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Information technology almost became the savior for Hong Kong in the process of recovering from the Asian financial crisis immediately after the Handover. The claims to establish and further the development of information technology were made against a certain perception of Hong Kong, in which the place in past decades had indulged in the wrong direction of labour-intensive, cut-throat production in the manufacturing industries and bubble-like speculation in the real-estate sector, and against a certain vision of the future, with more and more competition in the age of globalization, neo-liberal economies, and so on. This thesis demonstrates, firstly, how the governance of Hong Kong can be seen from the perspective of contingent articulations of dissimilar elements rather than any step-by-step progression along any necessary, objective historical path. Secondly through analyses of the governmental discourses and the business trajectory of Pacific-Century CyberWorks, the flagship group for Hong Kong’s “new-economy”, the thesis depicts the complexity and nexus of knowledge, governance, bureaucratic and financial considerations of and within the project of information technology in Hong Kong, and the mechanism by which this particular discourse is produced and circulated. Finally, comparing the discourse of Hong Kong’s early industralisation in the early 1950s, the thesis identifies the desire-creating workings of ideology in this particular discourse of information technology in Hong Kong. Also, through theoretical prisms, the thesis provides examples of how the government’s trumpeted notions of (and, probably, people’s faith in) laissez-faire, positive non-intervention are able to coexist in apparent harmony with the highly active participation of the Hong Kong SAR government in society and industry.

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This dissertation research project examines how contemporary academic bioethics in the U.S. balances the aspiration to guide biomedical research and practice with the need to become an institutionally legitimate influence in society. Since its inception three decades ago, to what extent has bioethics made biomedicine more socially accountable? At the same time, to what extent has bioethics been rendered a public-relations tool for academic and corporate biomedicine? This project investigates the co-production of the legitimacy and the logic of the academic field of bioethics by examining the activities of bioethicists in three professional arenas: the establishment of an academic bioethics unit, discourse on the legal liability of institutional review boards and health care ethics consultants, and the deliberations and recommendations of a federal bioethics commission.Bioethicists' efforts to legitimate their field are viewed as competition and collaboration with other professional groups to stake out an emblematic expertise, which is then tendered to various societal clients. A case study of an academic bioethics unit was conducted to reveal how the unit's efforts to secure material resources and organizational legitimacy shape the center's intellectual output, drawing on the unit's archival documents and interviews with the unit's director, faculty, staff, and graduate students. Discourse analysis was used to explore what anticipated legal liability reveals about the legitimacy of expertise claims and the shaping of those claims. The proceedings of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission related to the human stem cell research debate were used to examine the boundary-work conducted by the commission at the borders between science and ethics, and between ethics and public policy.The research described here shifts attention in the budding sociology of bioethics from clinical to academic bioethics, and highlights the institutional and power relationships amongst bioethics, biomedicine, and public policy. This study also contributes to the fields of higher education studies and science and technology studies, where ethics, and the relationship between legitimacy and expertise, have not been fully explored. The findings presented here provide useful insight into the challenges and opportunities bioethicists face in cultivating socially responsible biomedical science and technology.

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This thesis addresses conceptual and practical challenges in anticipating potential standardisation needs and developing relevant strategies throughout various stages of technological innovation. With increasing awareness of critical roles played by standardisation in supporting a variety of innovation activities, strategic foresight for timely and appropriate standardisation is becoming a crucial innovation policy interest in many countries. However, there are currently limited and fragmented studies on this issue, because of the complexity and variety involved in dynamic interplays between standardisation and other aspects of innovation. There are also increased challenges to develop coherent and long-term strategies for standardisation, due to modern technologies that are becoming more complex, interdisciplinary, and fast-evolving at the same time. Standards organisations and policymakers thus face significant challenges in developing standardisation strategies (in terms of what, why, when, how, and who) to support technological innovation more effectively. In this regard, the current research develops a systematic conceptual framework for more comprehensive understanding of standardisation – particularly highlighting its technological complexities – in the context of innovation, and a structured process model for using it to support strategic policy foresight. Building on the innovation systems perspective, preliminary framework and process model are first developed by adopting the holistic approach of strategic roadmapping as method, and incorporating a priori constructs drawn from existing literature relevant to standardisation. Then, multiple exploratory case studies covering various technology domains have been conducted to identify first order elements for their development. They are followed by an in-depth longitudinal case study on standardisation of photovoltaic technology, testing and refining the framework and process model by exploring complex dynamics between standardisation and innovation in greater detail. Interviews with experts across a broader range of domains and regions have then been carried out, to verify the framework and process model, including their utility and practicality. This thesis makes contributions to both theory and practice. With a systems perspective on standardisation, it provides a more holistic and comprehensive understanding of how standardisation supports innovation, highlighting its mediating roles between critical innovation activities and functions. It also presents a unified framework integrating various dimensions of standardisation with particular emphasis on technological elements, addressing challenges due to complex technological systems. Such new insights are expected to help standards organisations and policymakers with strategic foresight for standardisation in support of innovation, using the proposed framework and process model as practical tools for anticipating future standardisation needs and developing relevant strategies. In addition, the current research contributes to the roadmapping literature and practice, by presenting more structured and advanced frameworks and processes, and providing insights for using the roadmap-based approach as methods for data collection and analyses.

