Creation Of Technological Knowledge Research Articles

Doctorate education in Chile: The race to increase the production of doctorate holders and the obsession of quantifying quality

ABSTRACT The historical development of Chile’s doctoral education is closely tied to its semi-peripheral position in the world economy. Drawing from secondary data and historical sources on the development of doctoral education, we conducted a critical analysis of the different phases of doctoral education within the last 70 years, paying special attention to the reforms implemented in the last 15 years. Our analysis revealed that Chile’s doctoral education is going through a phase of rapid expansion of doctoral enrolment, internationalisation, and quantification of academic quality, responding to the paradigm of the knowledge economy. Particularly, we argue that the emphasis on quantifying the quality of doctoral education unintentionally undermines the potential of doctoral education to support the processes of scientific and technological knowledge creation that truly address the most pressing issues of Chilean society.

Using Panel Data Analysis to Uncover Drivers of E-Participation Progress

This paper examines and uncovers the key drivers of e-participation progress or growth over the years, globally and regionally. The authors used fixed-effects regression model on a panel data of variables gathered by reputable world organizations for an 8-year period – one of the largest examined to date. They tested a research model including GDP per capita, ICT infrastructure, secondary education enrolment, technological knowledge creation and outputs, and six governance indicators: voice and accountability, political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption. At the global level, the results indicate that e-participation progress is positively influenced by voice and accountability, GDP per capita, and ICT infrastructure. Analyses based upon six geographical regions of the world and countries' income-level classifications (i.e., low, low-middle, high-middle, high) show that determinants of e-participation progress vary by geographical and income-level contexts.

Group Scheduling with General Autonomous and Induced Learning Effect

In recent research, induced learning requires management involvement. The initial investment can be interpreted as induced learning via an investment in the creation of technological knowledge or knowledge transfer. Induced learning has received attention in productivity improvement. In this paper, we consider scheduling problems with autonomous and induced learning under group technology. The jobs’ processing times decrease according to a learning rate which conversely increases the investment cost. The objectives of the scheduling problems are to minimize a linear combination of the makespan and the investment cost and a linear combination of the total completion time and the investment cost. We present polynomial algorithms to determine the optimal job sequence, group sequence, and the percentage reduction of the standard learning rate.

Effects of customer cooperation on knowledge generation activities and innovation results of firms

This study has analyzed the effect of cooperation with customers on firms’ innovation activities. This issue is particularly novel and important as customers provide information that will be very useful to generate new products and to make the innovation process more efficient. This paper makes important contributions to the literature by analyzing how the cooperation with customers affected the creation of technological knowledge and the economic returns derived from such knowledge. Results have shown that firms cooperating with customers increased investments geared toward expanding the technological knowledge base within the firm's technological domain yet managed to reduce investments oriented to extend the frontier of technological knowledge, at least in the short term. It was also observed, that this cooperation had positive effects on firms’ economic returns derived from the sales of products new for the market allowing companies to maintain a competitive advantage over their rivals.

The Dynamics of Knowledge-intensive Sectors' Knowledge Base: Evidence from Biotechnology and Telecommunications

In this paper, we present a methodology to represent and measure knowledge which takes into account knowledge heterogeneity and its sectoral level theoretical and empirical implications in knowledge intensive environments. We draw on work on recombinant knowledge, extending the approach to include the way the dynamics of technological knowledge creation evolves according to a life cycle; testing the existence of concepts such as technological paradigms; mapping the characteristics of the search process in the phases of exploration and exploitation during this technology life cycle and detecting the differences in sectoral evolution that can be explained by the properties of the knowledge base. We use European Patent Office data (1981–2005) to propose some operational metrics for the knowledge base and its evolution in two knowledge intensive sectors: biotechnology and telecommunications. Our empirical results show that there are interesting and meaningful differences across sectors, which are linked to the different phases of the technology life cycles.

