External Knowledge and Innovation Performance in Clusters: Empirical Evidence from the Uruguay Software Cluster

The importance of geographic proximity for innovation has been widely stressed in the cluster literature. Yet, new insights from the inter-organisational network and cluster literatures underline the role of non-local linkages in enabling firms in networks to enhance learning and to innovate. This paper contributes to this literature by examining the importance of local and non-local knowledge networks for the innovation performance of firms in clusters. Our analysis is based on primary data from a survey of 95 software firms clustered in Montevideo, Uruguay. The results highlight that the most innovative firms in clusters heavily rely on non-local knowledge networks. Moreover, the number of indirect local ties to other firms is a better predictor of innovative performance than the number of direct local ties. Finally, our findings confirm the presence of knowledge gatekeepers in clusters and emphasise their role in enhancing innovation in clusters by absorbing knowledge from extra-cluster sources and diffusing it to other local firms.     

Patterns of Innovation in Industrial Districts: An Empirical Analysis

Research has proved how the industrial district model can deliver sustained economic growth and sustains firms' competitiveness. Studies have also shown how spatial proximity helps in the process of knowledge generation and diffusion. Indeed, the literature on industrial districts since the earliest studies has stressed how districts are “loci” where sustained innovation activity is undertaken. However, this innovative dimension of districts' activities has not yet been fully explored. Sufficient theoretical background and empirical evidence as to whether the peculiar socio-economic characteristics of the industrial district model influence firms' innovation performance and the way innovation activity is carried out is lacking. The aim of this paper is thus to explore the determinants of innovation activities in firms located inside and outside industrial districts in the Italian region of Lombardy, investigating whether the district provides a favourable environment for the development of innovations and identify possible competitive advantages.     

Innovation in Industrial Districts: Evidence from Italy

The aim of this paper is to show that Italian manufacturing firms belonging to Marshallian industrial districts carry out a higher innovative effort than is usually acknowledged. The empirical analysis makes use of a panel of 1,218 district and non-district firms belonging to traditional sectors. Data refers to the years 1992 and 1995. We have estimated an augmented Cobb-Douglas production function. The estimates make it possible to empirically identify three different determinants of firms' productivity: (i) the intentional innovative activity; (ii) the “district effect”; and (iii) the joint district and innovation effect. The results show that firms' membership in industrial districts and product innovations are key factors in explaining the productivity of firms working in traditional Italian sectors.     

Comparing a Pharmaceutical and an Agro-food Bioregion: On the Importance of Knowledge Bases for Socio-spatial Patterns of Innovation

The aim of this paper is to compare the socio-spatial patterns of innovation and knowledge linkages of a biopharmaceutical and an agro-food biotech cluster. Dissimilarities can be expected based on differences in terms of historical technological regimes and sectoral innovation system dynamics between the agro-food and pharmaceutical industries in general and particularly the distinctive analytical (science-based) knowledge base of biopharmaceuticals in contrast with the more synthetic (engineering-based) knowledge base of agro-food biotechnology. Drawing on bibliometric data and case material the study compares two representative bioregions: a biopharmaceutical cluster in Scania, Sweden and an agro-food biotech cluster in Saskatoon, Canada. The empirical study supports the theoretical expectations and shows that knowledge dynamics in the agro-food cluster are more localized than in the biopharmaceuticals cluster. It is important, however, to acknowledge that these differences are relative. Both sectors display local and non-local patterns of collaboration following the general pattern for biotechnology.     

Local Knowledge Spillovers and Development: An Exploration of the Software Cluster in Uruguay

The paper contributes to the understanding of the nature of local knowledge spillovers and their importance for innovation in clusters in developing countries. Using detailed primary data about a cluster of software firms in Montevideo, Uruguay, the paper finds plenty of evidence of the existence of pure unintentional knowledge spillovers. In addition, it supports previous theoretical studies that have contended that there are also many knowledge flows that are to some degree produced purposively by local parties—these flows can be placed somewhere in between pure spillovers and pure market transactions. While the respondents themselves place most value on knowledge flows that are more or less purposively co-produced with customer transactions, a more objective statistical analysis shows that good product/service-innovation performance is associated with intensive use of flows with more pronounced spillover characteristics. The respondents possibly underrate the latter because of their invisibility and spontaneous nature. Heavy use of knowledge flows lying close to the market-transaction side of the spectrum is found to be associated with relatively advanced organizational capability, but not with product innovation. Overall, the findings point towards the relevance of cluster-based policies to promote innovation in a less developed country context. Various policy measures to stimulate the local circulation of knowledge are suggested.     

