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.     

Robot caregivers: harbingers of expanded freedom for all?

As we near a time when robots may serve a vital function by becoming caregivers, it is important to examine the ethical implications of this development. By applying the capabilities approach as a guide to both the design and use of robot caregivers, we hope that this will maximize opportunities to preserve or expand freedom for care recipients. We think the use of the capabilities approach will be especially valuable for improving the ability of impaired persons to interface more effectively with their physical and social environments.     

The impact of technology-push and demand-pull policies on technical change - Does the locus of policies matter?

How to foster technical change is a highly relevant and intricate question in the arena of policymaking. Various studies have shown that technology-push and demand-pull policies induce innovation. However, there is a lack of work that distinguishes between the loci of policy support when assessing the policy-innovation relationship. We address this gap by shedding light on the question how the innovation effects of domestic and foreign demand-pull and technology-push policies differ. Using solar photovoltaic modules as a research case we conduct a panel analysis on 15 OECD countries over the period 1978 through 2005 with patent data. Three key findings emerged: First, our analyses find no evidence that domestic technology-push policies foster innovative output outside of national borders. Second, both domestic and foreign demand-pull policies trigger innovative output in a country. Third, we detect no indication that market growth induced by domestic demand-pull policies leads to more national innovative output than market growth induced by foreign demand-pull policies. Consequently, demand-pull policies create significant country-level innovation spillovers, which could disincentivize national policymakers to engage in domestic market creation. Based on these findings we discuss the need to establish supranational demand-pull policy schemes in order to address the spillover issue.     

Information technology and privacy: conceptual muddles or privacy vacuums?

Within a given conversation or information exchange, do privacy expectations change based on the technology used? Firms regularly require users, customers, and employees to shift existing relationships onto new information technology, yet little is known as about how technology impacts established privacy expectations and norms. Coworkers are asked to use new information technology, users of gmail are asked to use GoogleBuzz, patients and doctors are asked to record health records online, etc. Understanding how privacy expectations change, if at all, and the mechanisms by which such a variance is produced will help organizations make such transitions. This paper examines whether and how privacy expectations change based on the technological platform of an information exchange. The results suggest that privacy expectations are significantly distinct when the information exchange is located on a novel technology as compared to a more established technology. Furthermore, this difference is best explained when modeled by a shift in privacy expectations rather than fully technology-specific privacy norms. These results suggest that privacy expectations online are connected to privacy offline with a different base privacy expectation. Surprisingly, out of the five locations tested, respondents consistently assign information on email the greatest privacy protection. In addition, while undergraduate students differ from non-undergraduates when assessing a social networking site, no difference is found when judging an exchange on email. In sum, the findings suggest that novel technology may introduce temporary conceptual muddles rather than permanent privacy vacuums. The results reported here challenge conventional views about how privacy expectations differ online versus offline. Traditionally, management scholarship examines privacy online or with a specific new technology platform in isolation and without reference to the same information exchange offline. However, in the present study, individuals appear to have a shift in their privacy expectations but retain similar factors and their relative importance??the privacy equation by which they form judgments??across technologies. These findings suggest that privacy scholarship should make use of existing privacy norms within contexts when analyzing and studying privacy in a new technological platform.     

Understanding copyright in support of scholarship: Some possible challenges to scholars and academic librarians in the digital environment?

This paper examines the rationale for copyright and how the copyright exemption of the law promotes scholarship. It examines the possible challenges that may be faced by scholars and academic librarians in implementing the copyright fair dealing exemption in the digital environment following that digital information is protected by copyright law and licensing agreements. The paper attempts to propose possible measures that could be implemented for copyright exceptions to better function and promote scholarship in the digital environment.     

Biopiracy: Crying wolf or a lever for equity and conservation?

