From evolution to co-evolution – An empirical study of the role of innovation, policy and public research in industrial dynamics

In the past decades since Schumpeter’s influential writings economists have pursued research to examine the role of innovation in certain industries on firm as well as on industry level. Researchers describe innovations as the main trigger of industry dynamics, while policy makers argue that research and education are directly linked to economic growth and welfare. Thus, research and education are an important objective of public policy. Firms and public research are regarded as the main actors which are relevant for the creation of new knowledge. This knowledge is finally brought to the market through innovations. What is more, policy makers support innovations. Both actors, i.e. policy makers and researchers, agree that innovation plays a central role but researchers still neglect the role that public policy plays in the field of industrial dynamics. Therefore, the main objective of this work is to learn more about the interdependencies of innovation, policy and public research in industrial dynamics. The overarching research question of this dissertation asks whether it is possible to analyze patterns of industry evolution – from evolution to co-evolution – based on empirical studies of the role of innovation, policy and public research in industrial dynamics. This work starts with a hypothesis-based investigation of traditional approaches of industrial dynamics. Namely, the testing of a basic assumption of the core models of industrial dynamics and the analysis of the evolutionary patterns – though with an industry which is driven by public policy as example. Subsequently it moves to a more explorative approach, investigating co-evolutionary processes. The underlying questions of the research include the following: Do large firms have an advantage because of their size which is attributable to cost spreading? Do firms that plan to grow have more innovations? What role does public policy play for the evolutionary patterns of an industry? Are the same evolutionary patterns observable as those described in the ILC theories? And is it possible to observe regional co-evolutionary processes of science, innovation and industry evolution? Based on two different empirical contexts – namely the laser and the photovoltaic industry – this dissertation tries to answer these questions and combines an evolutionary approach with a co-evolutionary approach. The first chapter starts with an introduction of the topic and the fields this dissertation is based on. The second chapter provides a new test of the Cohen and Klepper (1996) model of cost spreading, which explains the relationship between innovation, firm size and R&D, at the example of the photovoltaic industry in Germany. First, it is analyzed whether the cost spreading mechanism serves as an explanation for size advantages in this industry. This is related to the assumption that the incentives to invest in R&D increase with the ex-ante output. Furthermore, it is investigated whether firms that plan to grow will have more innovative activities. The results indicate that cost spreading serves as an explanation for size advantages in this industry and, furthermore, growth plans lead to higher amount of innovative activities. What is more, the role public policy plays for industry evolution is not finally analyzed in the field of industrial dynamics. In the case of Germany, the introduction of demand inducing policy instruments stimulated market and industry growth. While this policy immediately accelerated market volume, the effect on industry evolution is more ambiguous. Thus, chapter three analyzes this relationship by considering a model of industry evolution, where demand-inducing policies will be discussed as a possible trigger of development. The findings suggest that these instruments can take the same effect as a technical advance to foster the growth of an industry and its shakeout. The fourth chapter explores the regional co-evolution of firm population size, private-sector patenting and public research in the empirical context of German laser research and manufacturing over more than 40 years from the emergence of the industry to the mid-2000s. The qualitative as well as quantitative evidence is suggestive of a co-evolutionary process of mutual interdependence rather than a unidirectional effect of public research on private-sector activities. Chapter five concludes with a summary, the contribution of this work as well as the implications and an outlook of further possible research.

Femtosecond probing of sodium cluster ion Na_n ^+ fragmentation

We report on the first femtosecond time-resolved experiments in cluster physics. The photofragmentation dynamics of small sodium cluster ions Na_n ^+ have been studied with pump-probe techniques. Ultrashort laser pulses of 60-fs duration are employed to photoionize the sodium clusters and to probe the photofragments. We find that the ejection of neutral dimer Na_2 and, observed for the first time, neutral trimer Na_3 photofragments occur on ultrashort time scales of 2.5 and 0.4 ps, respectively. This and the absence of cluster heating reveals that direct photoinduced fragmentation processes are important at short times rather than the statistical unimolecular decay.

Femtosecond dynamics of molecular and cluster ionization and fragmentation

The real-time dynamics of molecular (Na_2 . Na_3) and cluster Na_n (n=4-2l) multiphoton ionization and -fragmentation has been studied in beam experiments applying femtosecond pump-probe techniques in combination with ion and electron spectroscopy. Wave packet motion in the dimer Na_2 reveals two independent multiphoton ionization processes while the higher dimensional motion in the trimer Na_3 reflects the chaotic vibrational motion in this floppy system. The first studies of cluster properties (energy, bandwidth and lifetime of intermediate resonances Na^*_n) ) with femtosecond laser pulses give a striking illustration of the transition from "molecule-like" excitations to "surfaceplasma"-like resonances for increasing cluster sizes. Time-resolved fragmentation of cluster ions Na_n^* indicate that direct photo-induced fragmentation processes are more important at short times than the statistical unimolecular decay.

