Search results

This study aims to investigate the probable future scenarios of nanotechnology development and their implications in Iran considering anticipatory knowledge, suitable methodology and integral perspective.

The study used framework morphology, a method for creating scenarios and their implications developed by the Delphi method that covers the consistent morphological space and make contact with previous scenario work, as well as the current and projected research and policy situation in Iran.

The study identified five scenarios, namely, “no nano” scenario headlines picturing a future society that there is no impact of nanotechnology in it. The “nano flow” scenario and indicates prospering nanotechnology in the full sides of the market. The “no nano contact” scenario suspecting that apart from the already banned nanotechnological applications in food, cosmetics, clothes and agricultural applications might bear equally unacceptable risks. The “hidden nano” scenario by pointing out the effects of accidents and crimes traced back to intended or unintended misuse of nanotechnological applications. Then finally, the “red nano” scenario illustration headlines the prospects of medical, energy system efficiency and nanotechnological applications in information and communication technologies.

The policymakers could use the scenarios and their implications as part of its considerations in strategic planning.

This paper represents the first time that a framework for societal implications has been applied to nanotechnology development topic in Iran.

This study aims to develop and apply a process model for prioritizing and selecting basic research projects in developing countries.

Basic research is mainly funded by governments and since, unlike technological research, it does not have clear business goals, its prioritization is one of the complicated issues in formulating science and technology policy. Adopting a design science research methodology, the authors chose a general framework for project portfolio selection as an appropriate artifact for solving this problem. By customizing it for two specific features of this study, i.e. national scale of the problem and the basic nature of research proposals, the authors developed the proposed framework for solving the problem of priority setting.

The process for selecting basic research proposals consists of several steps, which can be categorized into eight steps including strategic decisions, preparation, pre-screening, evaluating individual proposals, screening, portfolio selection and monitoring. This study emphasizes the necessity of defining goals that can be evaluated for the national basic research portfolio, as a key strategic decision. Evaluating individual proposals is a peer-review-based process. In contrast, portfolio selection is done through a zero-one linear programming model. The validity of the proposed framework has been confirmed based on the data obtained from the Iran National Science Foundation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, in this research, for the first time, a mathematical model for prioritizing basic research at the national level has been presented, which effectively contributes to policymaking regarding the development of an optimum national research portfolio.

This study aims to investigate the importance and effect of asymmetric technological collaborations’ key success factors in developing countries. The number of collaborations between large enterprises and SMEs, known as asymmetric technological collaborations (ATC) is growing considerably. But this asymmetry in itself can increase the number and intensity of collaboration challenges. So far, limited studies have been conducted on the stability of ATCs, and most of them have been in the context of developed countries. Meanwhile, studying the strength and stability of collaboration in the nano industry with growing market value and increasing newcomers is of particular importance.

Here, with bionic engineering approach, we used chemistry for the first time to identify the main stability factors of ATCs and build our hypotheses and research model. To this end, we introduced the factors affecting the stability of the dative chemical bond as a bionic counterpart of corporate venture capital (CVC), which is a type of ATC, and proposed 4 hypotheses. We used structural equation modeling (SEM) with partial least squares (PLS) method to examine the hypothesized relationships.

The analysis of survey questionnaire data from 26 asymmetric collaborations in Iran’s nanotechnology industry shows that “learning of the acceptor company” with a negative effect, “network ties” and “development of the collaboration host region” with a positive effect and “diversity in the collaboration portfolio” with an inverted U-shaped effect are the most influential factors in the stability and continuity of CVCs, respectively.

The findings of this research can be the beginning of a broad path leading to exploring and getting inspiration from chemistry to analyze management issues.

Fintechs are expected to develop rapidly as technologies that help improve the efficiency of the traditional financial system, but an examination of fintech subbranches shows different behaviors. In some sub-branches, the transition has been accompanied by a higher speed and more success, but in some other sub-branches, the opposite has been observed. The difference in the development of fintech sub-branches and its reasons have been paid less attention. Therefore, this article aims to identify the factors affecting the transition.

The use of new technologies in financial services at the international level has led to the provision of fast, customized and economical services, and the fact that these services are welcomed by the users has created opportunities for fintech's transition. This qualitative research follows the socio-technical phenomenon of fintech transition through narrative research. For its formulation, the transition process of fintech sub-branches was analyzed based on the multi-level analytical framework and Geels et al.’s transition path theory.

