Inter-organisational networks, value creation and the process of technology integration in research and development

Traditional methods of R&D management are no longer sufficient for embracing innovations and leveraging complex new technologies to fully integrated positions in established systems. This paper presents the view that the technology integration process is a result of fundamental interactions embedded in inter-organisational activities. Emerging industries, high technology companies and knowledge intensive organisations owe a large part of their viability to complex networks of inter-organisational interactions and relationships. R&D organisations are the gatekeepers in the technology integration process with their initial sanction and motivation to develop technologies providing the first point of entry. Networks rely on the activities of stakeholders to provide the foundations of collaborative R&D activities, business-to-business marketing and strategic alliances. Such complex inter-organisational interactions and relationships influence value creation and organisational goals as stakeholders seek to gain investment opportunities. A theoretical model is developed here that contributes to our understanding of technology integration (adoption) as a dynamic process, which is simultaneously structured and enacted through the activities of stakeholders and organisations in complex inter-organisational networks of sanction and integration.

Gender, computing and the organisation of working time: public/private comparisons in the Australian context

Professional computing employment in Australia, as in most advanced economies, is highly sex segregated, reflecting well-rehearsed ideas about the masculinity of technology and computing culture. In this paper we are concerned with the processes of work organisation that sustain and reproduce this gendered occupational distribution, focusing in particular on differences and similarities in working-time arrangements between public and private sectors in the Australian context. While information technology companies are often highly competitive workplaces with individualised working arrangements, computing professionals work in a wide range of organisations with different regulatory histories and practices. Our goal is to investigate the implications of these variations for gender equity outcomes, using the public/private divide as indicative of different regulatory frameworks. We draw on Australian census data and a series of organisational case studies to compare working-time arrangements in professional computing employment across sectors, and to examine the various ways employees adapt and respond. Our analysis identifies a stronger ‘long hours culture’ in the private sector, but also underlines the rarity of part-time work in both sectors, and suggests that men and women tend to respond in different ways to these constraints. Although the findings highlight the importance of regulatory frameworks, the organisation of working time across sectors appears to be sustaining rather than challenging gender inequalities in computing employment.

Identification of success and failure factors for technology transfer in biotechnology: case studies and surveys from Academic Sinica in Taiwan

Academia Sinica is the leading research institute in Taiwan founded in 1928. Its Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) was established in 1998. It made great efforts to dramatically turn around the technology transfer activity of Academia Sinica, especially in biotechnology. Academia Sinica has more than 80 cases of experience in biotechnology transfer with companies in Taiwanese industry in the past five years. The purpose of this study is to identify potential success and failure factors for biotechnology transfer in Taiwan. Eight cases were studied through in-depth interview. The results of the analysis were used to design two surveys to further investigate 81 cases (48 successful and 33 failure cases) of biotechnology transfer in Academia Sinica from 1999–2003. The results indicated that 10 of the 14 success factors were cited in more than 40% of the cases as contributing to the success of technology transfer. By contrast, only 5 out of 16 key factors were present in more than 30% of the failure cases.