Innovation and Globalization Policy in Small Transition Countries ; Case study: Macedonia and Slovenia

Diese Arbeit befasst sich mit der Innovations- und Globalisierungspolitik in kleinen Transformationsländern am Beispiel Mazedoniens; diese wurde mit der Lage in Slowenien verglichen, einem Land von ungefähr gleicher Größe und mit gemeinsamer Vergangenheit als Teilrepublik der Jugoslawischen Föderation, aber mit einem wesentlich höheren ökonomischen Entwicklungsstand. Innovation wird dabei verstanden als „Herstellung, Anpassung und Ausnutzung von Neuerungen“, und sie wird durch das Umfeld, in dem sie stattfindet, beeinflusst. Anpassung und Ausnutzung sind gerade für kleine Transformationsländer von erheblicher Bedeutung, da ihre Fähigkeit zu Herstellung von Neuerungen sehr begrenzt sind. Die Rolle der Innovationspolitik besteht hierbei darin, institutionelle und organisationelle Regulierungen einzuführen, die ein günstiges Umfeld sowohl für Innovationen als auch für die Entwicklung eines nationalen Innovationssystems schaffen. Die Rolle der Politik besteht also nicht in der Innovation als solcher, sondern in der Herstellung der notwendigen Bedingungen für die Industrie und die Forschungseinrichtungen dahingehend zu schaffen, dass sie ihr Wissen, ihre Fertigkeiten und ihre praktischen Erfahrungen für innovative Tätigkeiten einsetzen können. Auf der einen Seite gibt es Institutionen und Organisationen, ohne die die Unternehmen rückständig und wenig leistungsstark wären (etwa das Patentamt oder Institutionen höherer Bildung), und auf der anderen Seite gibt es Institutionen und Organisationen, welche die Unternehmen dabei unterstützen, dass sie ihre Tätigkeit weiter unterstützen (z.B. durch Technologietransfer-Zentren und Netzwerke). Die Leistungen dieser Institutionen und Organisationen sind von großer Bedeutung für die nationalen Innovationssysteme und sollten ihrerseits durch Innovationspolitik unterstützt werden; dies bedeutet jedoch nicht, dass diese Leistungen vom Staat bereitgestellt werden, vielmehr sollte die Wirtschaftspolitik Möglichkeiten für die öffentlich/private oder sogar rein private Bereitstellung solcher Leistungen in Erwägung ziehen; dies würde nicht nur die Kosten für den Staat senken, sondern auch die Effizienz bei der Erstellung dieser Leistungen steigern. Die Arbeit kommt zu dem Schluss, dass das größte Problem der Innovationspolitik in Mazedonien darin besteht, dass es sie gar nicht gibt, und zwar nicht als Folge einer bewussten Entscheidung darüber. Tatsächlich müssen Ressourcen und Zeit für die Schaffung eines nationalen Innovationssystems eingesetzt werden mit Hilfe einer Politik, die sich auf die wesentlichen Umrisse konzentriert, wobei die Nachfrage nach Technologie im Unternehmensbereich gesteigert wird und das Wissen und das Informationsangebot restrukturiert wird. Dieses System muss offen sein, unter beständigem Verbesserungsdruck stehen und fähig sein, sich an Veränderungen anzupassen. Damit eine solche Politik erfolgreich ist, muss es einen Konsens darüber zwischen allen beteiligten Akteuren geben und darüber hinaus auch eine Kohärenz zwischen den verschiedenen politischen Institutionen. Das ist deswegen wichtig, weil der Innovationsprozess komplex ist und verschiedene Politikbereiche berührt. Ziel sollte die Schaffung eines Systems sein, das einerseits auf Autonomie und Kooperation aufbaut, andererseits aber auch Wettbewerb zwischen den beteiligten Institutionen und Organisationen fördert. Eine wichtige Bedingung für ein positives Investitionsklima im Bereich der Innovation ist die Erreichung von makroökonomischer Stabilität. Die gegenwärtige Situation ist gekennzeichnet durch Instabilität des Rechtswesens, durch Korruption und Probleme des Vertragsschutzes, die sowohl ausländische als auch inländische Akteure davon abhält, sich in wirtschaftlichen Aktivitäten in Mazedonien zu engagieren. Bei der Suche nach einem Ausweg aus diesen Problemen ist es wichtig für Mazedonien, von anderen Ländern wie Slowenien zu lernen, die ähnliche Probleme haben, aber auch schon Erfahrungen in der Problemlösung. Man muss dabei beachten, dass der Entwicklungsstand, das wirtschaftliche und das politische Umfeld in beiden Vergleichsländern sich erheblich unterscheiden, so dass die Lektionen, die Mazedonien von Slowenien lernen könnte, nicht direkt übertragen und kopiert werden können, sondern entsprechend angepasst werden müssen. Die vorliegende Arbeit liefert Einsichten in die Probleme der Innovationspolitik in Transformationsländern und liefert daher sowohl einen Anreiz als auch eine Quelle von Informationen für künftige Analysen der wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen und vor allem Innovationspolitik in Transformationsländern.

