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Article
Publication date: 6 May 2014

Simon James Ford, Michèle J. Routley, Rob Phaal and David R. Probert

– The purpose of this paper is to investigate how supply and demand interact during industrial emergence.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how supply and demand interact during industrial emergence.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper builds on previous theorising about co-evolutionary dynamics, exploring the interaction between supply and demand in a study of the industrial emergence of the commercial inkjet cluster in Cambridge, UK. Data are collected through 13 interviews with professionals working in the industry.

Findings

The paper shows that as new industries emerge, asynchronies between technology supply and market demand create opportunities for entrepreneurial activity. In attempting to match innovative technologies to particular applications, entrepreneurs adapt to the system conditions and shape the environment to their own advantage. Firms that successfully operate in emerging industries demonstrate the functionality of new technologies, reducing uncertainty and increasing customer receptiveness.

Research limitations/implications

The research is geographically bounded to the Cambridge commercial inkjet cluster. Further studies could consider commercial inkjet from a global perspective or test the applicability of the findings in other industries.

Practical implications

Technology-based firms are often innovating during periods of industrial emergence. The insights developed in this paper help such firms recognise the emerging context in which they operate and the challenges that need to overcome.

Originality/value

As an in depth study of a single industry, this research responds to calls for studies into industrial emergence, providing insights into how supply and demand interact during this phase of the industry lifecycle.

Details

European Journal of Innovation Management, vol. 17 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1460-1060

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 31 July 2009

Letizia Mortara, Jonathan Hughes, Pallant S. Ramsundar, Finbarr Livesey and David R. Probert

The purpose of this paper is to propose and discuss a definition and a classification scheme for direct writing (DW) technologies.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose and discuss a definition and a classification scheme for direct writing (DW) technologies.

Design/methodology/approach

Both the definition and the classification are developed based on the perspectives of the growing DW community in the UK, through consultation with members, workshops and a survey across the community. In addition, current DW technologies and literature on classification techniques are reviewed.

Findings

The classification is structured in order to encompass current technologies, but also to be expandable to accommodate new ones that could be identified in the future as belonging to the DW remit. It is developed considering three dimensions related to DW: “Technology” to encompass all the processes, apparatuses, principles and tools which allow DW manufacturing; “Applications” to consider all the “types of manufactured goods” which could be produced with the DW technologies; and “Materials” which could be employed in DW manufacturing. The classification scheme is visualised into navigation maps and used as the basis of a software tool which can allow the community to exchange information on DW.

Research limitations/implications

The paper proposes a classification as a tool for knowledge exchange and to support knowledge organisation and retrieval. However, the classification proposed in this paper might not be the only possible solution.

Practical implications

The definitional framework is proposed to the DW community as a language tool to help communication among members with different perspectives and to be used to support the creation of information databases. It is embodied in a software tool through which they could file personal profiles (i.e. their expertise and interests) and hence map the community.

Originality/value

It is evident that, due to the heterogeneity of the community of scientists and practitioners interested in these technologies, many perspectives coexisted and that a communication platform is required. The authors decide to develop a classification which could be flexible enough to encompass new emerging technologies as the use of classifications as tools for supporting communication across the scientific community is well known and as the authors could not identify in literature any other DW technology classification which could satisfy these requirements.

Details

Rapid Prototyping Journal, vol. 15 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-2546

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Building Markets for Knowledge Resources
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-742-7

Book part
Publication date: 29 March 2016

Marc Wouters, Susana Morales, Sven Grollmuss and Michael Scheer

The paper provides an overview of research published in the innovation and operations management (IOM) literature on 15 methods for cost management in new product development, and…

Abstract

Purpose

The paper provides an overview of research published in the innovation and operations management (IOM) literature on 15 methods for cost management in new product development, and it provides a comparison to an earlier review of the management accounting (MA) literature (Wouters & Morales, 2014).

Methodology/approach

This structured literature search covers papers published in 23 journals in IOM in the period 1990–2014.

Findings

The search yielded a sample of 208 unique papers with 275 results (one paper could refer to multiple cost management methods). The top 3 methods are modular design, component commonality, and product platforms, with 115 results (42%) together. In the MA literature, these three methods accounted for 29%, but target costing was the most researched cost management method by far (26%). Simulation is the most frequently used research method in the IOM literature, whereas this was averagely used in the MA literature; qualitative studies were the most frequently used research method in the MA literature, whereas this was averagely used in the IOM literature. We found a lot of papers presenting practical approaches or decision models as a further development of a particular cost management method, which is a clear difference from the MA literature.

Research limitations/implications

This review focused on the same cost management methods, and future research could also consider other cost management methods which are likely to be more important in the IOM literature compared to the MA literature. Future research could also investigate innovative cost management practices in more detail through longitudinal case studies.

Originality/value

This review of research on methods for cost management published outside the MA literature provides an overview for MA researchers. It highlights key differences between both literatures in their research of the same cost management methods.

