Testing future societies? Developing a framework for test beds and living labs as instruments of innovation governance

Test beds and living labs have emerged as a prominent approach to foster innovation across geographical regions and technical domains. They feed on the popular “grand societal challenges” discourse and the growing insight that adequate policy responses to these challenges will require drastic transformations of technology and society alike. Test beds and living labs represent an experimental, co-creative approach to innovation policy that aims to test, demonstrate, and advance new sociotechnical arrangements and associated modes of governance in a model environment under real-world conditions. In this paper, we develop an analytic framework for this distinctive approach to innovation. Our research draws on theories from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Innovation Studies, as well as in-depth empirical analysis from two case studies – an urban smart energy campus and a rural renewable energy network. Our analysis reveals three characteristic frictions that test beds face: (1) the limits of controlled experimentation due to messy social responses and co-creation activity; (2) a tension between lab-like open-ended experimentation and pressures to demonstrate success; (3) the opposing needs of local socio-cultural specificity and scalability, i.e. the inherent promise of test bed outcomes being generalizable or transferrable because the tested “model society” is presumed to represent a future society at large. These tensions suggest that thinking of test beds as mere technology tests under real-world conditions is insufficient. Rather, test beds both test and re-configure society around a new set of technologies, envisioned futures, and associated modes of governance – occasionally against considerable resistance. By making social order explicitly available for experimentation, test beds tentatively stabilize new socio-technical orders on a local scale in an “as-if” mode of adoption and diffusion. Symmetric attention to the simultaneous co-production of new technical and social orders points to new opportunities and challenges for innovation governance in test-bed settings: Rather than mere enablers of technology, test beds could serve as true societal tests for the desirability of certain transformations. This will require rethinking notions of success and failure, planning with a view towards reversibility, and greater scrutiny of how power is distributed within such settings. Likewise, rather than envisioning test beds as low-regulation zones to drive innovation, they could be strategically deployed to co-develop socially desirable governance frameworks in tandem with emerging technologies in real-time.     

Patent systems for encouraging innovation: Lessons from economic analysis

Economic theory views patents as policy instruments aimed at fostering innovation and diffusion. Three major implications are drawn regarding current policy debates. First, patents may not be the most effective means of protection for inventors to recover R&D investments when imitation is costly and first mover advantages are important. Second, patentability requirements, such as novelty or non-obviousness, should be sufficiently stringent to avoid the grant of patents for inventions with low social value that increase the social cost of the patent system. Third, the trade-off between the patent policy instruments of length and breadth could be used to provide sufficient incentives to develop inventions with high social value. Beyond these three implications, economic theory also pleads for a mechanism design approach: an optimal patent system could be based on a menu of different degrees of patent protection where stronger protection would involve higher fees, allowing self-selection by inventors.     

Governance for system optimization and system change: The case of urban waste

This paper analyses urban waste systems to explore how local authorities can resolve challenges related to climate change, urbanization and resource depletion. The paper investigates how different public governance regimes affect local authorities’ ability to move upwards in the waste hierarchy. It identifies three different governance regimes – traditional bureaucracy, new public management and networked governance – and uses the insights from innovation in urban waste in three Norwegian city regions – Oslo, Drammen and Bergen – to illuminate how these regimes possess both strengths and weaknesses in how they affect system optimization and system change. The observed working practices signal that the issue of urban waste systems is perceived as a challenge of system optimization rather than system change. Viewing this as a challenge requiring system change would probably have ensured a stronger directionality and a broader anchoring of actors. Such an approach is likely to have arrived at a waste prevention mode earlier than the step-by-step-solutions implemented so far. The paper concludes that there is not one best governance regime, but a need to acknowledge their co-existence and carefully consider the characteristics of the respective regimes in order to arrange urban waste systems for long-term dynamic and sustainable city regions.     

技术协同治理框架与机制——基于“价值—结构—过程—关系”视角

技术的快速发展及其治理是满足能源、环境和气候变化挑战前提下实现可持续发展的唯一途径,然而技术治理缺乏一个清晰的概念框架。以协同治理为理论基础,基于技术治理问题"结构-过程-关系"研究框架,认为该框架隐含"价值"要素的后置情境,特别在中国背景下,价值后置给技术政策过程实施产生冲击和扭曲。因此,提出"价值-结构-过程-关系"技术协同治理框架与机制,以解释协同治理主体结构间如何调节、塑造治理技术的形式以及多元主体参与治理网络的角色与关系,以期提高技术政策可接受度。研究结果认为技术协同治理框架应包括科技人员、科协、政府、企业、高校、金融部门、中介等社会组织及公众、国外部门八个主体;技术协同治理机制应包括问责机制、参与机制、评价机制、交流机制以及共享机制。研究结果建议技术协同治理框架与机制可以应用、复制类似的政府治理问题,以供例如我国生态环境协同治理、城市化协同治理提供参考与借鉴。     

