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1 – 10 of 17Pierre Wolfram, Nivedita Agarwal and Alexander Brem
The approach of Western companies to internationalise their R&D by establishing R&D sites in emerging markets (EMs) has led to a discussion about the role of R&D in home markets…
Abstract
Purpose
The approach of Western companies to internationalise their R&D by establishing R&D sites in emerging markets (EMs) has led to a discussion about the role of R&D in home markets and host markets. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the evolution of foreign R&D sites of Western companies in EMs and their role using China as the empirical context.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses the State Intellectual Property Office database, and investigates about 2,000 patent families of the top 14 Western patent applicants in China.
Findings
The results indicate a gradual shift from an exploitative to an exploratory role of R&D sites in China. The study also shows evident learning effects on Western R&D from local counterparts.
Research limitations/implications
The paper motivates further research of R&D internationalisation approaches within EMs, and explores the changing role of local subsidiaries. While the study is only focussed on China, the applicability of the results is limited in context of other countries, due to cultural, economic and legislative differences.
Practical implications
This study shows the increasing importance of EMs such as China and how these markets, known for imitations and cheap resources, are gradually moving towards innovations and creating new technologies locally.
Originality/value
Based on the patent analysis, this study shows the growing importance of the local R&D subsidiaries of Western multinationals in China.
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Dominique Gobin and Benoit Goyeau
This paper aims to provide a limited, but selective bibliography on modelling heat and mass transfer in composite fluid‐porous domains.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide a limited, but selective bibliography on modelling heat and mass transfer in composite fluid‐porous domains.
Design/methodology/approach
Since the pioneer study by Beavers and Joseph, the problem of interface continuity and/or jump conditions at a fluid‐porous interface has been of interest to the fluid mechanics and heat and mass transfer community. The paper is concerned both with numerical simulations of heat and fluid flow in such systems, and with the linear stability problems.
Findings
The one‐ and two‐domain formulations are equivalent. Using the Darcy‐Brinkman extension instead of the Darcy model reduces the number of ad hoc parameters in this configuration.
Research limitations/implications
The problem of double diffusive convection has still to be solved and analyzed.
Practical implications
The discussion on the interface conditions is of great relevance to many industrial and practical situations.
Originality/value
The important question of the macroscopic formulation of the problem is tackled in the paper.
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It is almost unbelievable that it is already 11 years ago that our most beloved friend and teacher Anselm Strauss died. In 1999 we had a conference in Magdeburg, Germany, where we…
Abstract
It is almost unbelievable that it is already 11 years ago that our most beloved friend and teacher Anselm Strauss died. In 1999 we had a conference in Magdeburg, Germany, where we tried to commemorate his very personal and creative way of doing sociological research and of teaching sociology that established an almost miraculous bridge to the minds of German and other European social scientists even though Anselm Strauss was very American. He was American in the best sense of using and encouraging creative freedom of expression, of showing witty nonconventionality, of relating in an egalitarian way to his interaction partners, of being empathically cooperative and practical in his thinking and in his personal relationships with his European students and colleagues. Today, instead, I would like to talk a little bit about his longer lasting impact on German-speaking social sciences and on other European social sciences as far as I have insight into them.
Born in Pittsburgh, PA, on November 1, 1910, Taylor Ostrander grew up in Westchester County, back in New York, his family's home state for many generations. He went to public…
Abstract
Born in Pittsburgh, PA, on November 1, 1910, Taylor Ostrander grew up in Westchester County, back in New York, his family's home state for many generations. He went to public schools in White Plains and Scarsdale and graduated from Hackley School in Tarrytown in 1928; that fall he entered Williams College in Williamstown, MA, where his mother's father was in the class of 1882.
J. Pedro Mendes, Miguel Marques and Carlos Guedes Soares
Organizational technologies can be classified according to the roles they play as either commodity or strategic. Commodity technologies support common operations, while strategic…
Abstract
Purpose
Organizational technologies can be classified according to the roles they play as either commodity or strategic. Commodity technologies support common operations, while strategic technologies address perceived threats to competitiveness, often identified by strategic foresight. These must go through an adoption process before playing an effective role in strategy execution. The adoption process includes known activities, ranging from sourcing (itself from in-house development to turn-key acquisition) to operational integration. This paper aims to reveal strategic technology adoption risks that arise during strategy execution.