Geographies of Knowledge Formation in Firms

This paper focuses on the spatial dimension of learning in firms. It works with important new insights in economic geography that stress the role of spatial proximity and territorial embeddedness in the process of knowledge formation, but it also seeks to go beyond them by recognizing learning based on relations at a distance. The paper defines space as a network of both contiguous and non-contiguous relations of varying length, shape and duration, where knowing can involve all manner of spatial mobilizations, including placements of task teams in neutral spaces, face-to-face encounters, global networks held together by travel and virtual communications, flows of ideas and information through the supply chain, and trans-corporate thought experiments and symbolic rituals.     

试论知识经济时代的工业工程

在知识经济时代,工业工程的内容发生了很大的变化。本文分析了知识经济时代的主要特点,分析了知识经济时代工业工程的特点和方向,最后介绍了面向知识经济时代的工业工程的一些关键研究课题。     

The Role of Participation Architecture in Growing Sponsored Open Source Communities

Most research on open source software communities has focused on those that are community founded. More recently, firms have founded their own open source communities. How do sponsored open source communities differ from their autonomous counterparts? With comparative examination of 12 open source projects initiated by corporate sponsors, we identify three design parameters that together help form a participation architecture—the opportunity structure extended to potential external contributors. In exploring sponsors' community design decisions, we found that sponsored open source projects were more likely to offer transparency than they were accessibility and that this had implications for their communities' growth. We contribute theoretical constructs that offer a common basis of comparison for the future study of open source projects and illustrate how the tension between control and growth affects open source community design and creation.     

Communities of Consumption and Made in Italy

The interest towards the role of user communities in innovation has grown among scholars and practitioners. Research has explored the role of communities in high-tech and medium-tech industries with a focus on innovation in the functional dimension of products. Less attention has been devoted to user communities' contribution in industries such as fashion, where innovation is much more related to communication and aesthetics. This paper provides a preliminary set of concepts and working hypotheses regarding the contribution of communities to the non-functional dimension of product innovation in low-tech industries and to the relationship between user involvement in brand communities and their incentives to contribute to innovation both tangible and intangible. The paper discusses two case studies of Made in Italy enterprises that refer to communities for their innovation strategies.     

论高等工程教育与社会合作的时代特征

在高等教育大众化进程中，高等工程教育与社会的关系更加密切、合作趋势日趋明显，高等工科院校与社会的合作关系越来越复杂。与社会开展合作时，高等工程教育界要根据合作双方的目标与要求，研究工科院校与社会合作的时代特征，充分调动校内外资源，开展多种形式社会合作，提高工程技术人才培养质量，促进高等工程教育发展。     

论模型制作及在工业设计中的应用

通过从不同材料和各个设计过程等方面对模型进行分析,探讨不同类型的模型对工业设计的作用,使设计师能全面了解模型的意义及内涵,更好地把握模型制作这一重要设计过程,从而提高自身的综合素质和设计能力,共同推进工业设计的研发过程,促进设计的整体发展.     

External and Internal Knowledge in the Knowledge Generation Function

This paper explores the role of internal and external knowledge in the generation of new technological knowledge. It implements the notion of recombinant knowledge generation function with the appreciation of: (i) the complementary—as opposed to supplementary—role of external knowledge and (ii) the role of the size and composition of the internal stock of knowledge. The empirical section is based upon a panel of companies listed on the main European financial markets for the period 1995–2006. The econometric analysis is based on simultaneous equations. The results confirm that R&D efforts and external knowledge are indispensable inputs into the generation of new technological knowledge.     

