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This chapter explores the empirical and empathetic approaches employed by a group of fieldworkers from Japan who collaborated with individuals from different parts of Southeast Asia. Their objective was to address shared societal challenges and mentor the next generation of future talents. Additionally, research administrators at Kyoto University conducted an online survey and organized study group meetings focused on Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) coordination, engaging approximately 700 partners in ASEAN. While formal job guidelines for hiring full-time research administrators are rare in the region, many researchers and government officials in ASEAN recognised the importance of these coordination skills and values in advancing STI projects. Coordinating ASEAN-Japan projects has demonstrated that practical experiences with skilled professionals and strong interpersonal skills aligned with Asian cultural values that prioritize conscience and altruism. As a next step, the region will require appropriate human resource training and assessment programs tailored to local STI needs.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.

The paper provides a speculative reflection on the power of modern science, technology and innovation systems (STI) for revealing some distinctive style of modernity in Africa. The modernization of these systems, as the backbones of any mode of modernity, also requires the modernization of our mental or intellectual costumes. This process is essentially the passage from closed, selfconfirming, faith‐based, customary, totalizing or terrorizing knowledge systems to essentially falsifiable, evidence‐based, scientifically‐established and technicallyproven innovative knowledge systems. In these systems scientific knowledge can be construed as a theory of the real and as a technology of truth and understood as the epistemological foundation of any form of Afro‐modernity. It is also the passage from the ‘Book of Scripture’ to the ‘Book of Nature’ or from the submission to the white man’s colonizing gods to the more authentic and genuine African identities, beliefs and values, such as those embodied in the concept of ubuntu. The paper discusses a possible way forward in terms of capacity development in STI in Africa with an emphasis on some observed weaknesses regarding fundamental long term neglected issues. It provides some ideas for filling gaps in the context of the call by a number of African thinkers, including the Executive Secretary of UNECA, for initiating a ‘scientific revolution’ on the African continent.

The purpose of this paper is to survey and analyse the literature emanating from less developed countries (LDCs) and international agencies and dealing with their perception of the needs of LDCs for scientific and technical information (STI) in relation to social and economic development.

The authors study the effect of access to smartphones on the socio-economic well-being in the case of rural base of the pyramid (BoP) women. While smartphone access may have its benefits, the paper suggests augmenting access with a sociotechnical intermediary (STI) that facilitates training and online community building to enhance the well-being outcomes.

The authors conducted a survey from three groups of women from rural West Bengal (India) – (1) who do not own smartphones, (2) who have their own smartphones and (3) who receive smartphones and STI support (over two years). The authors evaluate the effect of access to smartphones and STI support on social well-being (including structural social capital and empowerment) and economic well-being (including entrepreneurial intent and subjective economic well-being).

The analysis results suggest a high relationship between smartphone ownership and higher structural social capital, empowerment (in terms of freedom of movement) and entrepreneurial intent. The authors further find these effects to be enhanced amongst women who received smartphones and support from STI.

The authors attribute this enhanced well-being amongst women with smartphones and STI support to peer-learning and cultivation of virtual role models facilitated by the STI through creation of intra-community online groups. The results have significant policy implications for socio-economic well-being of rural BoP women.

This paper aims to examine the influence of individual and combined effects of the mode focused on scientific and technological-based innovation (STI) and the mode based on learning by doing, by using and by interacting (DUI) on firms’ innovation performance and whether information technology (IT) moderates the relation between different innovation modes and firms’ innovation performance.

A conceptual model linking innovation modes, IT (including IT infrastructure and the frequency of IT usage) and firms’ innovation performance was developed, and the proposed hypotheses were tested empirically using World Bank’s micro survey data collected from manufacturing firms in an emerging market (China).

The results show that individually both STI mode of innovation and DUI mode of innovation have a significant positive effect on firms’ innovative performance, whereas the combined STI and DUI mode of innovation has a negative impact. IT infrastructure moderates the relation between STI (or STI and DUI) mode of innovation and firms’ innovation performance, while the frequency of IT usage has no moderating effects on the relationship between any kind of innovation modes and firms’ innovation performance.

Although some results are quite different from what is expected, these are insightful for both academics and policymakers. The use of cross-sectional data has its limitations. Therefore, future studies based on longitudinal data should be conducted. This study points toward the need to conduct the meta-analysis to better explain the existing inconsistencies in the findings of relevant quantitative studies.

This study provides firm managers with practical implications. The conclusions of this study imply that the impact of the combined STI and DUI mode of innovation is likely to be contextual, so firms should make contingent decisions on whether to engage in STI mode of innovation and DUI mode of innovation simultaneously according to their own organizational conditions. Moreover, face-to-face contacts are particularly important when a firm engages in DUI mode of innovation. In addition, the focus of IT strategy of firms engaged in STI mode of innovation should be on perfecting their IT infrastructure rather than increasing the frequency of IT usage.

