Description:
The mechanism of subnational regional and urban economic development has been studied extensively by economists, geographers, town planners and other academics. The existing widely varying theories of regional economic development are insufficient on their own in explaining how a region can develop and prosper. Each theory has evaluated a few facets of regional economic development. Research from these different perspectives is narrow and prevents any cross-fertilization of research from these diverse theories. Recognition of multiple factors affecting the development process has led the author to create an integrated model of regional and urban economic development. The essay first sets out to describe and explain this integrated model. Each of the components of this new model draws heavily upon seminal work in the field. This model proposes three rings. Each ring is at a different level of abstraction. The determinants of development described in each ring can influence each and every other determinant of development shown in the three-ring structure. This model recognizes that development in any centre, be it regional or urban, nascent or established, is a composite end result of the complex interplay of all the determinants. The essay then goes on to show how this model can provide a broad holistic approach to regional economic development that can assist researchers in their attempts to understand and link its various theories.
Description:
Permo-Drive Technologies Limited is a small public company, based on the north-east coast of Australia, that made the first functional Regenerative Drive System (RDS) for motor vehicles. The RDS technology captures energy expended in braking the vehicle, and then applying this energy to assist moving the vehicle when required from stoppages and on steep inclines. Permo-Drive created this intelligent hybrid hydraulic system for vehicles leading to savings in fuel and therefore reductions in carbon emissions and other pollutants. RDS is a significant ecologically sustainable technology which as at 2011 has become a mainstream ecological technology to the extent that the Toyota Prius model has been promoted with three energy sources; petrol, electricity and regenerative drive. In 'The Weekend Australian Magazine' on the 5th July 2003, an article on Permo-Drive called "Oily Rages to Riches", lauded the innovation in this technology and predicted an exciting future with the US Army at that time keen to retrofit all its trucks with the RDS technology. As of 2011, Permo-Drive is still struggling to make a mark in the business world, having gone through many trials of survival related to plethora of governance issues including legal (patents and bankruptcy), management, marketing, financial, regional development, and public innovation support. What went wrong? This is the question that this study aims to explain, using a specific technology commercialisation of innovation model set up by V.K. Jolly in the book 'Commercializing New Technologies: Getting from mind to market' (1997). From a two-man private innovation company, Permo-Drive went on to be a small private company with a large shareholding list of many "mums and dads" who bought into the idea with $3 million of shares at shopping malls, clubs and schools on the north coast of NSW. Then Permo-Drive morphed into a broad-based public stock company with an international managment team. The road to realising a commercial return on this innovation has been very bumpy with an uncertain end; a process that has also had significant implications for governance of the company. More than anything, it reveals just how tenous and uncertain the innovation process can be.
Description:
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the knowledge management functions of corporate universities and their evolution. Design/methodology/approach Two Chinese corporate universities in the ICT industry were selected for the case studies. Data were collected by interviews and consulting the documents of the two corporate universities. Grounded theory was used for data analysis. Findings The research found that the knowledge management functions of the corporate universities encompass knowledge transfer, knowledge creation and knowledge services for intrapreneurship. The knowledge management functions of the corporate universities are enhancing with the development of the corporate universities. The knowledge management functions mutually reinforce each other. The knowledge network of the corporate universities is expanding and the scope of knowledge managed is broadening. Originality/value Analyzing the knowledge management functions of corporate universities and their evolution from the perspective of knowledge network enriches research on knowledge management of corporate universities.
Description:
This paper presents a model of knowledge acquisition from definitions of data, information and knowledge. The model asserts that knowledge cannot exist outside of the human brain, and that any expression of the knowledge requires it to be transformed into information to be communicated outside of the brain. The model asserts that information is acquired through the sensors to the brain where it is processed with prior knowledge and that new knowledge can be created from the processing of information within the brain only. From a discussion of this model in the context of alternative viewpoints, it is concluded that the future focus for knowledge management should be toward human resource strategies that leverage human-intellectual capital within firms and for the dissemination and sharing of important information that promotes creativity and innovation within and between employees.
