Innovation intermediaries and collaboration: Knowledge–based practices and internal value creation

This paper analyses how knowledge-based practices adopted by innovation intermediaries enable them to generate value for themselves when collaborating with their clients. While the literature focuses on value creation for their client organisations, little is known about how innovation intermediaries create internal value even though this is essential for ensuring their long-term survival and sustaining their key facilitating role in the innovation system. This understudied issue is explored using empirical evidence from a sub-set of innovation intermediaries, Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs). The results indicate that by capitalising on existing knowledge vested in employees and collaborators as well as understanding and shaping the knowledge base of the innovation ecosystem, innovation intermediaries generate internal value from their involvement in collaborative innovation, which range from different financial to non-financial types of value. Implications for intermediaries, their collaborators and for policymakers are then discussed.     

Explanation and trust: what to tell the user in security and AI?

There is a common problem in artificial intelligence (AI) and information security. In AI, an expert system needs to be able to justify and explain a decision to the user. In information security, experts need to be able to explain to the public why a system is secure. In both cases, an important goal of explanation is to acquire or maintain the users’ trust. In this paper, I investigate the relation between explanation and trust in the context of computing science. This analysis draws on literature study and concept analysis, using elements from system theory as well as actor-network theory. I apply the conceptual framework to both AI and information security, and show the benefit of the framework for both fields by means of examples. The main focus is on expert systems (AI) and electronic voting systems (security). Finally, I discuss consequences of the analysis for ethics in terms of (un)informed consent and dissent, and the associated division of responsibilities.     

Employees’ trust and their knowledge sharing and integration: the mediating roles of organizational identification and organization-based self-esteem

We propose that the effect of trust on knowledge sharing (KS) and knowledge integration (KI) is mediated by organizational identification (OI) and organization-based self-esteem (OBSE). We focus on the relationship among different foci of trust and take into consideration that trust is a culturally dependent variable. We draw from a large-scale questionnaire survey with 50 Chinese companies and find support for our hypotheses in general. The study finds that employees’ trust within the organization is a multifaceted construct that includes their trust in the organization, trust in the supervisor and trust in peers. Trust with these different foci positively impact KS and KI. However, such effects are largely indirect and we find support for our expectation that OI and OBSE function as mediators. We conclude that trust in itself is a precondition but not sufficient condition for the actualization of KS and KI.     

Patterning nanowire and micro-∕nanoparticle array on micropillar-structured surface: Experiment and modeling

DNA molecules in a solution can be immobilized and stretched into a highly ordered array on a solid surface containing micropillars by molecular combing technique. However, the mechanism of this process is not well understood. In this study, we demonstrated the generation of DNA nanostrand array with linear, zigzag, and fork-zigzag patterns and the microfluidic processes are modeled based on a deforming body-fitted grid approach. The simulation results provide insights for explaining the stretching, immobilizing, and patterning of DNA molecules observed in the experiments.     

Academics engaging in knowledge transfer and co-creation: Push causation and pull effectuation?

Although academics are increasingly engaging with businesses, some fundamental aspects of this phenomenon (i.e., their motivations, decision-making approaches, and the interplay between the two) remain understudied. We therefore conducted a qualitative inductive study comprising 68 interviews with academics who had engaged in two forms of activities—knowledge transfer and co-creation. Whereas the entrepreneurship literature offers a resource-based argument, we made an original contribution to the literature by introducing an engagement-based argument in order to offer a more accurate prediction of the motivations and decision-making approaches of academics engaged in knowledge transfer and co-creation activities. We found that when the resource- and engagement-based arguments offer different predictions of the interplay between the motivations and decision-making approaches adopted, the cognitive proximity between academics and business researchers, which reflects whether the partners are from the same/different disciplines, resolves the puzzle. We captured these situational contingencies by developing six propositions that indicate how the engagement- and resource-based arguments jointly offer a more comprehensive explanation of the interplay. We discuss the implications of our findings with regard to how universities could offer customized training, rewards, and support structures based on the four types of interplay between the motivation and decision-making approaches.     

Knowledge management and ERP: Complementary or contradictory?

This research aims at deepening the understanding of the effects of information systems on supply chain operations, and to find the level and direction of the relationship between Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Knowledge Management (KM) in the context of operational and financial performance. Essentially, this study emphasizes the explanation of the complementary relationship between ERP and KM. Therefore, the mediating effect of KM is also analyzed. Using a survey method, 163 responses are collected from Turkish manufacturing companies which operate in a variety of industries. A structural equation modelling (SEM) is used to test both the reliability and validity of measurement and the structural path model. The results show that ERP has no significantly positive effect on operational performance, but it is a precedent of KM. Moreover, results also show that KM affects operational performance positively and it has a mediating effect for the relationship between ERP and operational performance. Lastly, the path analysis shows that operational performance is positively associated with financial performance.     