This paper provides new evidence for the relation between business innovation modes and firms’ innovation performance, and it is one of the few empirical studies that focus on emerging markets. More importantly, this paper proposes a persuasive explanation framework for understanding the heterogeneous impacts of the combined STI and DUI mode of innovation on firms’ innovation performance. This is the first study that examines the moderating effect of IT on the relationship between business innovation modes and a firm’s innovation performance.

Globalisation is generally defined as the “denationalisation of clusters of political, economic, and social activities” that destabilize the ability of the sovereign State to control activities on its territory, due to the rising need to find solutions for universal problems, like the pollution of the environment, on an international level. Globalisation is a complex, forceful legal and social process that take place within an integrated whole with out regard to geographical boundaries. Globalisation thus differs from international activities, which arise between and among States, and it differs from multinational activities that occur in more than one nation‐State. This does not mean that countries are not involved in the sociolegal dynamics that those transboundary process trigger. In a sense, the movements triggered by global processes promote greater economic interdependence among countries. Globalisation can be traced back to the depression preceding World War II and globalisation at that time included spreading of the capitalist economic system as a means of getting access to extended markets. The first step was to create sufficient export surplus to maintain full employment in the capitalist world and secondly establishing a globalized economy where the planet would be united in peace and wealth. The idea of interdependence among quite separate and distinct countries is a very important part of talks on globalisation and a significant side of today’s global political economy.

The new European Constitution recognises the function of the role of the social dialogue in the EU context as a key element of the European strategies. But the impression is that the legal outcome contained in the too sober sentences of the European Constitu tion is not coherent with the role gained defacto by social partners today in the national members states and at the EU context. It is still striking the lacking of legal rules to guaranteeing the respect of transnational trade union rights as the right of association and strike. The philosophy promoting collective labour relations at EU level, enshrined in the Constitution, does not find a coherent development in the web of provisions interesting labour law and industrial relations. The language of the social democracy is not increased in all stages of the constitutional itinerary where it would be more appropriate and logic to involve social partners in all fields of their interests: macroeconomy and social policies.

A growing number of African countries are starting to produce science, technology and innovation (STI) indicators. The purpose of this paper is to provide some lessons learnt in the production and use of STI indicators in Malawi and South Africa. It is compares the two countries’ efforts to conduct Research and Development (R&D) surveys and examines whether and how STI indicators are used in policymaking processes.

The study approach is qualitative. The research methodology encompasses a thorough review of both policy and academic literature as well as some interviews.

The study demonstrates that South Africa has a relatively developed institutional arrangement for undertaking R&D and innovation surveys and developing related STI indicators. There is evidence that efforts are being made to use STI indicators to inform policymaking in the country. On the other hand, Malawi conducted its first R&D survey under the African Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators Initiative (ASTII) and has not established an institutional mechanism dedicated to producing STI indicators. There is no evidence that indicators are used in, or to inform, policymaking in the country.

Because of significant differences in STI policymaking histories, capacities and cultures of the two countries, it is not really useful to compare the STI production and use. Rather it is important to draw lessons from the efforts of the two countries.

The results suggest that the production of STI indicators should be embedded in policy processes. To be useful and effective, STI indicators production needs to be explicitly linked to policy formulation, evaluation and monitoring activities without necessarily undermining the independence of producing STI indicators.

Creating stand-alone programmes or agencies for R&D and innovation surveys without clear articulation with policymaking needs erodes opportunities of having evidence-based STI policy regimes.

Although in 2005 only South Africa and Tunisia had national programmes dedicated to the generation of R&D statistics, by the end of 2010 at least 19 African countries had experimented with conducting R&D surveys under the auspices of the ASTII of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. These countries accumulated different experiences and consequently build different kinds of institutional capacities. Through the Malawi and South Africa case studies, some important lessons for STI indicators production and use and STI policymaking can be drawn for developing countries in general and African countries in particular.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and discuss possible future pathways of the Finnish science, technology and innovation (STI) system. The paper sketches three speculative pathways for the Finnish STI system.

Theoretical considerations behind the pathways are based on analyses of the determinants and behaviour of small open economies, their innovation systems and governance. The empirical background of the paper is in the current trends of the Finnish economy and STI system. The analysis of pathways is based on three dimensions: institutionalized policy environment and economy, domestic interest groups and policy and STI institutions and funding. Changes in these dimensions are analysed by paying special attention to two variables: the position of the nation state and the general economic development.

The first future pathway outlined is based on an optimistic view by setting Finland on the basis of past success factors as an European and global STI hotspot. The second pathway is based on the assumption that the Finnish STI system will be increasingly subordinated to international structures and decision-making. The third one is geared around the assumption that the Finnish STI system will be dominated by industries.

While Finland has been seen as a European showpiece of innovation since the early 2000s, currently the country’s national economy and STI system are undergoing a critical period. The paper sheds light on this transformation and its potential future outcomes and attempts to raise debate on the options policy makers may face in the increasingly complex global environment in small countries.

The paper introduces potential future avenues for the Finnish STI system and provides a contribution to the debate of the future of small countries’ STI systems and innovation policies by emphasising the limited space of the STI policy choices and how the development paths and space for policy making evolve from the interaction of socio-economic factors between domestic and wider international context.