Special issue on CAMOT 2010 International Conference – Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation

Citation

Lu, L. (2011), "Special issue on CAMOT 2010 International Conference – Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation", Journal of Technology Management in China, Vol. 6 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jtmc.2011.30206aaa.002

Special issue on CAMOT 2010 International Conference – Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Technology Management in China, Volume 6, Issue 1

In the era of globalization, achieving national and corporate strategic competitive advantage lies in the critical role of technology as the strategic instrument among companies and countries. This underscores the important role of technological innovation as the core catalyst and determinant of prosperity, corporate growth, and global economic welfare. At this point in time, the global economy is at a crossroads. There are many key economic players – an integrated European Union, a resource-rich Russia, a technology competing Japan and Korea, and a rising India and Brazil. Yet, the USA and China are the key primary countries which continue to have disproportionate impact and influence over the direction of the world economy. This is essentially due to their economic size and geopolitical prominence. Whether these two global players, simultaneously economic partners and security rivals, can cooperate in leading the world economy will be a critical determinant of how world economies and politics develop in the coming years.

China’s economic growth has been the fastest in the world and is now the world’s second largest economy after the USA. China has a long way to go before it can be considered one of the top innovative nations. It falls short in terms of its science and technology intensity and lacks globally recognized innovative companies. In order to change the current situation, there is a need for more “technology transfer”, or “indigenous innovation”, rather than total dependence on encouraging and promoting the influx of foreign R&D. The core premise is that China is growing rapidly, and is converging in terms of science and technology infrastructure and policies with the most technologically advanced countries.

This special issue is a collection of quality research papers which have been presented at the 2010 China Association for Management of Technology (CAMOT) International Conference at Shanghai University, which is dedicated to the debate and discussion of crucial issues in the strategic management of technology and innovation in China and the West.

Drawing upon extensive literature, Petti and Zhang offer an overview of the factors influencing technological entrepreneurship capabilities of Chinese enterprises by developing a multi-disciplinary and multi-level research framework. This study is particularly relevant in light of the driving role given to enterprises in the process of transforming China into an innovation-oriented nation and leading science power.

There is little doubt that one of the key factors influencing innovation capacities and performance of Chinese enterprises is the development of leadership. Iles and Feng examine the role of distributed leadership and how this concept is linked to the performance of enterprises, especially team performance in terms of information exchange and knowledge sharing between Chinese and Western employees.

The vision of China becoming an innovative society by 2020 will certainly require strategic thinking in developing creative individuals through further reform and development of the higher education systems in China. Taher et al. present initial findings from primary research based on a case study conducted in one of the top universities in China and attempt to establish the key predictors of MBA students’ performance through the analysis of interactions between personality type, learning approaches, and educational achievement.

Turning from a corporate perspective to an organizational level, the next paper presented by Zhuang et al. in this special issue takes a unique approach to investigating the role of information in developing a high-performance organization. Whilst traditional innovation literature emphasizes the importance of “collecting rich information” for the purpose of making the right strategic decision, Zhuang and colleagues examined one of the information-intensive industries – tourism – provide empirical evidence on how information overload could lead to stress and mistakes at the operational level, hence affect the overall performance of organizations.

The final two papers address the issue of branding and its implications for Chinese firms. Ille and Chailan from the International University of Monaco take an international perspective on the development of Chinese firms in terms of designing and developing global branding strategies. Jiong and Iles focus on the organizational level by linking the concept of brand equity from marking to employee recruitment and retention within organizations and present a model of the relationship between organizational attractiveness and employee-based brand equity perceptions.

Creating an innovative society requires not only a clear vision and creative strategic thinking, but also a sustainable long-term plan and implementation strategy. Despite various policy developments in boosting technology and innovation capacities in China, there are still significant challenges facing Chinese firms when enacting their role as the key players of an innovation society. The papers presented in this volume have provided some ideas and thoughts from one perspective, we would welcome more researchers from multidisciplinary fields working together to contribute to the topic of strategic management of technology and innovation in China and the West.

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Professor Michael Badawy from Virginia Tech University who helped to develop the core theme of the conference at the early stages and provided invaluable advice in organizing the conference. We also would like to express our sincere thanks to Tony Koo, Director of Shanghai University MBA Centre working together with CAMOT to host the conference in Shanghai and contributing to this special issue.

Lucy LuGuest Editor