Innovation in electron-optical instruments— two British case histories

An investigation of patterns of innovation has been carried out, using a paired case study approach. The project has considered product and process innovations in the chemical and scientific instruments industries. Each ‘pair’ consists of one attemp at innovation which was successful and another which was relatively unsuccessful or a failure. Success and failure have been evaluated in commercial terms. Results of the project were derived from statistical analysis of a large number of paremeters observed in the paired studies, and have been described elsewhere. The present paper describes in detail two of the innovations investigated, and traces events from basic research to commercial exploitation. The instruments involved are the X-ray microanalyser and the scanning electron microscope. The events described are briefly reviewed in the light of some existing hypotheses about innovation, and are related to the findings of the statistical analysis.     

The ‘Hungarian sappho’: some comments and comparisons

A brief and constructive criticism is offered of the recent study (see preceding paper) which successfully adopted and adapted the Sussex SAPPHO ‘pair comparison’ technique to the investigation of twelve success-failure pairs in the Hungarian electronics industry. Despite some differences in methodology and differences in the industrial and political environments in which the two studies were made, the results of the Hungarian SAPPHO and the Sussex SAPPHO are remarkably similar.     

An analysis of factors influencing the utilization of contract research in a developing country,Korea

The utilization of contract research results in a developing country was analyzed according to the stages of technological innovation and transfer. Three innovation stages such as project contract (proposal success), project solution (technical success), and project implementation (commercial success) are employed in this study, focusing on the identification of significant factors affecting the success in each stage. The factors influencing the successes in the project contract and implementation stages are mostly similar while the factors important in the technical success are somewhat different. The data analyses indicate that only a few factors seemed to significantly affect the successful project contract while more than a score of variables were considered to be important for the successful implementation of the contract research results. This implies that even though the success of the early stage of innovation can be relatively easily accomplished, the success of the final stage cannot be so easily accomplished. According to the findings of the study, there are at least two unique environmental factors for the successful innovation and transfer of indigenous technology in a developing country, Korea: (1) the vulnerability of domestic technology to the foreign technology from advanced countries, and (2) the strong influences of government intervention, whether they are advantageous to the success of innovation. Some methodological as well as theoretical issues for the improved understanding of innovation and technology transfer are discussed.     

The new product learning cycle

This paper summarizes our extensive study (n = 158) of new product success and failure in the electronics industry. Conventional “external factor” explanations of commercial product failure based on the state of the economy, foreign competition and lack of funding, were found not to be major contributors to product failure in this industry. On the other hand, factors that can be strongly influenced by management such as coordination of the create, make and market functions, the quality and frequency of customers' communications, value of the product to the customer, and the quality and efficiency of technical management explained the majority of the variance between successful and unsuccessful products. From these findings a framework for understanding and managing the new product development process that places learning and communication in the center stage was developed.Successes and failures in our sample were strongly interrelated. The knowledge gained from failures was often instrumental in achieving subsequent successes, while success in turn often resulted in unlearning the very process that led to the original success. This observation has led us to postulate a new product “learning cycle model” in which commercial successes and failures alternate in an irregular pattern of learning and unlearning.     

Product–firm compatibility in new product development in technology companies

We present an exploratory investigation of how managers conceptualize and perceive ‘product–firm compatibility’ variables in successful and unsuccessful new product development (NPD) projects, and explore the role that they play in differentiating between successful and unsuccessful NPD outcomes.The findings show that managers perceive two distinctive types of product–firm compatibility factors, technology and marketing. Furthermore an ‘advertising–finance’ factor in the unsuccessful NPD projects emerged. Consequently differences exist in metric equivalence across successful and unsuccessful NPD projects, and thus the comparison of the successful and unsuccessful NPD projects should be done with caution. All product–firm compatibility variables and factors are positively related to NPD success. The managers, however, put lower relative importance to marketing in comparison to technology variables and factors.     

Social learning by doing in sustainable transport innovations: Ex-post analysis of common factors behind successes and failures

This article presents the results of a study into the factors governing success and failure in innovative projects in the area of sustainable transport. This can be regarded as an important example of ‘social learning by doing’. Data obtained through interviews with key players in eight ambitious innovation cases for the Netherlands are analysed. Common factors are identified and a statistical correlation analysis of success and failure factors is performed. We find that it is predominantly the political, process-related, socio-cultural and psychological factors that determine whether a project succeeds or fails. Technical/content-related and economic factors appear to be less important. Administrative/legal factors play an intermediate role.     