浅谈入世后中国工业设计的方向

文章简明阐述了中国工业设计的现状,分析了“入世”对中国工业设计的冲击及自身的优势,并指出了发展方向－走有民族特色的设计发展道路。     

The Dynamics of Knowledge-intensive Sectors' Knowledge Base: Evidence from Biotechnology and Telecommunications

In this paper, we present a methodology to represent and measure knowledge which takes into account knowledge heterogeneity and its sectoral level theoretical and empirical implications in knowledge intensive environments. We draw on work on recombinant knowledge, extending the approach to include the way the dynamics of technological knowledge creation evolves according to a life cycle; testing the existence of concepts such as technological paradigms; mapping the characteristics of the search process in the phases of exploration and exploitation during this technology life cycle and detecting the differences in sectoral evolution that can be explained by the properties of the knowledge base. We use European Patent Office data (1981–2005) to propose some operational metrics for the knowledge base and its evolution in two knowledge intensive sectors: biotechnology and telecommunications. Our empirical results show that there are interesting and meaningful differences across sectors, which are linked to the different phases of the technology life cycles.     

知识论框架通向信息-知识-智能统一的理论

知识是人类所创造的宝贵财富,但至今没有形成系统的知识理论。章旨在提出和建立知识论的框架体系,包括它的基础和主体两部分。基础部分主要给出知识的概念、定义、表示、度量、推理和决策规则;主体部分的核心是阐明由信息提炼知识(知识生成)以及由知识形成智能(知识激活)的机理。知识论的建立将为信息论-知识论-智能论的统一理论奠定坚实的基础,促进人们在更高的水平上利用信息和知识,研究、设计和应用各种智能机器,推动经济和社会的发展。     

The Business Governance of Localized Knowledge: An Information Economics Approach for the Economics of Knowledge

Information economics provides important tools to articulate an economics analysis of the governance mechanisms for the generation and exploitation of localized technological knowledge. A variety of hybrid forms of knowledge governance ranging from coordinated transactions and constructed interactions to quasi-hierarchies can be found between the two unrealistic extremes of pure markets and pure organizations. The notion of localized technological knowledge as a highly heterogeneous dynamic process characterized by varying levels of appropriability, tacitness, unpredictability and indivisibility, which take the forms of complementarity and modularity, cumulability, compositeness, fungibility, helps to grasp the logic behind the variety of knowledge governance mechanisms at work. The analysis of transaction, agency and communication costs provides basic guidance to elaborate an integrated framework able to understand the matching between types of knowledge and modes and mechanisms of knowledge governance both in generation and exploitation.     

Dynamics of a Toroidal Plasma Cluster and Its Interaction with an Obstacle. Ionization and Dynamic Characteristics and Electromagnetic Radiation

The results are given of the calculation of the ionization and dynamic characteristics of incident and reflected flows of plasma under conditions of significant variation of the initial characteristics of plasma. Investigations are performed of the radiation, as well as of electromagnetic fields arising during the interaction of plasma clusters.     

Sharing Tacit Knowledge Online: A Case Study of e-Learning in Cisco's Network of System Integrator Partner Firms

This paper contributes to an ongoing debate about the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on the interpersonal sharing of tacit knowledge. Drawing upon the philosophical writings of Michael Polanyi and an original case study of e-learning in Cisco Systems, the paper challenges the widespread argument that ICT-mediated communication is inadequate for the sharing of tacit knowledge. The main conclusion is that advanced e-learning systems—particularly remote laboratories—make possible efficient sharing of tacit knowledge between internationally dispersed technicians. However, successful knowledge-sharing depends crucially on the degree to which the users are motivated to acquire new knowledge online. Motivation can be facilitated through the participation in online networks of practice, but in order to access and benefit from these networks people require a certain threshold level of technical relevant knowledge, which is the most easily generated in local communities of practice.     

Transforming Industrial Districts: Large Firms and Small Business Networks in the Italian Eyewear Industry

This study is an evolutionary comparative analysis of how large, vertically integrated firms and networks of small firms perform, in response to the challenges posed by globalization. It focuses on the Italian eyewear industry which represents an ideal laboratory for studying the establishment and transformation of such diverse production models under ceteris paribus conditions (same industry, same challenges, same product, and same geographical location). Looking at longitudinal statistical data for the Belluno eyewear district and case studies of the four leading companies in the industry, this study demonstrates that, locally embedded networks of small firms no longer represent an organizational structure as robust and stable as in the past. Globalization challenges such networks and demands adjustments that transform the nature of the Belluno eyewear district, away from the traditional stereotype so widespread in the literature, towards a configuration characterized by the presence of leading firms and moderate hierarchy.