcame the energy crises of 1973 and 1979, maintaining productivity in the face of drastically increased energy prices, despite the fragile nature of its energy structure. This was due to technological innovation efforts that led to rapid improvement in Japan's industrial technology as a whole.This paper tries to prove this hypothesis on the basis of an examination of the trends in the substitution of production factors by technology as represented by R&D investment efforts.Since the first energy crisis in 1973, there have been a number of attempts to identify the possibility of substitutability of energy by other production factors, but none have been successful in taking technology into account.This paper tackles this subject on the basis of the measurement of the technological knowledge stock and en empirical analysis using a translog cost function incorporating this stock, and shows that over the last two decades all production factors have been substituted by technology in Japan's manufacturing industry or have been moving towards that direction.     

辽宁装备制造业转型升级与智能化建设的系统动力学研究

在相关文献、辽宁装备制造业发展现状基础上,应用系统动力学构建转型升级与智能化建设模型,在验证模型有效性的基础上进行实证模拟分析。仿真结果显示,要使智能化产品产值增长率持续增长,应将新技术引进和产学研合作外部投入要素、政府和市场等外部支撑投入要素维持在一定平衡状态下,增加技术投入比率和高技术人才内部投入要素,最终提高自主创新能力,逐步提升辽宁装备制造业转型升级与智能化进程。     

政府资助对技术创新的作用：理论分析与政策工具选择

这篇论文主要阐述了政府资助对私人部门技术创新的影响。政府对私人部门进行资助的政策工具主要有政府担保、贴息、贷款，税收刺激和公共研究，这些政策工具除了能促进私人部门的技术创新活动外，也有相互之间的牵制、替代和补充作用。政府资助的效果随总量增加而增加，达到某一极值后就会下降，论文的结论对于政府制订促进私人部门技术创新的资助政策有着一定的参考价值。     

创新驿站运行机制的经济学解释——基于双边市场理论视角

创新驿站作为当前科技中介服务体系中实现科技成果应用转化的平台载体——即为实现技术创新和技术合作提供支持性服务,其在信息技术支撑下所体现出的创新技术资源跨区域的高效配置作用已得到欧美等国和我国的高度认可和应用。在深入分析现有国内外主流创新驿站运行模式与机制的基础上,探讨创新驿站的经济学特征,发现其参与主体的多方性与供需关系的互补性与依赖性特征已超出了经典经济学的解释范畴。进而,文章运用新型产业组织形式理论——双边市场理论,对创新驿站的运行机制进行了深入分析,并对创新驿站运行需解决的几个关键问题进行了阐述。结论将为相关部门制定正确的产业政策和规制政策提供理论支撑。     

