Thesis (M.Com. (Development Theory and Policy))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Economic and Business Sciences, 2016. / Increasingly, innovation through technology transfer is seen as a mechanism through which economic growth can be spurred. The South African National Innovation System (NIS) is built on this premise, leading to the emergence of Technology Transfer Organizations (TTOs) such as the Technology Innovation Agency’s (TIA’s) Technology Stations Programme. The Technology Stations Programme addresses, and attempts to alleviate, the slow overall decline of South African industrial sectors through innovation work for industrialization. It is not clear, however, how the TIA monitors and evaluates, and hence measures the economic and socio-economic outcomes of the Technology Stations Programme. This is because the relationship between the strategic objectives of the programme, and the performance indicators used for impact assessment is not clear. This study identifies the use of the Science, Engineering, Technology and Innovation (SETI) Scorecard of indicators as the framework for performance reporting at the Technology Stations Programme. The study describes the SETI framework and then evaluates it, finding that it is not well defined and lacks the properties required of a framework of indicators to make it an adequate tool for performance reporting. Other problems compromising the reporting on the Technology Stations Programme have to do with the seemingly incomplete nature of reports, occasional incoherence and seeming carelessness where there are graphic errors in the reporting. This inadequate monitoring and evaluation, and performance reporting is concerning because interview work suggests that the Technology Stations Programme is highly successful in supporting SMMEs and offering them technology related services that contribute to industrial policy through innovation work. The failure to have a SETI Scorecard of indicators that is functional enough to make these outcomes in the Technology Stations Programme visible in formal reporting is concerning as programme evaluation should make known the effects of policies. In the case of the Technology Stations Programme these effects are crucial as the technology transfer taking place in the programme is anticipated to achieve grand objectives in the way of economic value adding and industrial expansion. This necessitates the need to capture the outcomes related to these objectives, and make future decisions on the Technology Stations Programme as well as other technology transfer programmes.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts May 2016 / The technology of 3-D Printing is afforded extensive coverage in the media. Discourses surrounding this technology are charged with ideas of revolutions in manufacturing, democratisation of technology, and the potential to change the face of consumption and production. This technology is being marketed to the consumer and hobbyist. The consumer-grade 3-D printer is a result of the labour of a loose-knit worldwide community of hobbyists known as the "Maker movement". This movement, a convergence of the traditional "Hacker" culture and Do It Yourself (DIY) is constructed around ideas of affective labour. That is, labour performed for the sole purpose of enjoyment of doing so, and for a sense of well-being and community. The explosion of "affordable" 3-D printing as a technology is a result of this affective labour, yet little mention is made of any forms of labour in popular media discourses surrounding this technology. In this paper I construct a history of the Maker movement while theorising the forms of labour inherent to this movement using the Autonomist Marxism of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri as a framework. Then, working within the field of Cultural Studies, and drawing on Actor-Network Theory (ANT), I perform Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) on a small sample of texts to illustrate the occlusion and obfuscation of labour within these discourses of the consumer 3-D printer

Thesis (M.M. (Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation)), University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Wits Business School, 2016. / Over the past few years the South African market has seen the launch of a number of online video services providers. The leading providers in the industry are Vidi, ON-Tap, MTN front row and ShowMax. The industry has also attracted some international competition with big players like Netflix launching its services in the South African market in January 2016. Although this industry has seen the emergence of many new players, it is still in its infacy stages in South Africa and is still to be seen if it will mature into a long term profit making industry. It is important to research the diffusion of innovation and more specially to look at how technopreneurs that are in this field or considering entering this industry can influence the speed and success of how this new innovation is diffused. This research will focus on two areas. Firstly, it will seek to look at the factors that influence the potential adopter’s propensity to adopt a new product. Secondly the research will look at the role played by the technopreneur in ensuring that online video services are adopted successfully. Since the online video services industry is not yet mature the research was conducted using the mixed method approach. The quantitative research was conducted by distributing online survey questionnaires. These questionnaires were distributed using email, as well as social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. The qualitative research was conducted by performing interviews with a predetermined list of respondents. The combination of the two types of research led to a better understanding of this topic. The results the research highlighted the fact that the South African market poses very unique challenges for entrepreneurs that want to enter this industry. South African technopreneurs have an advantage against international players like Netflix because they understand challenges of internet access, payment issues as well as preferred content. / XL2018