A theory of grand innovation prizes

The past decade has witnessed a resurgence in innovation awards, in particular of grand innovation prizes (GIPs) which are rewards to innovators developing technologies reaching performance goals and requiring breakthrough solutions. GIPs typically do not preclude the winner also obtaining patent rights. This is in stark contrast with mainstream economics of innovation theories where prizes and patents are substitute ways to generate revenue and encourage innovation. Building on the management of innovation literature which stresses the difficulty to specify ex-ante all the technical features of the winning technologies, we develop a model in which innovative effort is multi-dimensional and only a subset of innovation tasks can be measured and contracted upon. We show that in this environment patent rights and cash rewards are complements, and that GIPs are often preferable to patent races or prizes requiring technologies to be placed in the public domain. Moreover, our model uncovers a tendency for patent races to encourage speed of discovery over quality of innovation, which can be corrected by GIPs. We explore robustness to endogenous entry, costly public funds, and incomplete information by GIP organizers on the surplus created by the technology.     

责任式创新：“内涵-理论-方法”的整合框架

科技创新的负面影响与新兴技术的治理挑战引发研究与政策对“责任式创新”的关注。本文以文献研究为基础,通过责任式创新主题文献的系统回顾,构建“内涵-理论-方法”的整合框架,对责任式创新的概念内涵、共性理论基础、及实践应用方法展开系统评述。研究结论显示：责任式创新的内涵主要围绕内在属性视角、创新过程与管理视角、创新结果评估视角三个方面展开;责任式创新的共性理论基础包括正义论、技术社会控制视角、行动者网络理论、制度理论、创新扩散理论五个分支;责任式创新的典型应用方法涉及扎根研究、伦理分析法、实时技术评估、“谦逊”技术与参与式治理法、上游公众参与技术治理、中游模块化技术治理、技术社会评估等     

科技成果转化政策实施的网络分析——以西安光机所为例

从政策网络理论视角,运用社会网络分析方法,以中科院西安光机所为典型案例探讨促进科技成果转化政策实施的机理和网络治理的路径.研究表明,结构完整的网络关系能提升政策实施效果,良性互动的网络关系则能促进科技成果转化.因此,提出科技成果转化政策实施网络的治理路径,推动更加广泛的行动者参与政策网络;重视网络的构建,促进政策行动者之间充分交流;加强政策社群与其他网络行动者的交流;发挥专业网络在科技成果转化的中介作用.这对于提升我国科技成果转化政策实施效果以及实现科技自立自强具有重要的意义.     

Cognitive-inspired domain adaptation of sentiment lexicons

Sentiment lexicons are essential tools for polarity classification and opinion mining. In contrast to machine learning methods that only leverage text features or raw text for sentiment analysis, methods that use sentiment lexicons embrace higher interpretability. Although a number of domain-specific sentiment lexicons are made available, it is impractical to build an ex ante lexicon that fully reflects the characteristics of the language usage in endless domains. In this article, we propose a novel approach to simultaneously train a vanilla sentiment classifier and adapt word polarities to the target domain. Specifically, we sequentially track the wrongly predicted sentences and use them as the supervision instead of addressing the gold standard as a whole to emulate the life-long cognitive process of lexicon learning. An exploration-exploitation mechanism is designed to trade off between searching for new sentiment words and updating the polarity score of one word. Experimental results on several popular datasets show that our approach significantly improves the sentiment classification performance for a variety of domains by means of improving the quality of sentiment lexicons. Case-studies also illustrate how polarity scores of the same words are discovered for different domains.     

试论颠覆性技术保护空间的协同治理框架

颠覆性技术为后发国家技术突袭和弯道超车提供了抓手,探索其保护空间的协同治理框架对科技强国建设和创新治理发展具有重要意义。鉴于颠覆性技术保护空间现有研究中治理框架的不足,在社会-技术系统转型理论的基础上,通过结合三螺旋系统和政策干预多级效应,研究了颠覆性技术保护空间的多元治理主体及其互动、多层次治理过程及其政治进程、多情境协同模式及其治理结构,构建了颠覆性技术保护空间的协同治理框架,为政府和非政府主体协同应对新兴技术治理挑战提供了思路。     

Legitimizing research, technology and innovation policies for transformative change: Combining insights from innovation systems and multi-level perspective in a comprehensive ‘failures’ framework

