This article provides an extensive analysis of the technological specialisation of three Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil and Mexico) and two East Asian countries (South Korea and Taiwan). ...Technological specialisation is measured both with respect to patents and trade flows. This article provides different measures of technological specialisation: Ricardian and Smithian specialisation indexes and the contribution to trade balance. These indicators provide a new picture of the evolution of the patterns of technological specialisation. Latin American countries show a divergent technological specialisation from East Asian countries, since the 1970s. In particular, Latin American countries display weaknesses in computers and communications and electrical and electronic sectors and their specialisation in fast growing technological classes is declining, in contrast to East Asian countries. While East Asian countries have shifted to specialised supplier or science-based sectors, Latin American countries have increased their trade specialisation in supplier-dominated or scale-intensive sectors.
During January-December 2004, Marcela Miozzo will be visiting the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Buenos Aires.
E-mail: hsintinghuang@hotmail.com
The paper examines the relationship between corporate governance and innovation in the Chinese banking sector. Drawing on interviews with senior managers and employees in state-owned, joint-holding ...and foreign banks, we examine the nature of the challenges faced by different types of firms in the context of reform and globalisation. Firms with different ownership structures respond to the challenges in ways that reflect different resource allocation and commitment mechanisms. State-owned and joint-holding firms have access to large-scale resources for innovation but face restrictions to commit these resources to innovation. Ambiguity of responsibility forces managers of stateowned firms to pursue short-term strategies. Also, managers of state-owned firms must bear the responsibility for social security and employment. Foreign firms have access to large-scale resources through their global networks and good reputation, but their strategies are set at the (regional) headquarters level. They have superior management and technology systems but lack close relations with government and regulatory bodies.
Based on data collected through a complex survey of science and engineering PhD graduates from a UK research-based university, this paper examines the different types of careers and to what extent ...different types of competences acquired from doctoral education are regarded as valuable in the different career types. The results show that employment outside the conventional technical occupations is the main destination for the survey respondents. This career type is not only successful at retaining its members, but is also the destination of the other career types. Moreover, different types of competences from doctoral education are regarded as relatively more valuable in different career types: knowledge directly tied to subject areas is regarded as more valuable in academia/public research; both knowledge directly tied to subject areas (but more general type of knowledge rather than specialist knowledge in PhD topics) and the more general and transferable skills are regarded as valuable in technical positions in manufacturing; and the general and transferable skills are regarded as more valuable in employment outside the conventional technical occupations. In absolute terms, general analytical skills and problem solving capability acquired from doctoral education are perceived as valuable in all three career types.
This paper applies a ‘sector‐in‐country’ approach to examine the institutional conditions associated with the recent expansion of the information technology services sector in the UK. The findings ...reveal both synergies and tensions between the business and employment conditions of the sector and the wider institutional characteristics of the UK employment model.
A pessoa que tem apenas resquícios ou não possui o sentido da visão necessita de auxílio para se orientar e movimentar. A tecnologia assistiva denominada bengala longa, ou bengala branca, é a mais ...comumente utilizada para este fim. Porém, por ser também um objeto identificador da deficiência visual, em muitos casos, é rejeitada por seus potenciais usuários. Existem muitos fatores de ordem prática que incomodam esses usuários, entretanto, a aparência da bengala é um aspecto ainda pouco explorado, mas que também contribui para esta rejeição, principalmente por parte de mulheres com a deficiência visual adquirida, que possuem acentuada vaidade e recordações visuais de sua vida anterior à cegueira. Dessa forma, com o objetivo de melhorar aspectos práticos e estéticos da bengala longa, foi realizada uma pesquisa com mulheres entre 19 e 65 anos no Instituto Paranaense de Cegos, a fim de identificar quais características poderiam ser melhoradas no objeto para minimizar sua rejeição. Para isso, foram utilizadas ferramentas derivadas da abordagem Human-centered design, que possibilitam uma maior interação e consequente aproximação da realidade desses usuários. A partir das informações coletadas, foi desenvolvido um conceito de bengala feminina customizável, com partes móveis que permitem às usuárias variar a aparência do objeto conforme seu gosto pessoal ou situação de uso.
Drawing on case studies of two leading UK service firms in five host countries (Argentina, Brazil, China, Korea and Malaysia), we examine how the strategy and organization of service multinationals ...shape the development of linkages with local firms in host economies. We find that there is reduced autonomy of subsidiaries to engage with local firms as a result of relatively centralized strategies of multinationals. Because of global policies ensuring consistency of services or global sourcing policies to reduce costs, service multinationals tend to prefer global suppliers. Backward linkages occur in a few cases when the relationship can be a vehicle for market expansion for the multinational in a particular host market. Local governments play an important role in the cases where backward linkages are developed.
Future disruptive, pervasive technologies will have important consequences for industrial structure, economic growth and the environment. Drawing on theories of technological diffusion, industrial ...evolution and long-term technological change this paper explores the effect of the development and diffusion of two future pervasive technologies on five industrial sectors in three regions during the 21st century in terms of their effect on economic structural change. Through semi-structured interviews with over 100 experts in the two technologies, the paper quantifies the effects of future biotechnologies and nanotechnologies on the industrial structure of the EU, USA and China in 2020 and 2050. The paper finds that as a result of the development and diffusion of future biotechnologies and nanotechnologies, some industries grow whilst others decline and some new ones emerge. The evidence suggests that the effect is different across countries and time; whereas the experts commonly believe that effect of the technologies on the industrial structure of the EU and US is likely to be similar, the effect in China is considered to be less by 2020 but the same as in the EU and US by 2050. This finding has important implications for the location of production, economic growth and energy demand in the future.
Towards understanding innovation in construction Miozzo, Marcela; Dewick, Paul
Building research and information : the international journal of research, development and demonstration,
20/1/1/, Volume:
33, Issue:
1
Journal Article
