Reconciling Political and Economic Goals in the Net Neutrality Debate

The net neutrality debate is one of several sites of struggles to adapt and redefine rights and obligations of stakeholders in the Internet-centric communications system. Its outcomes will shape the future of the Internet and influence the level and distribution of its benefits. We identify key values that drive the net neutrality discussion and examine the governance mechanisms proposed to achieve these objectives. We find that there is no single policy instrument that allows realization of the range of valued political and economic objectives simultaneously. Contrary to some of the claims advanced in the current debate, safeguarding multiple goals requires a combination of instruments that will likely involve government and nongovernment measures. Furthermore, promoting goals such as the freedom of speech, political participation, investment, and innovation calls for complementary policies.     

In search of systemic innovation for sustainable development: A design praxis emerging from a decade of social learning inquiry

Processes of designing for systemic innovation for sustainable development (SD) through the lens of three long-term case studies are reported. All case studies, which originated from the SLIM (Social Learning for the Integrated Management and Sustainable Use of Water at Catchment Scale) Project, funded within the EU Fifth Framework Program (2001–2004), constitute inquiry pathways that are explored using a critical incident approach. The initial starting conditions for each inquiry pathway are compared; significant pathway dependencies are identified which foster the development of social learning processes locally, but constrain their uptake and embedding across the wider system of interest. In the first case study, in England & Wales, promising developments in the application of social learning approaches to river basin planning over an initial 3-year period were subsequently marginalised, only to resurface towards the end of the 10-year period of study. In the second, South African case study, significant spaces for social learning and innovation in integrated water resources management were opened up over a five year period but closed down again, primarily as the result of lack of policy support by national government. The third, Italian, case study was designed to assess options for adapting to climate change by opening up new learning spaces between researchers, stakeholders and policy makers. A case for investing in local level systemic innovation through social-learning praxis design approaches and in learning processes around well contextualised case-studies is supported. However, concomitant investment by policy makers in social learning as an alternative, but complementary, governance mechanism for systemic innovation for SD is needed.     

Team learning in IT implementation projects: Antecedents and consequences

This study investigates the antecedents and consequences of team learning, which is composed of information acquisition, dissemination, and implementation, in information technology (IT) implementation projects. By investigating 129 IT implementation project teams, we found that (1) information acquisition and information dissemination have a positive impact on project outcomes, such as speed-to-users, lower implementation cost, and operational effectiveness, and (2) team behavior and enabler variables, such as teamwork, team communication, interpersonal trust between team members, team commitment, and senior manager support, positively influence team learning. We also found that team anxiety moderates the relationship between team learning and project outcomes.     

众包竞赛模式下企业R&D创新水平策略博弈分析

企业RD创新需要有效利用内外部创新资源,基于众包竞赛模式的企业RD创新能够充分挖掘和激发大众的创新智慧,助力企业RD创新,已受到企业界的广泛重视。考虑RD创新模式溢出效应的不同情况下,针对企业创新模式及其投入策略选择,以及众包竞赛模式下企业间完全竞争和合作时的决策问题,建立了相应的博弈模型,分析了企业的决策对RD创新水平的影响。研究表明:较仅依靠内部资源的RD创新(A策略)收益,企业通过设置合理的奖金并结合内部创新和众包竞赛模式(B策略)是占优策略;B策略下,企业间处于完全竞争或合作的状态时,溢出效应的不同对众包竞赛模式创新能力的贡献度造成了影响;此外,企业收益、RD创新水平、消费者剩余及社会福利均与众包竞赛模式的贡献度正相关。最后以宝洁公司采用B策略对RD进行创新的案例验证了相关结论。     

Open to suggestions: How organizations elicit suggestions through proactive and reactive attention

This paper analyzes organizations’ attempts to entice external contributors to submit suggestions for future organizational action. While earlier work has elaborated on the advantages of leveraging the knowledge of external contributors, our findings show that organizational attempts to attract such involvement are likely to wither and die. We develop arguments about what increases the likelihood of getting suggestions from externals in the future, namely through (1) proactive attention (submitting internally developed suggestions to externals to stimulate debate) and (2) reactive attention (paying attention to suggestions from externals to signal they are being listened to), particularly when those suggestions are submitted by newcomers. Findings from an analysis of about 24,000 initiatives by organizations to involve external contributors suggest these actions are crucial for receiving suggestions from external contributors. Our results are contingent upon the stage of the initiative because organizations’ actions exert more influence in initiatives that lack a history of prior suggestions. Our work has implications for scholars of open innovation because it highlights the importance of considering failures as well successes: focusing exclusively on initiatives that reach a certain stage can lead to partial or erroneous conclusions about why some organizations engage external contributors while others fail.     