基于演化博弈模型分析的重大新药创制专项绩效优化策略

新药专项的管理实质上是项目承担者与项目管理者之间的决策博弈,为此,跳出传统单一线性绩效管理模式,从关注全局和有意义创新视角研究我国“重大新药创制”科技重大专项（以下简称“新药专项”）如何实现有为政府与有效市场。基于政府-市场的二元管理框架,从政府失灵与市场失灵出发,识别出需要实现对知识、人员、时间要素的综合管控是新药专项管理的关键成功要素,构建此三要素的三维分析矩阵,并聚焦科研管理人员与项目承担者构建演化博弈矩阵,推演达到管理优化稳定的策略,得出主要发力点在于降低决策误差和加强成果实现。因此,对于管理受国家财政资助的科研项目,需要明确一般性分析框架、优化评议方式、处理好成果产出与其商业化运作之间的衔接,以切实提升项目管理绩效。     

The commercialization of federally sponsored technological innovations

In a study of 40 federally sponsored innovation projects from five government agencies (UMTA, MARAD, DOE, NSF, and EPA), 35 of these cases had complete data on all variables for path analysis. Significantly, it was found that the probability of commercial succes of these innovations is predicted by the degree to which the innovations incorporate incremental as opposed to radically new technology (p<0.01), the pricing potential of the product or process (p<0.05) and the ease of introduction and implementation of the innovation (p<0.05). These three variables were found to account for 59% of the valid variance in potential commercial success. The project market potential, surprisingly, did not predict the probability of commercial success. It seems likely that the high percentage of projects in the sample that fell between certain commercial success and failure or were unresolved commercially could account for this result. No significant differences were found across the five agencies or the dependent variables of the study.     

The adoption of the sappho method in the Hungarian electronics industry

The article deals with the results achieved by the adoption of the SAPPHO method (developed by the Science Policy Research Unit of Sussex University) to the conditions of the Hungarian electronics industry. The results coincide to a great extent with those established in the course of the survey made in England, although there are some significant differences.     

科研团队知识创新绩效影响要素研究——基于我国国立科研机构的调查分析

科研团队是我国国立科研机构的基本业务单位,基于问卷和访谈调研的结果,围绕科研团队知识创新绩效影响要素,对我国国立科研机构科研团队的现状进行统计分析,得出一些初步结论和建议,最后讨论本文的研究意义、局限性和下一步研究的方向。     

基于秩和模型的大型科学仪器利用评价研究

大型科学仪器是重要的科技资源,对大型科学仪器利用情况做出综合评价是合理配置及有效管理仪器设备的基础。秩和比(Rank-sum ratio,RSR)方法是一种集参数统计与非参数统计各自优点于一体的统计分析方法,能够对多单元多属性数据进行综合评价。以国家科技部平台中心主持项目"我国大型仪器资源现状调查"(2009)相关数据为基础,参考秩和比方法的基本原理,创建秩和模型,从定量的角度对我国大型仪器的利用情况进行综合评价。通过分析可以看出评价结果综合全面,对于摸清我国大型仪器利用状况,促进大型仪器功能发挥的相关管理政策和制度的提出有重要借鉴价值。     

Influencing citizen behavior: Experiences from multichannel marketing pilot projects

Information technology allows national and local governments to satisfy the needs of citizens in a cost effective way. Unfortunately, citizens still tend to prefer traditional, more costly channels, such as the front desk, phone and mail. Through pilot projects government agencies attempt to influence this behavior of citizens, directing them towards the online channel. With this paper we provide insight into the possibility to influence citizens’ behavior in the complex landscape of multi-channel service provision. The paper systematically compares five pilot projects using a framework that is based on organizational and marketing literature. The results show that socio-psychological factors are crucial in multi-channel management, much more than the technology itself. We conclude that citizens can be directed towards the online channel. However, not all projects are successful. Economic and legal instruments tend to sort more direct effects than communication or service instruments. Moreover, organizational factors such as bureaucracy often hinder eventual success. Choosing a smart and relatively small scope and strong project manager may help to evoke success in directing citizen online behavior.     

Company related variables and their impact on the NPD outcome in the context of international markets in Finnish high-technology companies

While much research has been directed at the variables critical to successful R&D of new products on the one hand and high-technology products on the other, much less work has been directed at those factors crucial to the success of these products when the firm enters the international marketplace. This study surveys Finnish high-technology firms and variables related to the properties of the company and their association with successful versus unsuccessful attempts to enter the international marketplace. Relationship between firm characteristics – type of industry, size of the company, background of key personnel, export intensity and experience in product launches – and success/failure in the product launches is investigated. The generalizability of the findings is also discussed.     

基于粗糙集理论的项目联盟成功关键影响因素研究

项目联盟作为一种相对新颖的项目管理模式,其成功实施对于改善和提高工程项目的效率成效显著。总结国外有关项目联盟主要成功因素的研究现状,通过内在逻辑关联分析初步归纳影响项目联盟成功的主要因素,结合项目联盟成功标准,构建基于粗糙集理论的项目联盟成功关键影响因素分析模型,提炼出项目联盟成功的关键影响因素,包括对联盟成员的选择、沟通水平、联盟激励机制、联盟领导者能力,并从项目联盟的生命周期视角予以划分。研究结论对于提高我国工程项目管理水平,促使项目成功具有重要意义。     