Over the last two decades, extensive research has been undertaken to understand incumbent firms’ adaptation behavior to disruptive innovation, considering technological change as the most important focus of analysis. Recently, there is an emerging literature that views disruptive innovation as a business model problem in which a technological innovation is deployed. In this literature, disruptive innovation is understood to be primarily a function of conflict between an incumbent’s traditional and an entrant’s new business model. This raises two major questions. First, although the original theory of disruptive innovation evolved from technological studies, this theory persists to explain all types of disruptive innovation over time (Markides, 2006: 19). Furthermore, disruptive innovation has always been studied from an incumbent firm perspective. With the need to shift the research focus from a technology to a business model, we also need a new framework to understand disruptive innovation taking the business model as the unit of analysis taking both the entrant’s and incumbent’s perspectives. Building on business model innovation studies (Govindarajan and Gupta, 2001; Normann, 2001; Hamel, 2000) and the established technology based disruptive innovation theory (Christensen and Raynor, 2003; Christensen, 1997), this study offers a systematic business model framework to comprehend disruptive phenomenon from both an incumbent’s and an entrant’s perspectives. Second, disruptive innovation studies predominantly focus on high-tech industries. Increasingly many low-tech industries are being affected by disruptive non-technological market-driven business model innovations. Considering that disruptive innovation theory is principally iii technology based, a review of the literature suggests that we know little about the differences between high-tech and low-tech market-driven disruptive innovations in terms of their evolutions, competitive and disruptive effects. From the strategic management literature point of view, the contribution of this study becomes even more relevant when the two questions are examined across economic regions. Although there is ample evidence that shows disruptive innovations are not always restricted to developed economies, little is known about how incumbents in developing economies adapt their organizations to disruptive business model innovations. This study takes South Africa as a development economy case-study. The empirical setting of the current study includes four South African industries: the mobile and IT industry (high-tech), banking, insurance and airlines (lowtech) industries. In addressing the two key question of the study, the dissertation presents the empirical analysis at the first-order (firm-level study) and second-order (high-tech vs. low-etch study) levels. The first-order study argues that an innovation creates and grows a niche market through radical product design, different core competencies and/or a different revenue model long before it becomes disruptive innovation. It proposes a framework that attempts to model the evolution of this trajectory from an entrant’s perspective. From the entrant’s perspective, a potentially disruptive business model innovation is a process that evolves over time in successive adaptations to endogenous and exogenous innovation drivers that shape the evolution and path of the new business model. An innovation becomes disruptive only when the new business model fully or partially affects an incumbent’s established business model and market. iv Taking the viewpoint of an incumbent firm, the first-order study further offers a framework that seeks to provide a causality model to comprehend the root cause of disruptive innovation and its impact on the incumbent’s traditional business model. One of the major causes of disruptive innovation is the incumbent’s entrepreneurial dilemma. This means that an incumbent’s success or failure is partly contingent on the senior corporate management’s entrepreneurship readiness that is manifested in terms of taking risk initiative, willingness and ability to take appropriate strategic approaches to enable disruptive innovation. By articulating the causes of disruptive innovation, it suggests four key strategic approaches an incumbent should follow to enable disruptive innovation. While the study finds common patterns for the causes and approaches among incumbents across the four industries at a firm-level, some of the hypotheses of this study could not be proven at an aggregated system level. Disruptive innovation is a relative phenomenon: Some innovations that are disruptive to some firms or industries may not be disruptive to other firms or industries. Therefore, the study further re-examines the aggregated firm-level outcomes by disaggregating the data into dichotomous technology versus marketdriven disruptive innovations. By conducting a second-order analysis at the innovation category level, this study adds considerably to extant innovation literature by establishing that a lowtechnology market-driven disruptive business model innovation entails different business model evolutionary processes, different disruptive effects and different managerial implications compared to high-tech disruptive innovation.