Vertical Integration in the Value Chain and New Technological Knowledge Creation

This paper shows that the firm’s ability to create new knowledge is influenced by the extent to which the firm vertically integrates. The creation of new knowledge in high technology firms is expedited by three major factors: 1) learning by focus – emphasizing core innovative activities by outsourcing non-core value chain activities; 2) the enhancing effect of focus on learning from partners through RD and 3) learning from customers by maintaining in-house marketing and sales channels in house. Hence, firms designing their value chains with a focus on combining internal learning, learning from partners and learning from customers, while eschewing non-core activities, are superior creators of new knowledge. Empirical analysis of panel data for 147 Israeli high technology firms supports the view that these three factors are instrumental in enhancing new technological knowledge creation.

Diversification and Innovation Revisited: An Absorptive Capacity View of Technological Knowledge Creation

The relationship between innovation and product diversification in firms has been studied and debated for decades. Early articles proposed a positive relationship, while subsequent research supported a negative influence on innovation from product diversification based on observable reductions in research and development expenditures. Such findings also suggest a negative influence on absorptive capacity from increasing product diversification. This paper uses an absorptive capacity perspective to revisit the relationship. Together with related literature on knowledge creation and transfer processes, a positive association between related product diversification by firms and the quantity of created technological knowledge is suggested. Evidence to support such a relationship is provided using patent data from technology-based firms in a sample of 1997 firm years between 1990 and 2006. Some evidence of a negative association between knowledge creation and very high levels of unrelated diversification is indicated, qualifying and supporting the “M-form” hypothesis. The findings more closely align understandings of the relationship between product diversification and innovation with the relationship between product diversification and firm performance.

Influence of Demographic and Technical Profile on Success of Independent Inventors in Sri Lanka

The remarkable growth of patent applications in Asia has been the central focus of the recent studies on technological knowledge creation. However, all the Asian countries have not shown similar growth and hence, have not gained similar academic attention. Especially, the lower and middle‐income countries in South Asia are stagnating in technological knowledge creation. Sri Lanka is one such country that has high proportion of independent inventors in their innovation system. Owing to small number of inventors, there is hardly any attention given to conduct empirical studies on inventors in these countries. Therefore, inherent characteristics of inventors and innovation systems in these countries are underexplored in published academic literature. This pioneering study attempted to explore the inherent characteristics of the independent inventors in Sri Lanka as the representatives of inventors in middle‐income South Asian developing countries. The findings of the study suggest that most of the sociodemographic and technical characteristics of Sri Lankan inventors are similar to the independent inventors in industrial countries. It also indicates that demographic factors such as age, income, job mobility, marital status and technical factors such as engagement in inventions, prototype development and commercialization method have significant influence on the overall innovation success of independent inventors in Sri Lanka.

Impact of Subjective Well-Being on Success of Technological Knowledge Creation among Independent Inventors in Developing Countries: A First Look at Sri Lanka

Technological innovations have become one of the key determinants of the success of knowledge economy. So far, technological development in knowledge economies has been mainly measured based on organizational and explicit objective outcome of knowledge creation capacity of a nation or a region. In the Western knowledge economies, role of the independent inventors has been ignored, discouraged, and organizational innovations have been recognized as driving force in new knowledge creation. However, the continuous involvement of independent inventors in technological inventions in unfavorable conditions is a phenomenon that cannot be explained by existing objective measures. Recently, subjective well-being has emerged as a key aspect of human capital that positively influences the developing nations. However, there were hardly any published studies that examined the possible relationship between subjective well-being and the success of inventors in the developing countries. This paper presents the first look at this relationship among the independent inventors in Sri Lanka: a lower middle-income country in South Asia. The study found that independent inventors in Sri Lanka are not objectively successful, but they are subjectively successful. They feel happy about what they have achieved as inventors, satisfy with what they are planning to do and supposing to achieve in the future. Independent inventors’ subjective success depends on their satisfying assessment of existing objective outcomes, optimism on what they are going do, and what they are hoping to gain in the future. Findings suggest that subjective success or well-being of independent inventors might lead them to be continuously engaged in inventive activities under the unfavorable environments for independent inventing.