This study involved a qualitative comparative analysis of government laboratory technology transfer, examining both the process and impact of successful cases before and after passage of technology transfer legislation. The legislation, passed in the mid- and late-1980s, was intended to encourage cooperative research for commercialization purposes. The study examined a variety of factors related to government laboratory technology transfer, including the researchers' roles, mechanisms used, partners, and economic impact. Certain aspects of the researchers' roles became more positive toward technology transfer. They contributed to technology marketing by producing more laboratory prototypes and samples in the post-legislation period. On the other hand, they retreated from broad-based technology marketing in the sense that their roles as technology champions became centered around their relationships with their CRADA partners. There was an undercurrent of caution by the laboratory researchers towards technology transfer in both the pre-legislation and post-legislation periods, and neither time period contained many examples of market analysis or technology evaluation work by the laboratories. Also, there was tension between the research role and technology transfer role, possibly indicating a lack of trust in that relationship. The laboratories primarily used CRADAs and licenses to transfer technologies, and used other mechanisms to a lesser degree. There was even less variety in mechanisms in the post-legislation period. The researchers' comments about license royalty-sharing became stronger in the post-legislation period, indicating that incentive is working. Yet, the data suggested new administrative needs such as for royalty tracking statements and dispute mechanisms. The post-legislation period involved more small-firm partners and more user-initiated contacts, indicating more market pull. The post-legislation period also exhibited more "institutionalized" university relationships. State and local governments were not prominent among the users in either time period. The technology transfer legislation had positive effects in terms of economic impact and outcomes. The following indicators increased in the post-legislation period: new products (generated as a result of technology transfer), sales revenues, new companies, new jobs, and technology transfer contributions to dual use. Technology transfer and commercialization failures decreased and the time to market decreased. The assessment revealed additional findings related to increased international activity, private sector problems, and other factors contributing to technology transfer. An extensive literature review provided background for the issues and problems in evaluating technology transfer. This review included an inventory of technology transfer measurement activities to-date, including models from non-government technology transfer communities. The study experience, itself, further uncovered some insights to technology transfer metrics at a time when the experience base in this area is still premature / Ph. D.

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Volkswagen (VW) is one of the first foreign carmakers that made direct investments in China after 1978. From its entry in the Chinese market to the year of 2009, VW enjoyed popularity, high reputation, and undisputed leadership in the Chinese passenger car market, and achieved a great commercial success. Most previous accounts attribute VW’s success in China to VW’s wise business operation or Chinese government’s support. This study guided by the methods and theories of technology studies, especially the actor-network theory (ANT), takes into account technical, socioeconomic, political, or cultural factors simultaneously. By selecting one of VW’s successful joint ventures with China – Shanghai Volkswagen (SVW) – as a case to do in-depth investigation, it examines the relationship between heterogeneous actors (both humans and nonhumans) and the pathways of SVW development, and has found that all of the SVW establishment, production, marketing, and development were shaped by a range of diverse social and material actors, including the central planners, local government, VW, local suppliers, Chinese consumers, and VW cars, and depended on Chinese particular political and cultural context; VW’s success in China presents a story of co-construction of power and actor-networks. / Ph. D.

New innovation often forces The rise of the sharing economy has created a host of regulatory challenges for both agencies and legislators. Specifically, the ride-sharing and short-term rental industries have faced significant challenges from incumbent industries, lawmakers, and the public. Evaluating the respective policy development of these industries and the strategies of the industry leaders provide a useful lens of analysis.