Description:
This paper develops an analysis of innovation based on Allen Oakley's (2002) primary themes of ontological priority, agency-structure and critical realism. I develop a history of thought and contemporaneous endogenous view of innovation in an environment of uncertainty, potential novelty and policy priority. Drawing on the literature of Austrian, institutional, Schumpeterian, Penrosean and other schools, I explore a continuum of agency-structure relationships that enhance innovation. These relationships cover environments that are based on agency and contingency, through to those that balance contingency with containment (structure), and situations that are heavily contained. The literature on innovation is investigated vis-à-vis the degree to which different environments encourage creative, original marketable opportunities for the common good. Innovation policy-making is then investigated through the traverse process of irreversibility, and within a retroductionist planning process. Overall, I seek to advance the cause of realism through innovations generated in different environments.
Description:
This paper develops an analysis of innovation based on Allen Oakley's (2002) primary themes of ontological priority, agency-structure and critical realism. I develop a history of thought and contemporaneous endogenous view of innovation in an environment of uncertainty, potential novelty and policy priority. Drawing on the literature of Austrian, institutional, Schumpeterian, Penrosean and other schools, I explore a continuum of agency-structure relationships that enhance innovation. These relationships cover environments that are based on agency and contingency, through to those that balance contingency with containment (structure), and situations that are heavily contained. The literature on innovation is investigated vis-à-vis the degree to which different environments encourage creative, original marketable opportunities for the common good. Innovation policy-making is then investigated through the traverse process of irreversibility, and within a retroductionist planning process. Overall, I seek to advance the cause of realism through innovations generated in different environments.
Description:
By creating or sustaining competitive advantage through differentiation and augmentation, marketers have enhanced single use products to create versatile products. A versatile product was defined as a multi-functional physical object that results from converging technologies augmented from separate product categories. In relation to the adoption of versatile products, diffusion and adoption theories project patterns in consumption of various products, yet provide little insight into the individual adoption, decisions and the information requirements of consumers. Due to the duplexity and versatility of products that defy classification within existing product categories, consumer information search and purchase decision-making has become more complex. This paper postulates that the level of consumer product involvement and product knowledge of a product category influences the level of information search and determines the stage for adoption of versatile products.
Description:
The paper develops a broad macroeconomic innovation policy framework for ecologically sustainable economic development that can be applied to regional economies, from the perspective of Australia. Australia is one of the three huge per capita greenhouse emitting nations in the world. The increased frequency of drought and dramatic storms, together with mounting international scientific evidence, has raised the spectre of greenhouse gas emissions significantly deteriorating the economic viability of regional communities. Up until now from a regional perspective, ecological concerns of pollution and resource depletion have generally been part of the overall management approach to agriculture and regional economic development – more successful in some places and some time periods than others, but still part of the existing economic paradigm. Greenhouse is “the inconvenient truth” that now faces all regional communities, but its existing economic paradigm is clearly inappropriate for responding effectively and timely to this ecological concern. A completely different economic framework, based on economic activity that is satisficing (under conditions of ecological uncertainty) rather than optimising (under conditions of calculable risk) is required to address the ecological concerns of the future. An “eco-sustainable framework” is developed in this paper which sets out an innovation policy aimed at satisficing towards sustainable regional development from an Australian high-emission economy perspective. The framework is based on the work of two economists, Micha
Description:
The paper develops a broad macroeconomic innovation policy framework for ecologically sustainable economic development that can be applied to regional economies, from the perspective of Australia. Australia is one of the three huge per capita greenhouse emitting nations in the world. The increased frequency of drought and dramatic storms, together with mounting international scientific evidence, has raised the spectre of greenhouse gas emissions significantly deteriorating the economic viability of regional communities. Up until now from a regional perspective, ecological concerns of pollution and resource depletion have generally been part of the overall management approach to agriculture and regional economic development – more successful in some places and some time periods than others, but still part of the existing economic paradigm. Greenhouse is “the inconvenient truth” that now faces all regional communities, but its existing economic paradigm is clearly inappropriate for responding effectively and timely to this ecological concern. A completely different economic framework, based on economic activity that is satisficing (under conditions of ecological uncertainty) rather than optimising (under conditions of calculable risk) is required to address the ecological concerns of the future. An “eco-sustainable framework” is developed in this paper which sets out an innovation policy aimed at satisficing towards sustainable regional development from an Australian high-emission economy perspective. The framework is based on the work of two economists, Micha
Description:
An innovative idea launched in the wrong place at the wrong time may not deliver the outcomes hoped for. Based on 55 empirical studies, Bowen, Rostami and Steel (2010) suggest ‘timing is everything’ if innovation is to enhance organisational performance, but there is also a need to understand contextual factors. The paper presents a theoretical model representing the interaction of idea, place, resources and temporal factors that draws on the Ancient Greek notion of Kairos linking events in time and timely action. Longitudinal studies of four intermediary organisations intended to enhance SME innovation capabilities are compared at different stages in their evolution. The cases highlight the context-sensitive nature of innovation: an idea that has been successfully implemented in one place at one time may not be successful at another place or another time.