Managing research and innovation networks: Evidence from a government sponsored cross-industry program

Important innovations are increasingly produced based on research engagement and fertilization across industries. However, we know little about the challenges associated with managing innovation networks in specific contexts that involves researchers in cross-industry collaboration. Against this backdrop, we draw on theory on design and orchestration of innovation networks to analyze a large-scale government sponsored program, “ProcessIT Innovations” that was designed to increase competitiveness and accelerate economic growth in Northern Sweden. The program was initiated and led by firms from the traditionally strong local process industry and engaged local researchers and firms from the emerging IT industry. Based on our analyses, we offer two contributions. First, we provide a detailed analysis of the challenges related to configuration of the network, orchestration of partnerships between participants, and facilitation of innovation in dedicated development projects. Second, we propose a model of managing research and innovation networks through fertilization across industries and between firms and research institutions.     

Co-ownership of intellectual property: Exploring the value-appropriation and value-creation implications of co-patenting with different partners

Combining both interview data and empirical analyses at the patent and firm levels, we explore the value-appropriation and value-creation implications of R&D collaboration resulting in the co-ownership of intellectual property (i.e. co-patents). We make an explicit distinction between three different types of co-patenting partners: intra-industry partners, inter-industry partners, and universities. Our findings indicate that the value-appropriation challenges of IP sharing are clearly evident with intra-industry co-patenting, where partners are more likely to encounter overlapping exploitation domains. Co-patenting with universities is associated with higher market value, since appropriation challenges are unlikely to play a role and collaboration may signal novel technological opportunities. Although we find some evidence that co-patenting corresponds to higher (patent) value, patents co-owned with firms are significantly less likely to receive self-citations, indicating constraints on the future exploitation and development of co-owned technologies.     

Knowledge flows and bases in emerging economy innovation systems: Brazilian research 2005–2009

This article considers the role of domestic knowledge capabilities for developing countries and emerging economies, and in particular in the build-up of their national systems of innovation. Using bibliometric methods, we describe the geographic sources of knowledge and the users of Brazilian research in 2005–2009, and analyze the roles of domestic and foreign knowledge bases in it. Our results suggest that increasing reliance on domestic sources of knowledge is a feature of Brazil's improved science and technology capabilities. The ascendancy of Brazil's research informs us about the unfolding re-organization of global research, too, underlining nascent South-South knowledge flows, the prevailing relevance of EU research, and the relative decline of US research for Brazilian knowledge creation.     

User community vs. producer innovation development efficiency: A first empirical study

In this paper we report upon a first empirical exploration of the relative efficiency of innovation development by product users vs. product producers. In a study of over 50 years of product innovation in the whitewater kayaking field, we find users in aggregate were approximately 3× more efficient at developing important kayaking product innovations than were producers in aggregate. We speculate that this result is driven by what we term “efficiencies of scope” in problem-solving. These can favor an aggregation of many user innovators, each spending a little, over fewer producer innovators benefitting from higher economies of scale in product development. We also note that the present study explores only one initial point on what is likely to be a complex efficiency landscape.     

以知识共享为导向的电动汽车创新网络研究

近年来,全球汽车市场的发展总体呈现出有起有伏、强弱转换的格局。作为汽车产业的一个发展方向,电动汽车的发展则是迎来了前所未有的新契机。总体来说,电动汽车的发展在逐步向原有的发展预期靠拢,特别是在一些关键技术上已经有所突破,不可否认发展电动汽车是全球汽车业未来发展的一个支点。在电动汽车创新网络组织方面已有多家企业表现出良好的发展态势,并且已经取得了一定的进展。在这强者鼎立的格局中,美国电动汽车企业特斯拉携电动汽车Model S走入大众的视野并且成功杀出重围。从知识共享导向的角度分析创新网络构成和各主体特征,基于电动汽车创新网络的特点和电动汽车产业内知识共享的特性分析研究,对电动汽车创新网络组织的演化发展以及网络组织内各要素特点的研究结论将为合作创新和网络结构理论的发展提供新视角。