Book part
Publication date: 15 June 2015

Fumi Kitagawa and Susan Robertson

This chapter examines the processes of entrepreneurial network and capital formation at a university-based incubator. Incubators could help overcome start-up firms to gain access…

Abstract

This chapter examines the processes of entrepreneurial network and capital formation at a university-based incubator. Incubators could help overcome start-up firms to gain access to entrepreneurial networks and credibility with external stakeholders, by supporting the entrepreneurial processes including the acquisition of variety of capitals and resources. However, the actual evidence on the effectiveness of incubators as a policy tool for business support has been rather contested. This chapter makes a contribution to the entrepreneurship literature by addressing the underlying processes of incubation as a key factor critical to achieve accelerated firm growth at the university-based technology incubator. Drawing on interviews and survey of start-up firms at a university-based incubator, co-evolution of business models with capital mobilisation and re-combination of resources is illustrated. The chapter concludes by arguing that more detailed processes and trajectories of ‘soft starter’ business model would contribute to the understanding and development of policy support for entrepreneurial processes.

Details

New Technology-Based Firms in the New Millennium
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78560-032-6

Book part
Publication date: 25 January 2017

Abstract

Details

Building Markets for Knowledge Resources
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-742-7

Article
Publication date: 1 February 1993

David H. Taylor and Susan Probert

Presents the results of a survey of 52 UK‐based manufacturingcompanies to analyse the supply chain problems faced by the companies inrelation to serving European markets. On the…

Abstract

Presents the results of a survey of 52 UK‐based manufacturing companies to analyse the supply chain problems faced by the companies in relation to serving European markets. On the basis of the research a typology of supply chains has been developed and firms classified accordingly. Results show that, to the majority of companies, basic operational issues are of paramount importance and few are giving consideration to the broader strategic issues of European supply chain management.

Details

International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, vol. 23 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0960-0035

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 21 December 2017

Sue Robson

This chapter considers the opportunities and challenges for HE to develop, support and celebrate excellent teaching. Drawing on conceptualisations of teaching excellence in…

Abstract

This chapter considers the opportunities and challenges for HE to develop, support and celebrate excellent teaching. Drawing on conceptualisations of teaching excellence in quality frameworks and in the literature, it considers how teaching quality has traditionally been interpreted, suggesting (as in Chapter 2) that there is a need for more nuanced and comprehensive understandings of teaching excellence to be developed, demonstrated, recognised and rewarded, to reflect the complex nature of teaching excellence across the academic career profile. It considers how institutions might build and communicate shared understandings of excellence in teaching and promote a culture in which excellence at all levels of teaching is valued in the same way as research. It discusses the ways in which the professional learning and support needs of academics can be met at various stages of the academic career, to develop in teaching faculty and education leaders a sense of being appreciated, connected and competent in their contribution and commitment to teaching excellence.

Details

Teaching Excellence in Higher Education
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-761-4

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 1 January 2012

Abstract

Details

Hard Labour? Academic Work and the Changing Landscape of Higher Education
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-501-3

Article
Publication date: 1 August 1920

We are over‐impressed just now by the importance of what are usually described as “the working‐classes,” as though there were any classes in this country which did not work with…

Abstract

We are over‐impressed just now by the importance of what are usually described as “the working‐classes,” as though there were any classes in this country which did not work with head or hand. There is “the middle‐class,” which is also a working class; and, if truth be told, probably the hardest working class. It knows nothing of the forty‐four hour week, of constantly rising incomes, or of ca' canny methods. This is the class which forms the backbone of the country, and its marked characteristics, as opposed to the manual workers, are its lack of class consciousness and its want of class cohesion. In years that have gone by, the assumption was, of course, that if anyone wore a black coat instead of fustian he must necessarily be in possession of a larger income than the ordinary working man. He became the target of every Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, nervous of offending the working‐classes, thought little or nothing of any injustice which he might place upon those who formed the middle‐class. That criticism bears upon no particular party, but upon all political parties. Correspondence which has recently appeared in our columns suggests that the middle‐class is beginning to realise the disabilities that patience and forbearance have brought upon it in cumulative measure. On the one hand, it forms a reservoir upon which the nation is always able to draw in times of emergency, as the Great War proved; and, on the other, its very pride and its cultivation of the virtue of individualism rob it of cohesion. As a rule, the man of the middle‐class is neither the direct producer of wealth nor even a minor captain of industry. He supplies, however, the intellect and industry without which Labour would be reduced to idleness and Capital would be denied its dividends. In addition, he and his fellows, besides “carrying on,” recruit the great professions, and are mainly responsible for the research which enables science to come to the aid of the manufacturer and workman. The secret of our prosperity is to be found less conspicuously in the foresight and courage of the Capitalist and the skill of the workman than in the trained intelligence and arduous and unremitting labours of those who constitute the middle‐class. We do not underrate the value of Capital or the achievement of Labour, but it cannot be doubted that the most important element in the community consists of those who occupy the midway position between the extremes. No one can enter a factory or an office without being impressed by the important functions which the great middle‐class performs. One of the greatest dangers associated with Sovietism is that its aim is to stamp out the middle‐class. As soon as Trotsky, Lenin, and their associates had successfully asserted their dictatorship, they turned upon what they described as the “bourgeoisie,” determined to extinguish it. What they did not realise was that without the middle‐class, with its trained knowledge, sense of discipline, and power of command, Russia would be reduced to misery. Soviet Russia is the theatre in which the follies of headstrong and ignorant men are illustrated to the world. We shall do well to take warning by its mistakes. The middle‐class in this country represents elements of strength which we cannot spare, and we trust that British statesmen will walk warily lest in these difficult times of financial stress and strain further burdens are pressed upon it which it cannot bear. — The Daily Telegraph.

Details

British Food Journal, vol. 22 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0007-070X

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