Sociotechnical Interaction and Cyborg–Cyborg Interaction: Transforming the Scale and Convergence of HCI

This article describes the broadening of the range of issues addressed by human–computer interaction (HCI) in response to ongoing trends of networked and ubiquitous computing. The first trend is the growing scale of HCI, with a transformation of HCI from focusing on individuals to groups to society as a whole, resulting in sociotechnical interaction. The second trend is the increasing convergence of the human and the computer in HCI, leading to cyborg–cyborg interaction. The article considers the social and ethical implications of these two trends, in particular, the growing importance of nonhuman agency, including not only the bioagency of humans and nonhuman animals but also the cyberagency of information technology and the collective agency of networks. The article concludes that bioagency and cyberagency are in the process of converging, leading to growing collaboration not only at and through computers but also with computers.     

Xylanase and β-xylosidase from Penicillium janczewskii: Purification,characterization and hydrolysis of substrates

BackgroundXylanases and β-d-xylosidases are the most important enzymes responsible for the degradation of xylan, the second main constituent of plant cell walls.ResultsIn this study, the main extracellular xylanase (XYL I) and β-xylosidase (BXYL I) from the fungus Penicillium janczewskii were purified, characterized and applied for the hydrolysis of different substrates. Their molecular weights under denaturing and non-denaturing conditions were, respectively, 30.4 and 23.6 kDa for XYL I, and 100 and 200 kDa for BXYL I, indicating that the latter is homodimeric. XYL I is highly glycosylated (78%) with optimal activity in pH 6.0 at 65°C, while BXYL I presented lower sugar content (10.5%) and optimal activity in pH 5.0 at 75°C. The half-lives of XYL I at 55, 60 and 65°C were 125, 16 and 6 min, respectively. At 60°C, BXYL I retained almost 100% of the activity after 6 h. NH₄⁺, Na⁺, DTT and β-mercaptoethanol stimulated XYL I, while activation of BXYL I was not observed. Interestingly, XYL I was only partially inhibited by Hg^2 +, while BXYL I was completely inhibited. Xylobiose, xylotriose and larger xylooligosaccharides were the main products from xylan hydrolysis by XYL I. BXYL I hydrolyzed xylobiose and larger xylooligosaccharides with no activity against xylans.ConclusionThe enzymes act synergistically in the degradation of xylans, and present industrial characteristics especially in relation to optimal activity at high temperatures, prolonged stability of BXYL I at 60°C, and stability of XYL I in wide pH range.     

M&A and R&D: Asymmetric Effects on acquirers and targets?

We evaluate the impact of M&A activity on the growth of R&D spending and R&D intensity of 265 acquiring firms and 133 merger targets between 1990 and 2009. We use different matching techniques to construct separate control groups for acquirers and targets and use appropriate difference-in-difference estimation methods to single out the causal effect of mergers on R&D growth and intensity. We find that target firms substantially decrease their R&D efforts after a merger, while the R&D intensity of acquirers drops due to a sharp increase in sales.     

Organizational and human resource management and innovation: Which management practices are linked to product and/or process innovation?

We examine the determinants of firms’ innovation success, using the firm-level data from the Japanese National Innovation Survey. We focus on the relationship between organizational and human resource management practices for research and development (R&D) and product/process innovation. We find that interdivisional cooperation/teams and the creation/relocation/integration of R&D centers are positively associated with both product and process innovation. Having board members with an R&D background is positively associated with product innovation, implying that top-down R&D decision-making may be important for firms to introduce new products. Among the factors examined, personnel assessment reflecting R&D outcomes appears to have an especially strong relationship with product innovation. Moreover, the positive relationship between the creation/relocation/integration of R&D centers and innovation success suggests that drastic organizational changes can work as a clear signal of firms’ determination to pursue an innovation-oriented strategy and help to accelerate innovation success.     

Innovators and innovated: Newspapers and the postdigital future beyond the “death of print”

Along with other cultural organizations, newspapers, through waves of digital disruption, have become subject to a dominant narrative of crisis. But newspapers have long participated in change. A constructivist approach, qualified by consideration of media materiality, draws attention to diverse but essential processes of innovation around them. We see a contraflow of migration from digital to print, opening up a shared media space; bonding strategies are bringing multimedia to ink on paper, while bridging via boundary objects such as QR (Quick Response) codes are connecting the two. Among other initiatives, development of automation of news production and experiments with transparency are further evidence of an active embrace of change by newspapers that calls into question the discourse on their demise. This analysis inductively develops a nuanced account of the role of the newspaper as an object and as an institution. It suggests a hybrid, multifaceted, enduring presence of print in the complex media ecology of the future.     