Access and benefit sharing (ABS) is a central approach to address biopiracy – the misappropriation of genetic resources and traditional knowledge without consent or compensation, often tied to patenting. Benefit-sharing agreements comprise a core element of ABS and are intended to leverage greater social and economic justice, create incentives for biodiversity conservation, and strengthen the rights of indigenous and local communities. However, emerging evidence suggests otherwise. Through review of four cases of biodiversity commercialization in South Africa – Hoodia gordonii, Aspalathus linearis (rooibos), Sceletium tortuosum (kougoed) and Pelargonium sidoides, each with histories of biopiracy charges and associated benefit-sharing agreements, this paper aims to explain this apparent contradiction. The cases reveal that while ABS has succeeded in recognizing holders of traditional knowledge, the wider political and economic struggles faced by communities remain neglected. Power relations and economic disparities have not changed, and control remains vested in land, with ownership remaining highly skewed towards industry partners who have market dominance; and intellectual property, the benefits of which are disassociated from traditional knowledge holders and biodiversity custodians. ABS processes have also led to a clamor for representation, favoring groups that are politically connected, well organized and resourced, while excluding more marginalized groups who are less capacitated. Moreover, despite significant biodiversity concerns in each case, there are few conservation benefits. Such trends, combined with new forms of “digital biopiracy” and opportunities opening through the post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, emphasize the need to reconceptualize ABS to leverage more equitable and sustainable outcomes.     

Digital technology adoption and knowledge flows within firms: Can the Internet overcome geographic and technological distance?

Under what conditions does digital technology adoption increase cross location knowledge flows within firms? We investigate this question by studying the impact of adopting basic Internet access on cross-location knowledge flows within the same firm. We construct a large data set of Internet adoption and patent citations among dyadic pairs of firm-locations between 1992–1998. We find that when both locations in the pair adopt basic Internet there is an increase in the likelihood of a citation between the citing and (potential) cited location. In contrast, we find no significant effect of Internet adoption at only the citing location. We further study how this effect varies according to the proximity of the research activities between the source and recipient of knowledge and specialization of the research activities within the recipient. We find that the likelihood of a citation increases more after dyadic Internet adoption when the pair is working in similar research areas and when the research areas in the citing location are less specialized. These results, which are robust to a range of robustness analyses, suggest that digital technologies such as Internet connectivity are able to facilitate knowledge flows between locations only when they share a common knowledge base.     

Complementary realities: Public domain Internet measurements in the development of Canada’s universal access policies

Abstract

As access to the Internet has become increasingly essential for social and economic participation, public domain Internet measurements have become indispensable for users to validate quality of service their network operator delivers and for policymakers to identify and address gaps in broadband infrastructure. This article evaluates public domain Internet performance measurements available for assessing the state of connectivity and developing universal access service quality standards in Canada. The analysis suggests that different approaches to Internet measurement represent complementary windows into a complex and fast evolving reality of broadband connectivity. Despite their potential shortcomings, large-scale crowdsourced open data network testing platforms have a central role to play in enabling broadband infrastructure policy coordination across different levels of government, empowerment of consumers, and achievement of universal service objectives for quality of service users experience when accessing the open Internet.     

Evolutionary approaches for sustainable innovation policies: From niche to paradigm?

Fostering technological innovation is considered as an important element of policies towards sustainable development. In the past 10 years, evolutionary policy approaches have been increasingly advocated. For several reasons, they seem well equipped to underpin sustainable innovation policies. They focus on dynamics of change and their drivers, they allow for a substantive perspective on technologies beyond mere input-output relations, taking into account trajectories and different characteristics of innovation, and they are able to describe circumstances under which established technologies might persist even when they are to some extent inferior to their new competitors (lock-in). However, the policy effectiveness of evolutionary approaches in cases in which radical or systemic changes are involved is not yet proven. In this paper we assess the theoretical rationale, instrumental aspects and the coping with policy constraints of three evolutionary policy approaches which have also been used in empirical studies: strategic niche management, transition management and time strategies. Each approach has its strengths and specific problems and all three have to be further developed and tested out but they hold promise for contributing to non-incremental change with economic and environmental benefits, by shaping processes of variation, selection and retention, with the outcomes feeding back into policy. They may also be used in other areas in which innovation direction is important, for instance health care or food.     

专利池:馅饼or陷阱?

专利池,由英文中"Patent Pool"一词翻译而来,是指由专利权人组成专利联盟,将其专利通过特定方式进行内部转入和外部许可,并在成员之间进行许可优惠的一种专利管理模式。自1856年世界上第一个专利池——美国的缝纫机联盟成立以来,专利池     

Recreational scuba diving: negative or positive effects of oxidative and cardiovascular stress?