融资人、项目内容和交互信息对融资的影响——基于公众科学平台的实证研究

公众科学是公众参与的科学研究,能够调动广大社会资源解决科学研究中的难题。通常,公众科学项目不涉及物质回报,也没有股权回报,因此研究公众科学投资的驱动因素有助于梳理投资者对于公众科学项目的投资动因,促进公众科学项目成功融资。通过对来自知名公众科学平台Experiment上的741个公众科学项目的实证研究,采用数据分析方法,从融资人身份、项目内容和交互信息三个方面分析影响公众科学项目投资的因素,进而采用预测模型对公众科学项目的融资结果进行预测。通过分析得到以下结论：跨领域的科研项目更容易获得融资成功,单一领域与跨领域项目的融资成功率分别为70.73%和89.07%;而对于融资者身份,学生和民间科学家发起的科研项目比大学职员发起的项目在融资成功率上高得多;融资经验对项目的融资成功率具有显著促进作用;融资者已经取得的前期科研成果,能够提高投资者对项目的关注度,提升项目融资成功率;对项目进行适度更新,把项目的最新进展传递给潜在投资者,有利于投资者做出投资决策。预测模型验证了投资者驱动因素分析的结果,本文研究为公众科学的发展提供了理论基础和实践指导。     

Measuring project performance by applying social network analyses

It is often argued that the core of organizational success is efficient collaboration. Some authors even posit that efficient collaboration is more important to organizational innovation and performance than individual skills or expertise. However, the lack of efficient models to manage collaboration properly is a major constraint for organizations to profit from internal and external collaborative initiatives. Currently, much of the collaboration in organizations occurs through virtual network channels, such as e-mail, Yammer, Jabber, Microsoft Teams, Skype, and Zoom. These are even more important in situations where different time zones and even threats of a pandemic constrain face-to-face human interactions. This work introduces a multidisciplinary heuristic model developed based on project risk management and social network analysis centrality metrics graph-theory to quantitatively measure dynamic organizational collaboration in the project environment. A case study illustrates the proposed model's implementation and application in a real virtual project organizational context. The major benefit of applying this proposed model is that it enables organizations to quantitatively measure different collaborative, organizational, and dynamic behavioral patterns, which can later correlate with organizational outcomes. The model analyzes three collaborative project dimensions: network collaboration cohesion evolution, network collaboration degree evolution, and network team set variability evolution. This provides organizations an innovative approach to understand and manage possible collaborative project risks that may emerge as projects are delivered. Organizations can use the proposed model to identify projects' critical success factors by comparing successful and unsuccessful delivered projects' dynamic behaviors if a substantial number of both project types are analyzed. The proposed model also enables organizations to make decisions with more information regarding the support for changes in observed collaborative patterns as demonstrated by statistical models in general, and linear regressions in particular. Further, the proposed model provides organizations with a completely bias-free data-collection process that eliminates organizational downtime. Finally, applying the proposed model in organizations will reduce or eliminate the risks associated with virtual collaborative dynamics, leading to the optimized use of resources; this will transform organizations to become more lean-oriented and significantly contribute to economic, social, and environmental global sustainability.     

In search of project classification: a non-universal approach to project success factors

In this study we attempt to answer two questions: Is there a natural way to classify projects and what are the specific factors that influence the success of various kinds of projects? Perhaps one of the major barriers to understanding the reasons behind the success of a project has been the lack of specificity of constructs applied in project management studies. Many studies of project success factors have used a universalistic approach, assuming a basic similarity among projects. Instead of presenting an initial construct, we have employed a linear discriminant analysis methodology in order to classify projects. Our results suggest that project success factors are not universal for all projects. Different projects exhibit different sets of success factors, suggesting the need for a more contingent approach in project management theory and practice. In the analysis we use multivariate methods which have been proven to be powerful in many ways, for example, enabling the ranking of different managerial factors according to their influence on project success.     

基于专利分析的科研项目管理优化方法研究

科研项目管理是开展项目立项、评审、考核、促进科技成果产出的重要手段,开展专利分析运用于科研项目管理的办法研究,将对提升和优化科研项目管理具有重要意义。针对科研项目的实施特点,将科研项目管理分为发布指南、申请、立项评审等7个阶段,采用阶段分析及关联分析的方法探究专利分析在科研项目管理各阶段的应用,从而提出优化科研项目管理要健全科研项目管理机制,建立面向科研项目管理的专利分析机制的建议。     

Determinants of successful R&D cooperation in Japanese small businesses: The impact of organizational and contractual characteristics

Using original survey data on Japanese small businesses, this paper analyses the impact of the organizational and contractual characteristics of cooperative R&D, such as membership structure, partner relationship, external support, and rules of cost and outcome sharing, on the probability of the technological and commercial success of the project. Empirical results suggest that cooperative R&D is more successful, the higher the quality and quantity of external resources available through cooperation, and the lower the transaction and coordination costs required for such arrangements. Moreover, we found that the determinants of technological and commercial success differ considerably.