À medida que o conhecimento e a inovação tornam-se mais importantes para o sucesso competitivo das organizações, surge a necessidade de avaliar as iniciativas que promovem a criação de novos conhecimentos e a geração de inovações tecnológicas, tais como as parcerias tecnológicas firmadas entre empresas e universidades. Visando ao aprofundamento deste tema, buscou-se identificar o estágio de desenvolvimento da cooperação empresauniversidade nas multinacionais brasileiras. Para tanto, foi realizada uma pesquisa qualitativa descritiva e foram efetuados múltiplos estudos de caso. As multinacionais brasileiras estudadas em profundidade foram: Embraco, Alfa, Beta, Tigre e WEG. Dados primários foram coletados junto às empresas estudadas por meio de entrevistas semi-estruturadas e questionários. Foram também obtidos dados complementares sobre as empresas estudadas em fontes secundárias. O arcabouço teórico que suportou a pesquisa abordou sete temas centrais, sendo eles a inovação e a capacitação tecnológica, a gestão da P&D, a cooperação empresauniversidade, a cooperação tecnológica internacional, a internacionalização de empresas, a internacionalização de P&D e as multinacionais brasileiras. Os resultados da pesquisa indicaram que o estágio de desenvolvimento da cooperação empresa-universidade é predominantemente intermediário nas multinacionais brasileiras estudadas. Foi também possível verificar que não existe um consenso ou padrão rígido para a utilização de determinados arranjos e mecanismos para a cooperação tecnológica nas multinacionais brasileiras, a escolha dos mesmos dependerá da posição e dos objetivos de cada participante frente ao processo cooperativo e deverá contemplar a maleabilidade e adequações necessárias ao tipo de relação a ser desenvolvida. Por fim, o trabalho ressalta que a cooperação empresauniversidade é um grande propulsor da competitividade tecnológica e, cada vez mais, deverá ser foco de atenção das empresas, das universidades e do governo. / As knowledge and innovation become more important to the competitive success of the organizations, the need to evaluate the initiatives that promote the creation of new knowledge and the generation of technological innovations, such as technology partnerships signed between companies and universities arises. In order to deepen this issue, we have tried to identify the development stage of company-university cooperation in Brazilian multinationals. For this, a qualitative and descriptive research was conducted and several case studies were done. Brazilian multinationals studied in depth were: Embraco, Alfa, Beta, Tigre and WEG. Primary data were gathered from the companies using semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. Additional data about the studied companies were also obtained from secondary sources. The theoretical framework that supported the search addressed seven key issues: innovation and technological training, management of R&D, business-university cooperation, international technological cooperation, internationalization of enterprises, internationalization of R&D and Brazilian multinationals. The results indicate that the development stage of business-university cooperation is predominantly intermediary in the studied Brazilian multinational. It was also possible to see that there is a consensus or rigid standard for the use of certain arrangements and mechanisms for technology cooperation in Brazilian multinational, and their choices will depend on each participant\'s position and goals face the cooperative process and should consider flexibility and adjustments necessary and the kind of relationship to be developed. Finally, the work emphasizes that business-university cooperation is a major propellant for technological competitiveness and, increasingly, to be the companies of, universities and the government\'s attention focus.

Pretende-se com este trabalho analisar as consequências da política de ciência e tecnologia (PCT) implementada no Brasil sobre a pesquisa na Escola Politécnica (EP) da Universidade de São Paulo (USP) no período compreendido entre 1999 e 2013. Assumimos a Escola Politécnica da USP como recorte analítico em virtude da proeminência da instituição e desta unidade acadêmica no cenário nacional no que se refere à pesquisa científica, bem como por entender que as engenharias é uma área com forte ligação com o setor empresarial. A partir da investigação das transformações da PCT, evidenciamos que as orientações políticas, a partir do final dos anos 90, direcionaram-se com maior ênfase para promoção da inovação tecnológica, tendo em vista a sua relevância para o desenvolvimento econômico e social. Esta mudança foi promovida em virtude das transformações no capitalismo global combinada com a ascensão do neoliberalismo após a crise econômica da década de 70. Tendo como pressuposto a necessidade de interação entre universidades ou institutos públicos de pesquisa e o setor produtivo, as diretrizes da política de C&T passam a estimular, através de uma série de mecanismos, o estabelecimento de parcerias entre esses dois atores, em virtude da importância atribuída à pesquisa científica no processo inovativo. Em consonância, a reforma educacional de cunho neoliberal executada a partir da década de 90 influenciada pelas recomendações dos organismos financeiros internacionais impulsionava a aproximação das universidades públicas com o segmento empresarial. Entretanto, a partir da análise das entrevistas realizadas com