Environmental conditions and increased physical activity during scuba diving are followed by increased production of free radicals and disturbed redox balance. Redox balance disorder is associated with damage of cellular components, changes of cellular signaling pathways and alterations of gene expression. Oxidative stress leads to increased expression of sirtuins (SIRTs), molecules which play an important role in the antioxidant defense, due to their sensitivity to the changes in the redox status and their ability to regulate redox homeostasis. These facts make SIRTs interesting to be considered as molecules affected by scuba diving and in that sense, as potential biomarkers of oxidative status or possible drug targets in reduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation. In addition, SIRTs effects through currently known targets make them intriguing molecules which can act positively on health in general and whose expression can be induced by scuba diving.A demanding physical activity, as well as other circumstances present in scuba diving, has the greatest load on the cardiovascular function (CV). The mechanisms of CV response during scuba diving are still unclear, but diving-induced oxidative stress and the increase in SIRTs expression could be an important factor in CV adaptation. This review summarizes current knowledge on scuba diving-induced oxidative and CV stress and describes the important roles of SIRTs in the (patho)physiological processes caused by the redox balance disorder.     

Serum Lipid Profile: Fasting or Non-fasting?

Serum lipid profile has now become almost a routine test. It is usually done in fasting state due to certain limitations in non-fasting serum sample. In the recent past efforts have been made to simplify blood sampling by replacing fasting lipid profile with non-fasting lipid profile. However, fasting specimen is preferred if cardiovascular risk assessment is based on total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol or non-HDL cholesterol. A lot has yet to be done in this area. Till then we have to believe in fasting lipid profile for assessment and management of cardiovascular disease.     

The media and the public opinion on genetics and biotechnology: mirrors, windows, or walls?

Arguments regarding the relationship between media discourse and public opinion have raged for decades, if not centuries. COmparing media coverage of biotechnology between 1992 and 2001 in two national newspapers with national survey data collected in early 2003, an argument is made that a general one-dimensional media effect is not occurring within the US public regarding media discourse. Given the multivalent characteristics of the media and the interpretive filters used by audiences - including ignoring information - even strong slants by the presumed opinion-leading press (the New York Times and the Washington Post) do not predict public opinion on a nascent issue such as biotechnology. While some observations show these mirrors to be ephemeral.     

Regional knowledge spillovers: Fact or artifact?

The explanation of different levels of innovation and their spatial distribution represents the central focus of the analysis. The empirical literature documents the incidence of spatial autocorrelation in patenting activities and interprets them as evidence for knowledge spillovers. Alternatively, the authors propose the spatial pattern of input variables in innovation processes as driving forces of patenting autocorrelation. They analyze 51 Nuts 1 regions in Europe and find that the high degree of spatial autocorrelation exhibited by patent applications can be explained comprehensively by the spatial location of the input factors in the knowledge production function. These are traditional indicators on R&D investments and human capital from Eurostat and proxy variables on social capital from the European Values Study. This finding has important implications for the scope of an autonomous regional innovation policy.     

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.     

Popular and/or prestigious? Measures of scholarly esteem

Citation analysis does not generally take the quality of citations into account: all citations are weighted equally irrespective of source. However, a scholar may be highly cited but not highly regarded: popularity and prestige are not identical measures of esteem. In this study we define popularity as the number of times an author is cited and prestige as the number of times an author is cited by highly cited papers. Information retrieval (IR) is the test field. We compare the 40 leading researchers in terms of their popularity and prestige over time. Some authors are ranked high on prestige but not on popularity, while others are ranked high on popularity but not on prestige. We also relate measures of popularity and prestige to date of Ph.D. award, number of key publications, organizational affiliation, receipt of prizes/honors, and gender.     

Biotechnology in the Netherlands: controversy or consensus?

This paper addresses the issue of public perception of modern biotechnology in the Netherlands. Contrary to expectations, data from the 1999 Eurobarometer on biotechnology indicate that the position of the Dutch public in general is rather ambiguous, which is in contrast to many of its neighboring countries. The issue is described in terms of differences between the Netherlands and other European countries on political-economic, social-cultural, or media coverage indicators. On many indicators, the Dutch population differs from that of other European countries, and the Dutch opinion-leading media present a rather balanced perspective on modern biotechnology.