Determination of Acid β-Galactosidase Activity: Methodology and Perspectives

Early, accurate diagnosis of lysosomal storage disorders is a major challenge, even for trained specialists. Finding innovative, accurate diagnostic methods, and high throughput, cost-effective tools are crucial to medical progress and will contribute to improved quality of life. The goal of this work was to improve currently used protocols to determine activity of acid β-galactosidase, and discuss the possibility analysing lysosomal enzymes with microfluidic systems. A principle of the determination of β-galactosidase activity was fluorometric measurement of a deprotonated form of 4-methylumbelliferone released in the enzymatic reaction. Measurements were performed using Jurkat T cells as a source of the enzyme. We observed the temperature-dependent substrate inhibition effect and determined the substrate (4-MU-β-d-galactopyranoside) concentration which should be used to determine acid β-galactosidase activity at 37 °C (0.8 mM) and at room temperature (0.6 mM). We proved that the sample incubation time may be significantly reduced to only a few minutes. We also showed that the amount of alkaline buffer used to stop the enzymatic reaction may be minimized and even, in some cases, eliminated. The presented results show how the sensitivity of the available methods to diagnose patients suffer from gangliosidosis GM1 or Morquio B disease can be improved. The proposed method may be easily implemented with microfluidic systems, which currently are promising tools for point-of-care applications.     

A Review of: “Computer Mediated Communication: Social Interaction and the Internet”

The Internet has doubled in size every year in recent years and now spans the globe, facilitating the exchange of all matter of digital data. Recent development has been categorized by an explosion in new commercial activity. Despite overwhelming coverage in the popular press, relatively little is understood regarding the impact the Internet is having on firms that use this medium to facilitate commerce. Even less is understood about the impact on small enterprises-the largest segment of U.S., Japanese, and Western European businesses. This article reports the results of an exploratory study examining critical issues surrounding the use of the Internet in emerging enterprises. The survey (1) describes how small businesses develop and use their on-line sales presence, (2) explores factors that motivate firms to invest in electronic commerce, (3) assesses the importance of the expected benefits of an on-line sales presence on the decision to go on-line, and (4) examines some of the barriers that prevent small businesses from further developing their on-line presence.     

Challenges of ethical and legal responsibilities when technologies’ uses and users change: social networking sites, decision-making capacity and dementia

Successful technologies’ ubiquity changes uses, users and ethicolegal responsibilities and duties of care. We focus on dementia to review critically ethicolegal implications of increasing use of social networking sites (SNS) by those with compromised decision-making capacity, assessing concerned parties’ responsibilities. Although SNS contracts assume ongoing decision-making capacity, many users’ may be compromised or declining. Resulting ethicolegal issues include capacity to give informed consent to contracts, protection of online privacy including sharing and controlling data, data leaks between different digital platforms, and management of digital identities and footprints. SNS uses in healthcare raise additional issues. Online materials acting as archives of ‘the self’ bolster present and future identities for users with compromised capacity. E-health involves actual and potential intersection of data gathered for the purpose of delivering health technological support with data used for social networking purposes. Ethicolegal guidance is limited on the implications of SNS usage in contexts where users have impaired/reduced capacity to understand and/or consent to sharing personal data about their health, medication or location. Vulnerable adults and family/carers face uncertainty in regard to consent, data protection, online identity and legal liabilities. Ethicolegal responsibilities and duties of care of technology providers, healthcare professionals, regulatory bodies and policymakers need clarification.     

A confluence of new technology and the right to water: experience and potential from South Africa’s constitution and commons

South Africa’s groundbreaking constitution explicitly confers a right of access to sufficient water (section 27). But the country is officially ‘water-stressed’ and around 10 % of the population still has no access to on-site or off-site piped or tap water. It is evident that a disconnect exists between this right and the reality for many; however the reasons for the continuation of such discrepancies are not always clear. While barriers to sufficient water are myriad, one significant factor contributing to insufficient and unpredictable access to water is the high percentage of broken water pumps. Previous studies have reported that between 20 and 50 % of all hand operated water pumps installed on the African continent are broken, or out of use. Monitoring and maintenance of pumps, which in South Africa is the responsibility of local municipalities is often ineffective, in part due to the distances between municipal centres and rural communities and the consequent costs of site visits, as well as breakdowns within the local bureaucratic system. The emergence of new telemetry tools that can remotely monitor water applications constitutes a novel and cost-efficient alternative to undertaking regular sites visits. Sustainable, appropriate, low-cost telemetry systems are emerging that could be used to monitor the operational performance of water pumps, or a wide range of other field parameters, and to communicate this information swiftly and cheaply to water service providers, using SMS messages. Data on the performance of water pumps could also be made available to the public online. This is an example of how ICT can be used for water resources management and environmental regulation, as well as in the governance of socio-economic rights: helping to optimize water allocation by improving communication and strengthening accountability.     

Organisational ‘know-where’ and ‘know-when’: re-framing configurations and distributions of knowledge in organisations

This paper explores varying configurations of knowledge in organisations. A multi-dimensional framework of distinctive forms of knowledge is used to highlight different patterns of organisational knowledge, demonstrating their heterogeneity and variability – over time, in terms of depth of expertise, and their distribution within and between organisations. Common knowledge that is shared across an organisation accounts for only a small proportion of organisational knowledge, indicating that strategies to exploit this resource for competitive advantage will be constrained unless mechanisms are developed that enable access to and transfer of knowledge that is not yet shared or common.