The Surface Plasmon Resonance of Supported Noble Metal Nanoparticles: Characterization, Laser Tailoring, and SERS Application

This work deals with the optical properties of supported noble metal nanoparticles, which are dominated by the so-called Mie resonance and are strongly dependent on the particles’ morphology. For this reason, characterization and control of the dimension of these systems are desired in order to optimize their applications. Gold and silver nanoparticles have been produced on dielectric supports like quartz glass, sapphire and rutile, by the technique of vapor deposition under ultra-high vacuum conditions. During the preparation, coalescence is observed as an important mechanism of cluster growth. The particles have been studied in situ by optical transmission spectroscopy and ex situ by atomic force microscopy. It is shown that the morphology of the aggregates can be regarded as oblate spheroids. A theoretical treatment of their optical properties, based on the quasistatic approximation, and its combination with results obtained by atomic force microscopy give a detailed characterization of the nanoparticles. This method has been compared with transmission electron microscopy and the results are in excellent agreement. Tailoring of the clusters’ dimensions by irradiation with nanosecond-pulsed laser light has been investigated. Selected particles are heated within the ensemble by excitation of the Mie resonance under irradiation with a tunable laser source. Laser-induced coalescence prevents strongly tailoring of the particle size. Nevertheless, control of the particle shape is possible. Laser-tailored ensembles have been tested as substrates for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), leading to an improvement of the results. Moreover, they constitute reproducible, robust and tunable SERS-substrates with a high potential for specific applications, in the present case focused on environmental protection. Thereby, these SERS-substrates are ideally suited for routine measurements.

Time-resolved studies of neutral and ionized Na_n clusters with femtosecond light pulses

The real-time dynamics of Na_n (n=3-21) cluster multiphoton ionization and fragmentation has been studied in beam experiments applying femtosecond pump-probe techniques in combination with ion and electron spectroscopy. Three dimensional wave packet motions in the trimer Na_3 ground state X and excited state B have been observed. We report the first study of cluster properties (energy, bandwidth and lifetime of intermediate resonances Na_n^*) with femtosecond laser pulses. The observation of four absorption resonances for the cluster Na_8 with different energy widths and different decay patterns is more difficult to interpret by surface plasmon like resonances than by molecular structure and dynamics. Timeresolved fragmentation of cluster ions Na_n^+ indicates that direct photo-induced fragmentation processes are more important at short times than the statistical unimolecular decay.