Transition is a change from one socio-technical regime to another. The findings of the research showed that these changes are influenced by the following factors: provision of infrastructure, the support of industry incumbents from innovative financial services, policy-making, citizen's welcoming, improving the knowledge and expertise of actors, legal adjustments as well as provision of innovative services.

The fintech transition has a special nature because the speed of developments in fintech is high and there is a series of innovations that are continuously replaced by subsequent innovations. Existing models have often focused on the long-term transition of a technology. This article presents a new approach for the analysis of changes in the short term in such a way that, based on the position of the actors in favor of or against the technological changes and institutional changes of the transition, it has analyzed and identified the factors affecting the transition. By focusing on these factors, policymakers can direct the way of fintech transition and help accelerate and facilitate fintech transition.

Financial technologies or FinTech have replaced traditional financial services. Large investments have been made in FinTechs but there is a gap between service providers and consumers. Due to the high diversity and speed of changes, people still do not understand the new financial system and resist it. The success of the transition requires providing an opportunity for citizens' participation which is expressed with the term, financial citizenship. This study aims to focus on the citizenship dimension of FinTech transition and wants to analyze the influence of citizens in transition with a focus on financial technologies.

This study analyzed financial citizenship in FinTech transition by using a qualitative research method and grounded theory. The data were collected through open interviews with 26 FinTech players in Iran. Then the three-step process of open, axial and selective coding was performed and the main categories and relationships between them were identified.

Surveys have shown that educating and informing citizens provides the conditions for engagement and the formation of financial citizenship. Depending on citizens' level of awareness, they can play a role in the FinTech transition as customers, feedback providers or demanders. Of course, the disruption level of financial technological innovation affects the level of citizens' engagement. Finally, the conceptual model of financial citizenship provided and the effect of citizen participation on the FinTech transition has been analyzed.

This study is based on the belief that it is the citizens’ right to have a role in matters that directly affect their well-being. This role is not only the role of the customer and the user but goes beyond and becomes a role where citizens as players would be able to influence the technological transition like other interested players (policymakers and service providers). This research integrates the transition literature and financial citizenship; and analyzes the FinTech transition according to the position of citizens against FinTech developments.

Big Data (BD) is not only a quintessential part of many economic activities but also has evolved into a veritable business ecosystem. However, most Big Data ecosystem (BDE) models have a technical, bottom-up focus and mostly lack the capability for a broad socioeconomic analysis. This paper identifies the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) as a useful, operational framework and uses a metaphorical analogy to adapt it for the BDE. The top-down approach adopted here allows for seeing the big picture of the BD ecosystem. Meeting “end-user needs” is the main objective of the proposed BDE framework.

The methodology of this paper consists of two parts. First, the MA is adapted for the BDE through a metaphorical analogy. Then, to operationalize and validate the proposed framework, it is applied to an emerging BD ecosystem.

In total, four types of services are offered in the BD ecosystem: provisioning information and products; regulating; cultural and supporting services. Direct and indirect drivers of change impact ecosystem processes such as BD service provision. Based on the assessment results, interventions can be devised to remedy problems, sustain the ecosystem or accelerate growth. The proposed BDE assessment framework is applied to an emerging BDE as an example of operationalization and validation of the proposed BDE framework.

The strengths of the proposed BDE framework is that, in contrast to existing frameworks that are technical and bottom-up, it is constructed top-down by a metaphorical analogy from the proven MA framework. It is a generic framework with the ultimate objective of meeting the “end-user needs” and does not focus on a single sector or firm. Also, the proposed BDE framework is multi-faceted and considers broad socioeconomic issues such as regulating, cultural and supporting services and drivers of change.

Innovation and technology development policy-making naturally encounters numerous uncertainties and complexities, especially in developing countries, for the sake of the prevailing prospect of decision makers focusing on hard evidences, and neglecting key and effective social ones; in this research, a context-based method by means of Q-methodology was designed to facilitate policy-making for complex systems by bridging between policy and practices (latent in viewpoints) through providing context-based evidences.

Due to the nature of knowledge-based systems, the performance of Innovation and Technology Development (ITD) systems is highly dependent on the standpoints of key players/stakeholders of the system. In consideration of Iran’s economy characteristics, Upstream Oil and Gas (UOG) Industry, which is one of the complex Large Technical Systems (LTS), was selected as a case study. Regarding the features of LTSs, the designed model was completed by adding hierarchical clustering method, as well as using the framework of innovation and technology learning transition model to analyze the results.