Strategic diversity in Japanese university Technology Licensing Offices

The of university technology is not only a one-way transfer process of technological outputs matching a scientific discovery with a market need, but also the building of teams of university and business people working towards the common goal of technological knowledge creation. The result of a questionnaire survey of university TLOs in Japan (n = 40) reveals that 'individual-type TLOs' were fewer than expected, while 'organisational-type TLOs' were dominant. The members' employment status and previous occupations, and the time allocation for each TLO activity, differences among TLOs were noticeable.

Knowledge gatekeepers and technology districts development: a system dynamics modelling

This paper investigates the role, played by a specific economic actor, namely the knowledge gatekeeper, to improve the technology districts' innovative capability. In particular, a system dynamics model is developed both to analyse the knowledge relationships established by the gatekeeper with the district's actors and to describe how these relationships can affect the development of the whole district. These relationships are analysed according to a proximity-based approach, based on the notions of organisational and Technological Proximity (TP). Finally, a simulation is provided to study the influence of the two proximity dimensions between the gatekeeper and the local actors on the technological knowledge creation and, then, on the district innovative capability.

Why New Business Development Projects Fail: Coping with the Differences of Technological versus Market Knowledge

Managing through projects has become important for generating new knowledge to cope with technological and market discontinuities. This paper examines how the fit between the creation of technological and market knowledge and important project management characteristics, i.e. project autonomy and completion criteria, influences the success of new business development (NBD) projects. In-depth longitudinal case research on NBD projects commercialised from 1993 to 2003 in the consumer electronics industry highlights that project management characteristics focusing only on the creation of technological knowledge contributed to the failure of those NBD projects that required new market knowledge as well. The findings indicate that senior management support and engaging in an alliance with partners possessing complementary market knowledge can offset this misalignment of the organisation of NBD projects.

National Systems of Innovation: Institutional Linkages and Performances in the Case of Korea and Taiwan

This paper focuses on the measurement of scientific and technological performance of Korea and Taiwan in what has been the most successful technology catch-up within developing economies context. The performance measures are based on the publication data for scientific knowledge production and patent data for technological capabilities. In addition, this analysis also reveals on the features of innovation system of these two countries, focusing on the linkages between public and private sector in the scientific and technological knowledge creation. By examining the scientific and technological performance and the changing structure of innovation system, it provides empirical evidence on the positive interaction between scientific and technological activities.

Building Bridges Between the Disciplines: collaboration in an information-processing university[1

SUMMARY Emphasis is changing among the world's leading universities from information gathering to information processing. The creation of technological knowledge, a process which is at the heart of modern economic growth, requires the use of interdisciplinary teams. A wealth of data is being generated, but the ability to organize and use that information remains limited. Old structures are hampering collaboration necessary for information processing. An examination of the collaborative work structures located in and around the leading research universities of the United States offers insights for improving information processing. Boston and San Francisco, areas in contention for supremacy of the United States high technology industry, areas that contain four of the nation's five leading research universities, provide seedbeds for organizational forms that might be models for improving information processing. Among the organizational models emerging are Berkeley's powerful advisory councils; Stanford's enthusiastic association with independent research groups (e.g. the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences); MIT's broader definition of institute faculty encouraging high levels of communication between disciplines; Harvard's close ties with industry and business promoting technological development; Abt Associates' and SRI International's use of matrix teams to address complex societal problems. Each of these emerging organisational models is built on a base of increased collaboration. Collaboration is needed by the information-processing society to build bridges between and among large pools of disciplinary data on the one hand and society's increasingly complex problems on the other. While the academic department remains the home, the interdisciplinary research group is emerging as the workplace for the modern information-processing university.

Scientific Theory and Technological Testability: Science, Dynamometers, and Water Turbines in the 19th Century

An increasingly central concern among historians of technology is the nature of technological knowledge as distinct both from science and from the design of specific artifacts. This concern is reflected in diverse scholarship addressing such issues as the relationships among scientific investigation, technological research, and the process of innovation;1 the creation of technological knowledge in engineering science through such specifically technological methodologies as parameter variation and through the application of technologically relevant concepts such as control-volume theory;2 and the sociological and epistemological relationship between scientific and technological knowledge.3 At the same time, recent research by Edwin T. Layton, Norman Smith, Louis Hunter, and Terry Reynolds has provided basic