Design/methodology/approach
A gradually developed causal loop diagram model, supported by general literature, introduces three general classes of technology adoption risks: mismatched requirements, supplier dependence and unmanaged life cycles.
Findings
Rather than managed, these risks are incurred or avoided depending on decisions made during the adoption process.
Research limitations/implications
Despite the scarce literature coverage for the approach, examples revealing the presence of adoption risks are nevertheless available in the well-documented history of enterprise resource planning (ERP).
Practical implications
Although ERP is presented as a general-purpose strategic technology, the unique business features of maritime container terminals pose serious challenges to its adoption, which provides additional support to the discussion and reinforces the conclusions.
Originality/value
The approach to identifying risks in strategic technology adoption departs from the current risk paradigm in two significant ways. First, it emphasizes policy decision-making rather than external events. Second, it views risks as systemic rather than occurring independently.
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Deryl Northcott and Sue Llewellyn
This paper aims to bring greater clarity to the debate on the merits (or demerits) of relative performance evaluation through a broad assessment of current UK National Health…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to bring greater clarity to the debate on the merits (or demerits) of relative performance evaluation through a broad assessment of current UK National Health Service (NHS) benchmarking. It seeks to examine whether benchmarking is being used dynamically to disseminate best practice in healthcare, or whether it is primarily a government tool to enforce static competitive performance standards.
Design/methodology/approach
Draws on recent literature and government pronouncements. It charts the development of the health care policy discourse that articulated a move from the internal market of the early 1990s to the metrics approach of New Labour.
Findings
Benchmarking is one of the private sector‐grown “managerialist” tools whose application and significance is rapidly increasing in the UK public sector. Despite its prevalence, the nature (competitive or comparative), the process (based on indicators or ideas) and the outcomes (standards or “best practice”) of benchmarking in public services remain unclear. The findings reveal that benchmarking requirements, imposed by government policy, are articulated in terms of comparative ideas – benchmarking with the stated objective of “sharing best practice”, but are operationalised and disseminated in the form of indicator league tables with standardised benchmarks for performance. Hence, there is an apparent “articulated policy – implemented practice gap”. Concludes that, whilst benchmarking is a highly desirable policy instrument, its practical relevance to health care improvement is still in doubt.
Originality/value
The findings are relevant to both NHS policy‐makers and to NHS actors who must engage with the processes and outcomes of benchmarking practices.
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The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between language, thinking and society for explaining the degree of visibility of the French organizational studies (OS…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between language, thinking and society for explaining the degree of visibility of the French organizational studies (OS) production.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper proposes a sociological analysis based on Bourdieu field to understand the variation of reception the French OS production have had among the Anglo-Saxon field. The paper aims to underline some key elements, which can explain the differences of reception experienced by the French OS scientists. The paper opted for a general review using historical data; reviews of OS literature; and Google scholar, Web of Science and major OS Journal data.
Findings
The paper provides some evidence about how the degree of visibility of the French OS production is related to translation, cognitive and social resonance, producer place in the scientific network and relationship between the fields. It suggests that the degree of visibility is the result of a complex set of socio-cognitive schemes, social issues raised by the scholar and the place occupied by the researcher in the field.
Originality/value
The paper brings interesting ideas concerning the international development of the OS field, the degree of visibility of diverse contributions coming from non-English speaking researchers, notably the French ones, and how the dialogue between different linguistic and social universes can be ameliorated.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore how critical management studies' (CMS) awkward relationship with the world of practice may have allowed it to become a dominated field in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how critical management studies' (CMS) awkward relationship with the world of practice may have allowed it to become a dominated field in academia, which features a nearly exclusive focus on research for theory's sake, a lack of interest or discomfort with practical applications, and a devaluing of non‐academic pursuits. Despite research on oppression, resistance, and emancipation, CMS scholars do not tend to focus on the field's own domination or to ensure that its emancipatory agenda offers any practical impact.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper loosely draws on Bourdieu's notions of habitus and symbolic violence to make sense of his experience of attempting to fit in the CMS community as a scholar interested in practical applications of CMS insights.
Findings
The paper argues that CMS is uniquely positioned to help organization studies become a phronetic science, both practical and capable of addressing questions of power and values, essential to management practice.
Practical implications
The estrangement between theory and practice in CMS is symptomatic of the same phenomenon in the broader organization studies community.
Originality/value
The paper addresses not only how CMS can become a more phronetic science but also the benefits of phronetic research for the broader organization studies.
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