Description:
An innovative idea launched in the wrong place at the wrong time may not deliver the outcomes hoped for. Based on 55 empirical studies, Bowen, Rostami and Steel (2010) suggest ‘timing is everything’ if innovation is to enhance organisational performance, but there is also a need to understand contextual factors. The paper presents a theoretical model representing the interaction of idea, place, resources and temporal factors that draws on the Ancient Greek notion of Kairos linking events in time and timely action. Longitudinal studies of four intermediary organisations intended to enhance SME innovation capabilities are compared at different stages in their evolution. The cases highlight the context-sensitive nature of innovation: an idea that has been successfully implemented in one place at one time may not be successful at another place or another time.
Description:
The paper is motivated by a desire to find common ground between mainstream and post-Keynesian approaches to fiscal policy. A post-Keynesian approach with origins in Kalecki offers a promising line of enquiry which is developed here. The paper identifies the principal differences between the Keynesian and Kaleckian approaches. The possibilities are explored of finding accommodation between the mainstream and Kaleckian approaches to the taxation of greenhouse gases. The macroeconomic implications of taxing greenhouse gases are identified. However, these may be thwarted by the emergence of ›political aspects of innovation‹, akin to Kalecki’s ›political aspects of full employment‹. A Kaleckian balanced budget approach allied to fiscal incentives to innovate offers some prospect of common ground with the mainstream.
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This paper aims to examine the political economy role of R & D in the context of the innovation dilemma between its roles as a knowledge generating processes and the entrenched power that such knowledge creates.
Description:
This paper aims to examine the political economy role of R & D in the context of the innovation dilemma between its roles as a knowledge generating processes and the entrenched power that such knowledge creates.
Description:
Business relationships and activities will be mapped to establish the functional characteristics of the fine art industry cluster of which the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) has long been the dominant figure. Many of the core activities of the NGV have been severely disrupted between 1999 and 2003 due to refurbishment. This circumstance has made it possible to examine and determine the effects of dislocation of the dominant member on the way a cluster functions. This research will provide information on how fine arts businesses, including some that are competitors, interrelate, and how and to what extent a previously dominant member can reinstate its position after a period of dislocation. This research project employs a longitudinal design so that cluster functioning and level of innovation can be compared before, during, and after disruption of the NGV’s core activities. This circumstance provides a unique opportunity to identify groups of firms with similar innovation patterns and consequent strategic types (personality), test conflicting expectations arising from alliance capitalism and market capitalism models and to examine the assumption that the strategic type (personality) of the cluster, to which a firm belongs, has a bearing on the innovative status of the cluster and its consequent adaptability to change in turbulent environments.
