Canada has a long history of investing in agricultural research, with public funds playing a dominant role for most crops up until recently. With the advent of biotechnology in the 1980s, the research industry underwent significant transformations. Crops more amenable to the application of DNA modification techniques (e.g., canola) gained considerable attention by the private sector and experienced an influx of private R&D investment and proliferation of intellectual property rights (IPRs). IPRs have changed the nature of knowledge from being non-excludable to being excludable, thus affecting the nature of research benefits and research incentives. The advantages and disadvantages of a stronger IPR system in Canadian agriculture are currently hotly debated in policy circles. <p> This thesis develops a theoretical model that describes the incentives for innovation and the distribution of benefits from research when such innovations are protected by Plant Breeders' Rights (PBRs) versus patents. Specifically, the research industry is modeled as a monopolistic seed company undertaking research, developing a new variety and selling it to heterogeneous farmers. The difference between PBRs and patents is embodied in the farmers' decision that incorporates the possibility of seed saving envisioned by PBRs, but not by patents. The simulation results show that under certain conditions PBRs can be as effective as patents in encouraging R&D activity, and that the share of farmers in total benefits is generally smaller under patents than under PBRs. The benefits under patenting regime, however, are not necessarily smaller in absolute terms. <P>This dissertation also develops a game theoretic model to study the impact of IPRs on the sharing of research inputs. The results reveal that when two private firms compete in a differentiated product market, they will have an incentive to protect their technologies and maintain exclusive rights. Therefore, sharing within private industry may be a challenge. As IPRs proliferate, however, a lack of incentive to share/cross-license may not be confined to private industry. IPRs may also impact the propensity of public researchers to protect or share their technologies. <P>To address the issue of sharing and assess the efficiency of the current IP protection system in the Canadian plant breeding industry, interviews with wheat and canola breeders were conducted. The responses suggest that, in general, patents have become more prevalent in both industries over the last decade, which has, in turn, reduced germplasm and information flows and increased secrecy. There is also evidence that patents undermine R&D efforts in some potentially promising areas of research and make freedom to operate in the breeding industry a concern.

This project examines the theoretical basis for linking industrial clustering to the strategic management of firms. Specifically, a recently deployed theory building framework defined three perspectives on clustering, the competitiveness perspective, the externalities perspective and the territorial perspective, but stopped short of explaining when, where and to whom these perspectives are relevant. This thesis proposes that firms are the central recipient of cluster effects and that the product-based, resource-based and knowledge-based approaches to management provide the theoretical base from which the operational contexts of each cluster perspective can be defined. Three cluster-management relationships are modelled and beta-tested on a sample of cluster-based firms. The empirical analysis is designed to provide feedback to the theory building process and not to prove or disprove the theory itself.<p> The analysis yielded little if any evidence that the proposed cluster-management relationships are present in the sample that was studied. This result was a surprise as the exuberance with which clusters and their benefits are often promoted suggests that in a cluster there should be a pronounced correlation between firm performance and cluster attributes. The statistical limitations of this analysis mean the results can not be inferred to the general population and that the theoretical propositions are not actually disproved. Nonetheless, the muted observations do cast attention on the need for better modelling and measurement instruments in the field of cluster research. In addition, this project initiates a deductive process by which subsequent research can focus on the causal pathways that comprise the phenomenon of industrial clustering; including the pathway that links clusters to firms and then to economic performance.