professores-pesquisadores da Escola Politécnica da USP e dos dados estatísticos referentes à pesquisa, desenvolvimento e inovação, percebemos como os resultados alcançados até o momento não correspondem às expectativas almejadas pelos defensores da perspectiva inovacionista. Além disso, sustentamos a hipótese de alguns autores de que o fracasso desta política está relacionado à estrutura produtiva e à condição periférica da economia brasileira no capitalismo mundial. Finalmente, concluímos que essa orientação tem acarretado uma série de prejuízos para a dinâmica e para a função da universidade, bem como na identidade e nas condições de trabalho do professor-pesquisador que, por sua vez, repercutem no modelo de desenvolvimento socioeconômico do País. / The aim of this work is to analyze the implications of science and technology policy (PCT) implemented in Brazil about the research at the Polytechnic School (EP) of the University of São Paulo in the period between 1999 and 2013. We assume the EP as analytical approach, because of the prominence of the institution and this academic unit on the national scene about the scientific research, as well as understand that engineering is an area with strong links with the business sector. From the investigation of the transformation of PCT, we noted that political orientations, from the late 90s, were directed with greater emphasis on promotion of technological innovation, with a view to its relevance to the economic and social development. This change was promoted because of changes in global capitalism combined with the rise of neoliberalism after the economic crisis of the decade of 70. Presupposing the need for interaction between universities or public research institutes and the productive sector, the guidelines of the PCT begin to stimulate, through a number of mechanisms, the establishment of partnerships between these two actors, because of the importance given to scientific research in the innovative process. Correspondingly, the educational reform neoliberal run from the 90s - influenced by the recommendations of international financial organizations - drove the approach of public universities with the business segment. However, from the analysis of interviews with teachers-researchers from the EP of USP and statistical data related to the research, development and innovation, we see how the results achieved to date do not correspond about the desired expectations by advocates of inovacionista perspective. In addition, we support the hypothesis of some authors that the failure of this policy is related to the productive structure and the peripheral condition of the Brazilian economy in world capitalism. Finally, we conclude that this policy has caused a lot of damage to the dynamics and the role of the university, as well as the identity and working conditions of the teacher-researcher who, in turn, have repercussions on the socioeconomic development model of the country.

Este trabalho tem como propósito analisar o conceito do ciberflâneur e sua relação com a produção artística que utiliza as redes digitais como recurso estético. O conceito do ciberflâneur é uma construção teórica sobre a figura do flâneur, personagem das metrópoles do século XIX, que propunha um novo olhar sobre os fenômenos urbanos. A pesquisa resgata a relação com a arte moderna que havia na figura original para traçar paralelos com as relações entre o ciberflâneur e a arte da rede. Através da análise de obras que utilizam a internet como base feita no capítulo final deste trabalho, buscamos apontar novos aspectos na conceituação do ciberflâneur, deflagrando aspectos no conceito que podem ser relacionados com as práticas artísticas da rede. / This paper aims to analyze the concept of the cyberflâneur and its relation to artistic production that uses digital networks as an aesthetic tool. The concept of the cyberflâneur is a theoretical construct about the figure of the flâneur, the character of the metropolis of the nineteenth century, which proposed a new way of looking to the urban phenomena. The work rescues the relation of the original concept with modern art to draw parallels with the relationship between the cyberflâneur and network art. By examining works that use the Internet as basis in the final chapter of this paper we point out new aspects in the conceptualization of the cyberflâneur, making more evident some aspects of the concept that can be related to artistic practices.

Thesis advisor: Christopher Baum / Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and Reunification in 1990, Germany experienced many economic and labor market shifts. This empirical analysis evaluates the determinants of entrepreneurship in post-Reunification Germany from 1986 to 2014 using self-employment dependent variables as entrepreneurial proxies and measures of social capital as independent variables. Age, gender, nationality, education, income, risk attitudes, and social factors are all shown to be statistically significant predictors of entrepreneurial activity in Germany. The subsequent sociological analysis examines popular media’s portrayal of contemporary technological entrepreneurship in modern Berlin. The investigation highlights the differences between Berlin’s countercultural image and the need for sustainable funding and business plans for new technology ventures. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics Honors Program. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: Economics.