Description:
Business relationships and activities will be mapped to establish the functional characteristics of the fine art industry cluster of which the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) has long been the dominant figure. Many of the core activities of the NGV have been severely disrupted between 1999 and 2003 due to refurbishment. This circumstance has made it possible to examine and determine the effects of dislocation of the dominant member on the way a cluster functions. This research will provide information on how fine arts businesses, including some that are competitors, interrelate, and how and to what extent a previously dominant member can reinstate its position after a period of dislocation. This research project employs a longitudinal design so that cluster functioning and level of innovation can be compared before, during, and after disruption of the NGV’s core activities. This circumstance provides a unique opportunity to identify groups of firms with similar innovation patterns and consequent strategic types (personality), test conflicting expectations arising from alliance capitalism and market capitalism models and to examine the assumption that the strategic type (personality) of the cluster, to which a firm belongs, has a bearing on the innovative status of the cluster and its consequent adaptability to change in turbulent environments.
Description:
Principal Topic: This research is investigating the scope and relationships of the fine arts and associated sectors before, during and after disruption of the National Gallery of Victoria’s (NGV) core activities over the period 1999 to 2003. The significance of the research is to examine the effect of the NGV’s scaled down operations and understand what happens to an industry and business relationships when a key player moves out of and then re-enters a market. The NGV has long been a dominant figure within the Victorian fine art cluster and, for the purpose of this research, has been used to investigate the way small / medium enterprises (SMEs) may be affected when a key player (one that has in the past dominated the cluster) is forced temporarily to assume a weaker role. The research focuses on the interactions and inter relationships between the NGV and SMEs specifically and the repercussions of dislocation within the cluster. The investigation will determine if the NGV’s dislocation and consequent re-entry as two separate entities has a bearing on the innovation and system behaviour of the cluster and its consequent adaptability to change in a turbulent environment. The fine art cluster together with other cultural enterprises are part of the Victorian cultural environment which has been experiencing turbulent times over the past decade (1995 to 2005) due to the Federation funds that were made available by the Australian and state governments. Specifically Melbourne’s cultural landscape changed extensively due to the high incidence of development that occurred. The speed of change was also a significant factor as the Federation funding meant that everything had to open before 2001, that is, before the centenary of Federation. The level of change in Victoria’s cultural landscape was not only in its physical infrastructure but also ensured dramatic organisational change within the institutions. The extent of the turbulence faced by the cultural institutions during this period of change demonstrates that the fine art and cultural art clusters were seen to be laggards, ’latent clusters ’ (Rosenfeld 1997:11) or ’defenders’ (Slater and Olsen 2000) in terms of governance processes, internal organisational structure, processes, management styles and innovation. The Federation funds offered an opportunity for a consistent redevelopment strategy, which was a catalyst for change in the fine art and cultural clusters that might not otherwise have happened. Methodology/Key Propositions: This longitudinal study undertaken over five years will analyse the nature of the market place as well as the interactions and relationships between players. The impact on this market or cluster will then be observed and compared over four stages, that is, before the NGV closed for refurbishment, during the period of dislocation, upon re-entry of the restructured NGV as two separate entities and 18 months after its re-entry. These investigations will not only help illuminate changes in the functional characteristics and relationship between the NGV and SMEs, but most importantly will answer the fundamental premise that the fine art cluster does exist. The question to ask is, do the institutions and their behaviour over this period of time ’fit’ within the definition of a cluster? A cluster has been defined as a complex system capable of initiating a synergetic process where interconnected organisations and associations are linked by commonalities, complementarities and rivalry. The interconnections between cluster members can be explicit and implicit, that is, as informal social systems or as formal structures. A second aspect of a cluster is that of proximity which may be geographic or functional. This connectivity and synergy transforms the local experience of each member where they can be expected to define their relations vis-`a-vis rivals and with markets. Consequently, the position a cluster member occupies is a matter of great strategic importance and reflects its power and influence and how it may influence the actions of other actors. The significance of this study lies in two areas. First, it is about the key player closing down and reopening as two separate entities (operational innovation). Second, the fine art cluster has a different dynamic from other clusters in that the main player derives its power from its expertise, trust and legitimacy; that is, its reputation. There is a focus on the intangible values of the product and its peripheral services, rather than its control through product and product innovation. In this case the dimension investigated is innovation since the aspect of cluster functioning under investigation is how clusters can provide an environment where change is either actively enhanced or standardized (through incremental innovation). An individual firm’s innovative status (ie accumulated knowledge and continuity of innovative activity), it’s networking activity and knowledge transfer channels as well as the information and management behaviour of the firm determine a cluster’s propensity to be innovative (Spielkamp and Vopel 1999). Hence, the key question for research needs to determine the nature of the cluster’s operations and inter-relationships, that is, does dislocation of the dominant player affect the way the fine art cluster operates (that is, level of innovation) and change the inter-relationships between members? Results and Implications: This research will provide information on how fine art businesses, including some that are competitors, interrelate, and if the dominant player’s dislocation and consequent re-entry has a bearing on the innovation and system behaviour of the cluster. The NGV’s 1999 to 2003 redevelopment and consequent scaled down operation provides a unique opportunity to examine the effects of dislocation of the dominant player on the way a cluster functions and its propensity to be innovative.