Government policies towards industrial innovation: a review

Existing economic theories show that continuing innovation, diffusion, and technical and managerial improvement are necessary for economic growth and international competitiveness in the industrially advanced countries. But knowledge of why, where and how governments should intervene in the processes of industrial innovations stems more from trial and error than from systematic empirical information of the nature and extent of the hindrances to economically and socially desirable innovations, and of the effectiveness of alternative government policies to remove them. Nonetheless, past empirical studies do offer some clues.Differences amongst industrial sectors. The sources of new technology vary widely amongst inustrial sectors: in the costs of innovation, in the relative importance of outside suppliers of equipment and materials, of large and small firms, and of full-time R & D departments as compared to part-time innovative activities (sect. 7, 8). Similarly, the conditions for successful innovation vary amongst sectors (sect.6). Thus, government policies designed to influence innovation are likely to act with different intensities in different industries.The management of innovation. Nonetheless, there are some features common to innovation in different industries. Considerable costs beyond R & D are often necessary before the innovations reach commercial use (sect.4). And the following managerial characteristics are in general associated with successful innovation: a deliberate policy of seeking innovations; close and careful attention to customer requirements; good personal communications both within the firm and with outside sources of relevant knowledge; a style of management that is ‘organic’ and ‘participatory’ rather than ‘hierarchical’ and ‘authoritarian’; strong project leadership; and a strong engineering capability (sect. 6).R & D managers are still unable to predict the outcome of R & D projects to a useful degree of accuracy and, in the literature on methods of project selection, very little attention is paid to market uncertainties. Furthermore, a greater use of conventional investment appraisal criteria in deciding on R & D projects may re-inforce the already observed tendency in industry towards short-term, low-risk projects, to the neglect of longer-term, high-risk projects (sect. 5).Governments should therefore examine whether the benefits of policies towards education and management advisory services for innovation might outweigh their costs. They may also have a significant role to play in financing longer-term research that is basic to the development of industrial technology (subsect. 12.5).The nature of market and production demands. The direction of industrial innovation is often very sensitive to market and production demands (sect. 3). This fact, together with the high degree of market uncertainty facing innovating firms (sect. 5), suggest that governments can potentially influence both the pace and the direction of industrial innovation through their influence on the scale of industrial, consumer and public service demands. However, this potential influence will become real only if users of innovations are able to specify the innovations that they need, or to evaluate those that they get. This is generally the case for industrial demand, but not in consumer and public service markets, where fashion, insensitivity to users' needs and lack of technical competence often prevail. Government-funded technological institutes and laboratories are ideally placed to provide such technical competence (sub-sect. 12.3).Economic incentives and rewards for innovation. A whole range of economic factors are said to influence the resources, the incentives and the rewards for innovation: for example, the degree of monopoly or the degree of competition, the patent system, the level of profits, the level of taxation, and the level of demand. The empirical evidence on the effects of most of these factors on industrial innovation is either inconclusive or non-existent. However, in the USA a close relationship has been observed between growth of industry sales and growth of industry-financed R & D activities (sect. 10). The rate of growth of demand is also one of the key factors influencing the rate of diffusion of innovations amongst their potential population of users (sects. 11, 12.2).The government-financed scientific and technological infrastructure. Scientific and technological knowledge from outside of innovating firms is often crucial to the completion of successful innovations, and three UK studies show that a significant proportion of this outside knowledge comes from government-financed technological institutes and laboratories, and from the universities (sect. 3). If the same is true in other countries, it should be an essential feature of any government policy towards industrial innovation to know how effectively government-funded laboratories and universities provide supportive knowledge to industry, and how government laboratories should be organised and financed (subsect. 12.4).Direct government-financing of innovative activities in industry. Governments specifically finance R & D activities in industrial firms, although these expenditures are less than those for general industrial development (sect. 13). These R & D activities in industry are relatively more important in France and UK, than in F.R. Germany and the Netherlands.In the four countries, more than 70% of all civilian government R & D activities related to industry are spent on aircraft, space, nuclear energy and electronics (subsect. 14.4). In all these high technologies, governments attempted in the 1960's to implement ‘policies for innovation’, involving government procurement, industrial mergers and attempts at European co-operation, in addition to the financing of R & D (subsect. 14.5). Government expenditures on civilian R & D related to other industrial sectors are very much smaller in all four countries (subsect 14.4).Where should governments intervene? A, number of attempts have been made to develop a formal framework of criteria to assist governments in deciding where they should intervene in industrial innovation. They all run into the following difficulties: dealing with multiple policy objectives; assessing national costs and benefits; comparing with alternative policies, choosing appropriate policy instruments (sect. 17).How should governments intervene? Very little information is available on the effectiveness of various policy instruments that have been used by governments in order to promote innovation in industry. Although it is often possible to measure the inputs into such policies, the measurement of their outputs (or results) is more difficult. Nonetheless, detailed studies would enable some such measurements to be made, and internationally comparable studies would increase the range of experiences and the number of cases that could be examined (sect. 18).Why should governments intervene? A full appreciation of the nature and scale of hindrances to industrial innovation, on which governments should act to remove, requires direct information on what innovations are (or are not) being introduced by industry, and why they are (or are not) being inyroduced. This information can best be obtained from analyses of the behaviour of industrial firms. They would differ from most existing innovation studies that concentrate on asking how firms must behave in order to make successful innovation, by asking what innovations are attempted, and why firms are stimulated to attempt them (sect. 19).     

基于可持续发展视角下的成人高校计算机教育优化

计算机专业从进入成人高校开始已经取得了长足的进步。但是随着信息技术的高速发展,成人高校计算机专业所存在的弊端已经显现出来,计算机专业课程设置的老化已经很难满足日新月异的信息技术的发展以及实际工作中的需求了。这些问题将会制约我国信息产业的进一步发展,从而使我国的信息产业与世界的差距在逐步增大。本文针对目前我国成人高校计算机专业教学存在的相关问题进行分析,为计算机教育的优化提出一些建议,希望能对我国成人计算机教育优化起到抛砖引玉的作用。     

基于专利数据的化纤机械技术发展现状与趋势分析

[目的/意义]为揭示我国化纤机械发展趋势,为化纤机械确定行业发展方向提供参考。[方法/过程]应用专利分析方法,通过技术原创国家/地区、主要专利权人分布、技术侧重和技术关联性展示了化纤机械发展现状,通过文献计量方法描述化纤机械技术热点演化路径、专利申请趋势和技术发展趋势。[结果/结论]分析结果表明化纤机械技术处于成熟向衰退阶段转化,技术热点词集中在纤维、纺丝、纤维素、电纺、纳米、静电等方面,数字化、智能化、绿色环保是今后化纤机械研发的重点方向。     

网络服务创新的驱动力及其作用模式

网络服务业的诞生结合了战略性新兴产业一信息技术产业的优势和现代服务业的特点,已成为实现传统产业转型升级和转变我国经济增长方式的有力推动器。然而,网络服务创新力不足是制约我国网络服务业健康发展的重要问题。在对一般性服务创新研究总结的基础上,探讨了网络服务创新的内涵及其所包含的三个层次（核心层—技术层-传递层）,分析了网络服务创新的三大驱动力：使用者一网络服务提供商一政府,并结合我国网络服务业的发展现状,剖析了三种网络服务创新驱动力的作用模式：使用者推动创新模式、网络服务提供商协作创新模式和政府主导创新模式。