A Study of a Comprehensive Career Services System in Chinese Universities

Since 1999, with the adoption of expansion policy in higher education by the Chinese government, enrollment and graduate numbers have been increasing at an unprecedented speed. Accustomed to a system in which university graduates were placed, many students are not trained in “selling themselves”, which exacerbates the situation leading to a skyrocketing unemployment rate among new graduates. The idea of emphasizing career services comes with increasing employment pressure among university graduates in recent years. The 1998 “Higher Education Act” made it a legislative requirement. Thereafter, the Ministry of Education issued a series of documents in order to promote the development of career services. All higher education institutions are required to set up special career service centers and to set a ratio of 1:500 between career staff and the total number of students. Related career management courses, especially career planning classes, are required to be clearly included as specific modules into the teaching plan with a requirement of no less than 38 sessions in one semester at all universities. Developing career services in higher education has thus become a hot issue. One of the more notable trends in higher education in recent years has been the transformation of university career service centers from merely being the coordinators of on-campus placement into full service centers for international career development. The traditional core of career services in higher education had been built around guidance, information and placements (Watts, 1997). This core was still in place, but the role of higher education career services has changed considerably in recent years and the nature of each part is being transformed (Watts, 1997). Most services are undertaking a range of additional activities, and the career guidance issue is emphasized much more than before. Career management courses, especially career planning classes, are given special focus in developing career services in the Chinese case. This links career services clearly and directly with the course provision function. In China, most career service centers are engaging in the transformation period from a “management-oriented” organization to a “service-oriented” organization. Besides guidance services, information services and placement activities, there is a need to blend them together with the new additional teaching function, which follows the general trend as regulated by the government. The role of career services has been expanding and this has brought more challenges to its development in Chinese higher education. Chinese universities still remain in the period of exploration and establishment in developing their own career services. In the face of the new situation, it is very important and meaningful to explore and establish a comprehensive career services system to address student needs in the universities. A key part in developing this system is the introduction of career courses and delivering related career management skills to the students. So there is the need to restructure the career service sectors within the Chinese universities in general. The career service centers will operate as a hub and function as a spoke in the wheel of this model system, providing support and information to staff located in individual teaching departments who are responsible for the delivery of career education, information, advice and guidance. The career service centers will also provide training and career planning classes. The purpose of establishing a comprehensive career services system is to provide a strong base for student career development. The students can prepare themselves well in psychology, ideology and ability before employment with the assistance of effective career services. To conclude, according to the different characteristics and needs of students, there will be appropriate services and guidance in different stages and different ways. In other words, related career services and career guidance activities would be started for newly enrolled freshmen and continue throughout their whole university process. For the operation of a comprehensive services system, there is a need for strong support by the government in the form of macro-control and policy guarantee, but support by the government in the form of macro-control and policy guarantee, but also a need for close cooperation with the academic administration and faculties to be actively involved in career planning and employment programs. As an integral function within the universities, career services must develop and maintain productive relationships with relevant campus offices and key stakeholders both within the universities and externally.

Social Inequality and Social Policy outside the OECD

Almost all Latin American countries are still marked by extreme forms of social inequality – and to an extent, this seems to be the case regardless of national differences in the economic development model or the strength of democracy and the welfare state. Recent research highlights the fact that the heterogeneous labour markets in the region are a key source of inequality. At the same time, there is a strengthening of ‘exclusive’ social policy, which is located at the fault lines of the labour market and is constantly (re-)producing market-mediated disparities. In the last three decades, this type of social policy has even enjoyed democratic legitimacy. These dynamics challenge many of the assumptions guiding social policy and democratic theory, which often attempt to account for the specificities of the region by highlighting the purported flaws of certain policies. We suggest taking a different perspective: social policy in Latin American should not be grasped as a deficient or flawed type of social policy, but as a very successful relation of political domination. ‘Relational social analysis’ locates social policy in the ‘tension zone’ constituted by the requirements of economic reproduction, demands for democratic legitimacy and the relative autonomy of the state. From this vantage point, we will make the relation of domination in question accessible for empirical research. It seems particularly useful for this purpose to examine the recent shifts in the Latin American labour markets, which have undergone numerous reforms. We will examine which mechanisms, institutions and constellations of actors block or activate the potentials of redistribution inherent in such processes of political reform. This will enable us to explore the socio-political field of forces that has been perpetuating the social inequalities in Latin America for generations.

The role of institutions as actors influencing Uganda’s cassava sector

We aim at mapping out a detailed framework that reveals the proportionate flow of cassava and its products along the value chain (VC). Furthermore, we aim at establishing the role of institutions and the linkages between institutions and other VC actors that influence the cassava VC in Uganda. We use both primary and secondary data obtained from four regions in Uganda. Results show that farmers, processors, transporters, traders, consumers and institutions are the major actors. There are four categories of institutions, viz, government, non-government, community based organisations and international agencies. Roles performed by institutions include: development and enforcement of policies, Research and Development (R&D), capacity building, and creation of market access linkages for cassava and its products. Findings reveal that there is no clear nexus and no coordination among farmers/producers, processors, traders, transporters and consumers. However, institutions are well coordinated and play various roles along the VC to influence the dynamics of actors. Policy-wise it is important to establish strong private-public partnerships to bridge the impaired linkages between the actors (farmers/producers, processors, traders, transporters, and consumers) and institutions. Strong partnerships are envisaged to reduce the associated transaction costs amongst the actors.