Description:
The 2009 “Great Recession” has created a severe collapse of business expectations to coincide with severe financial overexposure. In this economic climate there is the tendency for the private sector to withdraw from investing in the future and for the public sector to seek to protect the major institutions of capitalism. Both lead to the exclusion of innovation and the concomitant deterioration of the accumulation process. In this context, there have been calls by some prescient economists and politicians to recognise this severe downturn as the opportunity for the generation and implementation of new knowledge. Innovation needs to be generated - particularly eco-innovation into sustainable development - and supported with a large public and private accumulation programme. In about 1623, Francis Bacon wrote a fable about a secret undiscovered island, Bensalem, in which scientific progress through innovation (Bacon’s “instauration”) created an idyllic economy where humanity was in concert with nature. This Bacon juxtaposed with another island, Atlantis, which gained wealth and prominence through its domination over nature, until nature took its revenge. From Adam Smith onwards writings on economics have recognised the power of innovation to drive an economy. Using Bensalem as the ideal, this paper appraises visions of innovation and accumulation from various HET schools (especially Neoclassical, Austrian, Schumpeterian, Post-Keynesian, Ecological) to assess what these schools can contribute to development of an ecologically sustainable economic trajectory out of the 2009 Great Recession.
Description:
The 2009 “Great Recession” has created a severe collapse of business expectations to coincide with severe financial overexposure. In this economic climate there is the tendency for the private sector to withdraw from investing in the future and for the public sector to seek to protect the major institutions of capitalism. Both lead to the exclusion of innovation and the concomitant deterioration of the accumulation process. In this context, there have been calls by some prescient economists and politicians to recognise this severe downturn as the opportunity for the generation and implementation of new knowledge. Innovation needs to be generated - particularly eco-innovation into sustainable development - and supported with a large public and private accumulation programme. In about 1623, Francis Bacon wrote a fable about a secret undiscovered island, Bensalem, in which scientific progress through innovation (Bacon’s “instauration”) created an idyllic economy where humanity was in concert with nature. This Bacon juxtaposed with another island, Atlantis, which gained wealth and prominence through its domination over nature, until nature took its revenge. From Adam Smith onwards writings on economics have recognised the power of innovation to drive an economy. Using Bensalem as the ideal, this paper appraises visions of innovation and accumulation from various HET schools (especially Neoclassical, Austrian, Schumpeterian, Post-Keynesian, Ecological) to assess what these schools can contribute to development of an ecologically sustainable economic trajectory out of the 2009 Great Recession.
Description:
Innovation and the environment are perceived as being in conflict within mainstream economics. Both are neglected themes in post-Keynesian economics, despite their prominence in general business discourse. A post-Keynesian ‘eco-sustainable framework’ is specified, which can stimulate innovation with supportive public policy tools for the attainment of sustainable economic and ecological development. The framework aims at satisficing towards a ‘sustainable society’ based on the work of Micha
Description:
Innovation and the environment are perceived as being in conflict within mainstream economics. Both are neglected themes in post-Keynesian economics, despite their prominence in general business discourse. A post-Keynesian ‘eco-sustainable framework’ is specified, which can stimulate innovation with supportive public policy tools for the attainment of sustainable economic and ecological development. The framework aims at satisficing towards a ‘sustainable society’ based on the work of Micha