The recent policy debates about orientating research, technology and innovation policy towards societal challenges, rather than economic growth objectives only, call for new lines of argumentation to systematically legitimize policy interventions. While the multi-level perspective on long-term transitions has attracted quite some interest over the past years as a framework for dealing with long-term processes of transformative change, but the innovation systems approach is still the dominant perspective for devising innovation policy. Innovation systems approaches stress the importance of improving innovation capabilities of firms and the institutional settings to support them, but they are less suited for dealing with the strategic challenges of transforming systems of innovation, production and consumption, and thus with long-term challenges such as climate change or resource depletion. It is therefore suggested to consider insights from transition studies more prominently in a policy framework that is based on the innovation systems approach and the associated notion of ‘failures’. We propose a comprehensive framework that allows legitimizing and devising policies for transformative change that draws on a combination of market failures, structural system failures and transformational system failures.     

Servitization implementation in the manufacturing organisations: Classification of strategies,definitions, benefits and challenges

The integration of products and services into a bundled product/service offering by manufacturing organisations is seen as a global trend in today’s competitive business environment. The shift of product-based manufacturers towards offering business solutions and value-added services to consumers is termed as ‘Servitization’. Contrary to the potential benefits expected by adding service activities to the offerings, advocates voice their concerns towards experiential problems and challenges in employing the servitization strategy – termed as ‘Servitization Paradox’. Nevertheless, the shift from product-based delivery to a service-based provision has the potential to significantly impact on developing sustainable and eco-friendly environment. To provide greater insights to the servitization phenomenon, this paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the servitization implementation in manufacturing organisations. In order to respond to the latter, we propose the following three research questions “Q1 – what are the different types of servitization strategies”, “Q2 – what are the different servitization definitions”, “Q3 – what are the potential benefits in selecting a servitization strategy?”, “Q4 – what are the challenges in transitioning towards servitization?”. A systematic literature review is carried out to understand the past trends and extant patterns/themes in the servitization strategy research area, evaluate contributions, summarise knowledge, thereby identifying limitations, implications and potential further research avenues. The key findings confirm servitization studies have contributed both conceptually and empirically to the development and accumulation of intellectual wealth to the manufacturing operations and supply chain discipline. Moreover, the findings clearly indicate the potential of servitization in transitioning manufacturing organisations (e.g. benefits) and utilising innovative technologies to generate business value. Nevertheless, some voices are backing further research/development in the area of servitization due to the several existing challenges.     

管理层激励、机构投资者持股与企业异质研发

    本文旨在从异质性视角深入探讨管理层激励方式对企业研发投资的影响。在回顾相关理论的基础上,提出了关于管理层股权激励和薪酬激励对企业异质研发投资影响以及机构投资者持股对影响关系调节效应的基本假设,并利用中国上市公司2007—2016年的面板数据,采用两阶段最小二乘法（2SLS）进行了实证检验。研究结果表明：股权激励对研究投资和试验开发投资均有显著促进作用;薪酬激励对试验开发投资有正向影响,与研究投资间的关系则呈倒“U”型;随着持股比例的上升,机构投资者对企业投资决策的监督作用增强,这强化了股权激励对两种研发投资的促进作用,但薪酬激励对两种研发投资的影响被挤出;研发投资不仅可以提升企业当期绩效,对其未来绩效也有着积极影响,且研究投资和试验开发投资对企业未来绩效影响的持续期数存在明显差异。本文从异质性视角拓展了创新激励理论,对企业创新激励机制设计实践也具有一定的启发意义。     

治理风险视角的复杂项目危机成因及网格化治理研究

从项目治理风险视角诠释复杂项目危机成因,基于一个项目治理风险的分析框架,将复杂项目危机发生过程划分为三个阶段:治理风险累积、治理风险放大、危机爆发,系统分析了复杂项目治理体系不完善导致治理风险累积而演变为复杂项目危机的整个过程。最后,基于网格的优势,提出复杂项目网格化治理模式,描述了复杂项目网格化治理的运作流程,旨在实现复杂项目的动态治理,有效降低复杂项目治理风险累积。     

试探性治理视角下新一代信息技术产业政策演化研究

基于试探性治理理论,构建包括治理利基、治理范围、治理过程、治理目标、治理时间和治理主体六要素的分析框架,对2011-2019年新一代信息技术产业政策试探性程度的演化特征进行分析.研究认为,1)就单个要素而言,治理利基与治理主体的试探性程度呈逐步下降的趋势,治理过程和治理目标试探性程度呈先增后减的趋势,治理时间和治理范围...     