The results showed the capability of the model in providing credible evidences to inform policy-making processes.

This study is one of the first real experiences which used Q-method for providing evidence-based policy-making model in a complex Large Technical System, namely, Upstream Oil and Gas (UOG) Industry.

This research presents a technology roadmap for social banking in Iran. Technology roadmapping is a tool for decisionmakers to identify, assess and choose between different strategic options to achieve the best technological objectives and help companies and industries to better understand their market and technological choices. As social banking is in its infancy, it could embody different aspects. Therefore, to be successful in field of social banking, banks should define specific capabilities based on their capacities to create their own model. A social banking roadmap provides a comprehensive plan for banks to design products and services based on their capacities and create required programs for their implementation and improvement.

This paper outlines the steps for creating a technology roadmap to develop social banking services of one of Iran’s private banks. Different methods were used to implement each step mainly based on expert panels and carrying out polling and survey research among banking and IT experts.

Technology roadmaps pay special attention to the challenges and the level of capabilities (both technical and social) to develop technologies and services specially for developing countries. The level of capabilities and absorptive capacity will determine the direction of technology development. Hence, banks should design their business plan and roadmap based on their background and capabilities, state of market, their status and goals. Policymakers should help increase cooperation, financial transparency, information and payments security via appropriate legislations.

The number of banks that have entered the social banking field is limited, and as a result, activities that have been carried out in this area in the country are limited too. Therefore, there was limited access to information as well as related studies. This research has tried to extract all the contents of the roadmap. Some sub-topics such as technologies have been dealt with to a lesser depth because of the complexity in identifying and assigning each of technologies to the service features. The technology roadmap experiences in the country are limited, and it was not possible to study the existing roadmaps with regard to their confidentiality. Developing a technology roadmap requires using expert panels and conducting multiple workshops with stakeholders from private sectors, universities and industries. In this research, because of low resources, the panels were confronted with limited continuous attendance as well as the accumulation of different stakeholders.

The research results provided strategies to inform, encourage and finance banks and other businesses to use social networks appropriately and effectively. These strategies can be categorized into the actions banks should take to expand social banking in the country and the actions policymakers should take into account in this regard. They are described as follows. Banks’ strategic actions include: provide training to staff on how employees should interact with customers on social networks encompassing general information and education about services, benefits and how to use social banking services for customers and society; motivate customer participation in social banking networks; convergence and integration of various offline and online channels; focus on core banking to expand competitiveness; pay attention to sustainable and green development in providing social banking services; analysis of the competitive environment in banking and other financial industries; designing a portfolio of social services for customers and allocation of budget and resources for development of social banking services and participation with other institutions and operators in providing financial and non-financial services. Policymakers’ actions include: adopt motivational policies for participation and use of social networks; education and awareness for different stakeholders; review and update the policies and rules of IT and social networks; establish appropriate laws to protect rights of employees and customers; invest in market and university studies on social banking and related services; develop policies for using in-house software and update rules and policies for small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Social banking is in its infancy in Iran and few banks deliver services of social banking in a limited scope. There is no technology roadmap for this purpose in Iran. This research presents a technology roadmap for social banking in Iran (and can be adopted for banks of other developing countries) and gives a comprehensive plan for banks to design products and services based on their capacities and create required programs to implement and improve them. The application of technology roadmapping in the field of social banking is new.

The purpose of this paper is to present and evaluate the performance of innovation systems by considering two indicators of efficiency and effectiveness. The scope of the evaluation is globally and due to the situation of each country, the suggested strategies are proposed to maintain the status quo or move toward the desired situation for countries.

The approach is to compare and benchmark the countries in terms of the efficiency and effectiveness of their innovation system. The Global Innovation Index report’s input-to-output ratio and the global competitiveness report are used for the assessment.

The findings indicate that countries such as China, Switzerland and the USA have an efficient and effective innovation system. However, the innovation systems in countries such as Brazil and Zimbabwe are not only inefficient but also ineffective. The findings also indicate that the innovation systems of countries such as Iran, Armenia and Egypt are efficient but ineffective. Finally, the authors can name Australia, Qatar and Russia as countries with effective but inefficient innovation systems.

Assessment of national innovation system using efficiency and effectiveness performances is done for the first time at the global stage.