Innovationer i ett företag är en komplex process men konsensus från forskarvärlden är att innovation är nödvändigt för ett företag ska visa fortsatt tillväxt. Därför är det av stor betydelse att förstå hur ett företag strukturerar sitt arbete med innovationer och vilka utlösande faktorer som påverkar detta arbete. Aktuell litteratur inom området uppmanar till mer forskning för att öka förståelsen för innovationsarbetet och de påverkande faktorerna.   Denna studie har som syfte att undersöka vilka utlösande faktorer som påverkat It-företags innovationsarbete samt hur innovationsarbetet har förändrats. Urvalsföretagen härstammar alla från IT-branschen, där hård konkurrens råder och kravet på nytänkande innovationer är en hygienfaktor vilket gör att innovationsarbetet som möjliggör innovationer är ytterst viktiga.   För att genomföra denna studie har en kvalitativ metod med semistrukturerade intervjuer genomförts. Totalt har åtta företag varit delaktiga i studien, författarna har intervjuat grundare eller produktägare/affärsutvecklare på respektive urvalsföretag. Företagen är verksamma i Sverige och har medvetet valts för att varierat i storlek och ålder för att ge bredd i den insamlade empirin.   Studiens teoretiska referensram berör ämnena; utlösande faktorer samt förändringsprocesser inom innovationsarbetet. Empirin har analyserats med hjälp av en analysmodell baserad på den teoretiska referensramen.   Studien kan identifiera en rad olika faktorer som har påverkat företagens innovationsarbete. Dock kan ingen gemensam nämnare härledas mellan utlösande faktor och konsekvens för innovationsarbetet. Avslutningsvis presenteras förslag på vidare forskning då mer kunskap behövs inom området.

Abstract Authors: Dmitry Moiseev and Polina KorolevaProgram: Leadership and Management in International Context Title: Power of innovative culture within organisations From 18 century almost everything that occurred during economic growth was done due to innovations. Companies started to understand that innovations could give a competitive advantage and increase organisational effectiveness. Innovative culture, in turn, is one of the most important conditions that make innovations happen. However innovative culture is not so popular and common within a lot of companies, maybe because of lack of knowledge according to this notion, maybe because of unwillingness and fear to change something. Innovative culture consists of aspects that have some particular shade and lead to innovations’ creation. In this research we defined innovative culture, determined and analysed different aspects that differentiate it among any other kind of culture. We showed advantages of innovativeness and described the leadership style which serves to innovations. Our findings are proven by the examples and words of leaders from global companies, which helped to build us empirical part.

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It has become increasingly common to explain the behavior of animals—from sperm whales to songbirds—in terms of culture. But what is animal culture, what is its relationship to other biological concepts and to human culture, and what impact does culture have on a species’ evolution and ecology? My dissertation is an attempt to answer these questions. After an introductory chapter, the dissertation begins (Chapter 2) with a proposal for a novel concept of culture and a critique of the existing ways in which culture has been characterized. These characterizations include views from cultural anthropology as well as attempts to apply the concept of culture to animals. The existing concepts are problematic in a number of ways, such as a priori excluding infrahumans from being candidates for possessing culture, or mistaking what culture is for its measure. In this chapter I offer a way to understand culture that avoids these and other problems. With a concept of culture in hand, the next chapter of my dissertation (Chapter 3) examines and criticizes one key way of understanding the concept of culture, meme theory. In Chapter 4 I turn to the question of how cultural systems can arise in nature, how they can be adaptive, and how the evolution and ecology of species is impacted by the possession of a cultural system. In order to answer these questions I introduce a general constraint on cultural systems—what I am calling the Fundamental Constraint—that has to be satisfied in order for cultural systems to be adaptive. In the final chapter I develop a concept of innovation and draw out the conceptual and empirical implications of this concept. / Dissertation

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Chen-Lian welfare center has become the famous and potential star in supermarket competitive environment for ten years and it faces the serious attack of the traditional market¡Bconvenient store and retail department store. Due to the similarity management style¡Ahomogeneous competition is inevitably. It is the main topic of the dissertation how Chen-Lian faces the difficulties. This dissertation uses the SWOT method and strategic innovation analysis method, and analyzes the key success factors that become the first class of the supermarket in Taiwan. From the SWOT method, we understand the inner advantage and disadvantage and outer opportunity and threats. Then we can know the competition situation and advantage. Using the strategic innovation analysis , we can understand the advantage and innovative factor in product¡Bmarket and core resource. To sum up, we will provide the viewpoint ¡Bstrategic advice and conclusion for Chen-Lian.

This study discusses competitive interaction between firms¡¦ behavior of interaction and competition among manufacturers is divided into two categories, one for the initiation of innovation activities, the other is to respond to innovation activities. In this thesis, I attempt to explore what are the factors that affect the company's launch for the innovative and dynamic response back? This study focuses on 2000 to 2009 years, the competitive interaction between mobile phone brands to explore, from the Internet and newspapers and magazines to collect data and information is then processed to quantify the way proposition verification.

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