A propriedade intelectual tem se tornado cada vez mais importante e é uma parte fundamental do desenvolvimento. No entanto, ainda é pouca literatura sobre a avaliação desses ativos intangíveis. Não se sabe ao certo sequer quais variáveis (idade, número de citações, atividade inventiva etc.), estabelecem o valor de uma patente, e essas variáveis podem diferir dependendo do setor. Também pouco se sabe sobre como se relacionam umas com as outras em termos de formação rotas tecnológicas, e quais fatores mais importantes para uma patente ser usada como inspiração para outra invenção. Neste trabalho são usadas análises de redes formadas pelas citações das patentes do segmento de equipamentos para radioterapia para descobrir o que os principais atores produziram nos últimos vinte anos no mercado de equipamentos para radioterapia. Foram levantados também os países de maior interesse de proteção dessas invenções, os principais atores no mercado. Tendências tecnológicas foram analisadas pelas formações de clusteres de reivindicações de tais documentos. Descobriu-se que a formação da rede e dos grupos de patentes têm como principal característica a semelhança das tecnologias envolvidas e, também, de fatores geográficos. Os principais playeres são grandes companhias de países desenvolvidos e praticamente não há proteção de invenções deste segmento em países emergentes ou subdesenvolvidos, com exceção da China. / Intellectual property has become increasingly important and is a key part of the development. However, it is still little literature on the valuation of these intangible assets. No one knows for sure even what variables (age, number of citations, inventive activity etc.), set the value of a patent, and these variables may differ depending on the sector. Also little is known about how they relate to each other in terms of technological routes formation, and which are the most important factors for a patent to be used as inspiration for other invention. This work analyzes the networks formed by the citations of the patents in the radiation therapy devices segment to find out what the main actors produced in the last twenty years in the radiotherapy equipment market. Countries of greatest interest to protect these inventions and the principal players were also pointed. Technological trends were identified by the formation of clusters of documents\' claims. It was found that the formation of the network and groups of patents have as main feature the likeness of the technologies involved, and also geographic factors. The main players are large companies from developed countries and there is virtually no protection for inventions in this segment in emerging or developing countries, excluding China.

A prospecção tecnológica é a disciplina que trata das atividades de busca e predição de tecnologias de interesse, sendo uma importante ferramenta para empresas e governos. Já o campo da biotecnologia consiste de um dos mais férteis quanto à produção acadêmica e industrial, tendo impacto alto na economia mundial. O presente trabalho focou na intersecção destes dois assuntos, utilizando a disciplina de análises de redes sociais como intermediária. Entre os objetivos buscados estavam sugerir modificações no modelo de classificação de patentes biotecnológicas, descrever a distribuição destas patentes quando agrupadas em redes, e desenvolver uma metodologia de prospecção tecnológica com base nas rotas de desenvolvimento tecnológico presentes nas redes de patentes. As sub-áreas escolhidas para o foco do estudo foram as da biotecnologia agrícola (vegetal) e purificação de água, sendo descritas com base em suas características patentárias. Entre os resultados estão uma nova proposta de aperfeiçoamento de classificação de patentes biotecnológicas, uma nova metodologia para representações de redes de patentes com base em algoritmos de modularidade propostos por Blondel et al. (2008), sendo esta demostrada nos temas estudados. Por fim, o algoritmo SPLC proposto por Hummon e Doreian (1989) foi adaptado de ferramenta para identificação de rotas de desenvolvimento de maior relevância para redes tecnológicas, para uma ferramenta prospectiva de uso em redes de patentes de grande porte. Para a aplicação da ferramenta deste tipo de rede, um plug-in para software de análise de redes sociais foi desenvolvido, com funcionalidades adicionais que agregam ao algoritmo original. As rotas de desenvolvimento tecnológico geradas são passíveis de análises prospectivas posteriores. Não foram encontrados registros de estudos semelhantes na literatura. / Technological forecasting is the subject that tackles the activities of search and prediction of technological innovation, and is considered an important tool for both companies and governments. As for the field of biotechnology, it is one of the richest in terms academic and industrial production, and possess a high impact in the world economy. This study focused in the intersection between this two subjects, using social network analysis as the bridge them. Amongst the objectives was the suggestion of changes in in the classification of biotechnological patents, the description of patents when these are grouped in networks, and the development of a new technological forecasting methodology based on the development routes present in the patent networks. The biotechnology subjects this study focused were plant agriculture and water purification, and their description was elaborated based on their patent characteristics. The results range from a new proposition to the enhancement of the current biotechnological patent classification, to a new method for patent network representation based on the modularity algorithm proposed by Blonde et al. (2008), which was demonstrated in the studied subjects. The last result was related to the SPLC algorithm proposed by Hummon and Doreian (1989) which was adapted from a tool of identification of the most relevant technological development routes, to a technological forecasting tool which can be used in large sized patent networks. For the application of this tool in such networks, a plug-in to a social network software was developed, with added functionalities that enhance the original algorithm. The generated technological development routes of the studied subjects can be used for future forecasting analysis. There has not been found any study similar to this in the literature.