顶层治理影响重大工程项目绩效的理论模型——基于代理理论和管家理论融合视角

以经济学、社会学、组织行为学等交叉学科理论为基础,尤其从代理理论和管家理论融合视角,提出应构建动态的、激励与约束相容的重大工程顶层治理机制,分析其对重大工程项目绩效的直接效应;引入组织情境与心理状态两个中介变量,讨论组织情境与心理状态对顶层治理机制和重大工程过程绩效的中介效应;在此基础上,提出相关研究假设和理论模型框架.提供重大工程项目绩效治理的新视角,并为重大工程组织行为治理提供理论与方法借鉴.     

英国服务创新政策分类模式与治理结构的经验启示

本文运用结构化案例分析方法,通过对英国服务创新政策分类模式、治理结构和政策特征的翔实阐述,以期对我国服务创新政策的制定提供有益借鉴。本研究指出,英国服务创新政策主要分为供应导向型和需求导向型两类模式,其形成了多方参与的共享治理模式,具体特征包括:存在清晰明确、自上而下的决策机制链条;同一层级的部门之间存在横向的协同决策与政策执行;政策效果依赖于自下而上的反馈机制。基于服务创新政策评价清单和政策对比模型,笔者指出,我国服务创新政策体系存在三点不足,即缺乏统一的服务创新治理结构;供应导向型服务创新政策比重过大,需求导向型服务创新政策显著不足;服务创新政策定位存在偏差。基于此,本文最终从完善服务创新治理结构、强化需求导向型服务创新政策、明确服务创新政策定位等方面提出了一系列政策性建议。     

价格管制、战略性创新激励与创新药市场绩效

构建多阶段动态博弈模型,研究竞争市场中,政府的战略性创新激励政策、价格管制政策和医保支付政策对制药企业创新激励和创新药市场绩效的综合作用机制。研究表明:价格管制并非总是降低制药企业的创新激励,在一定条件下,价格管制能够引导企业的创新投入实现社会最优配置;价格管制政策和医保支付政策合理匹配,可实现制药企业、医疗机构、患者、医保机构和政府的"多赢";政府的战略性创新激励政策能够对制药企业的创新投入进行双向调节,引导其实现社会最优配置,进而提高制药企业的利润和社会总福利;当管制价格高于社会最优的管制价格时,提高医保福利水平和降低管制价格均会削弱战略性创新激励政策的实施效果。     

Policy-mix evaluation: Governance challenges from new place-based innovation policies

The policy mix concept has become popular in innovation policy literature. It is particularly relevant for complex challenges such as sustainable industrial transitions that require joined-up interventions from different policy domains. Yet finding the right policy mix for a given challenge is strongly conditioned by the governance context in which individual policies emerge and evolve over time. In particular, the evaluation of policy mixes in a regional context is often neglected.This paper aims to deepen understanding of the interaction between governance processes and policy mix evaluation in the specific context of smart specialisation strategies. These newly popular regional innovation strategies are ideal laboratories for analysing policy mixes due to their place-based nature, their directionality, their experimental character and potential orientation towards grand societal challenges, and their complex governance context.The paper builds on the smart specialisation literature, the innovation policy and policy evaluation literature, and the literature on governance in pluralistic contexts to build a conceptual framework for analysing the governance of policy-mix evaluation. The conceptual arguments are illustrated by the Basque Country case in Spain, providing insights on the establishment of a strategic innovation policy mix evaluation process in a complex setting of institutions and actors.     

股票期权激励与资本结构决策

最优契约理论与管理者权力理论是解释高管薪酬激励效果差异的两种重要理论。本文基于资本结构决策视角,从资本结构的调整速度以及最优资本结构的偏离度两方面讨论了以上两种理论的适用性问题。研究发现,与未实施股权激励的样本相比,实施股权激励的样本有着更快的资本结构调整速度,且其与目标资本结构的偏离度也更小,支持最优契约理论。在控制了遗漏变量、样本自选择问题后,该结论依然成立。进一步的研究发现,国有样本中的股权激励与资本结构决策并不存在上述关系。本文的研究结论对优化企业的薪酬激励机制以及完善证监会《上市公司股权激励管理办法》均有一定的启发意义。     

知识链关系治理机制及其对组织合作绩效影响

本文以知识链为研究对象,探究关系治理对知识链中组织成员合作的影响。构建了知识链关系治理机制体系,包括：关系行为治理机制、关系控制治理机制和关系激励治理机制,并提出相关研究假设,研究其对组织合作绩效的影响。结合调查问卷数据,运用结构方程对本文相关假设进行实证检验。研究表明：知识链关系治理机制对组织合作绩效以及组织间知识流动存在正向影响,知识流动作为中介变量,在知识链关系行为治理机制与知识链组织合作绩效之间起到部分中介作用,而在关系控制治理机制、关系激励治理机制与知识链组织合作绩效间起到完全中介作用。