This dissertation analyzes the influence of leadership, organizational, and environmental factors on stimulating local government innovations in China. The study employed 84 Innovations and Excellence in Chinese Local Governance (IECLG) award winners as the research sample. Local innovation leaders were surveyed and six local governments were selected for intensive case studies. The major conclusion of this study is that leadership level and environmental level variables play important roles in the adoption and implementation of local government innovations in China, while organizational level variables have little effect. The leadership variable "attitude toward innovation" and the environmental variable "public demand" bore the strongest relationship to the adoption and implementation of innovation while organizational variables such as "organizational formalization," "organizational centralization," and "organizational complexity" had little relevance for innovation. Other leadership variables such as "accomplishment," "competence," and "risk taking" and environmental variables such as "competition" demonstrate moderate importance in their influence on innovation. This dissertation represents an exploratory study of local government innovation in China and as such suggests ways to conduct more extensive, in-depth research.

China's economy has enjoyed rapid development in recent decades. Its achievements in innovation, however, are far from satisfactory. So why is it the case that innovation has not followed? The mining industry is chosen as the research target. Above all, it is indispensable for China's future energy security and some materials can be used and have no replacement for the manufacture of a constellation of high-tech products. Secondly, mining is a difficult case for the study of innovation. Finally, this study is located at the overlap between development studies and political economy. This research adopts a qualitative method. Its aim is to find the mechanism through which innovation outcomes can be determined as the qualitative method can be beneficial in presenting such a mechanism clearly. The data is collected mainly through interviews. This research is first illuminated by System of Innovation(SI) theory. SI views concrete innovations as the outcome of a System. This research adopts the Triple Helix approach to organise interviews and conduct fieldwork. This approach focuses upon the interaction of universities, governments and industries. The Innovation Ecosystem is also utilised to produce systemic research results. The empirical finding of the research recognises that, compared with the prospecting and manufacturing stages, the mining and mineral processing stages are more innovative. One theoretical finding is that the triple helix displays in different forms under different circumstances. More work ought to be done to further discern and update the evolution of a Chinese National System of Innovation and a comparison of the different forms of Triple Helix is also a rich vein for scholars.

Research and development service firms (RDSFs), a subsector of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS), provide contract R&D services to third parties for payment. They are a major generator of new technological knowledge serving manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries. Their innovation activities are in the up-stream of the knowledge creation value chain. This explorative study focuses on R&D service firms and their innovation activities. We have adopted a qualitative research design seeking to address the need to strengthen theory-building on service innovation, and in particular to extend the limited empirical evidence on RDSFs innovation. The literature on innovation in services and KIBS constitutes a strong theoretical foundation of this study. It provides the conceptual tools upon which we develop a working definition of RDSFs and ground our analysis. We examine the long-term development of the UK's R&D Service Sector using secondary data. This builds a 'real-life context' for case studies on innovation in RDSFs. Qualitative research was conducted through semi-structured interviews with 32 firms in the UK. Analysis revealed the heterogeneous nature of these firms by identifying four main business models. Moreover, our findings point towards a clearly defined typology of RDSFs based on a combination of innovation drivers and outcomes. Four fundamentally different types of RDSFs can be identified: Technology-based innovation exploiters, Science-focused innovation explorers, Client-led innovation integrators, and Open innovation translators. This thesis contributes to the research on the supply side of R&D outsourcing by elaborating the development, business and innovation activities of RDSFs. It also contributes to understanding innovation in specific KIBS sub-sector by providing empirical evidence on the innovation processes of RDSFs.

This study interrogates the way in which marketing is carried out, or not carried out within a high technology based small business. The business in question was the basis of a case study undertaken over an 18-month period. This researcher aimed to examine how the combination of entrepreneurial, innovative and relationship marketing can be used to successfully go to market and increase turnover. This PhD project aimed to develop both a theoretical conceptual model and a practice-based application of the model for application in the case study company. The research undertaken combined multiple methods of approach including autoethnographic participant observation, in-depth responsive interviews and inquiry from within the case study company as the researcher was fully embedded in the business for 18 months. This combination of these methods enabled an immersive and robust case study, which sat inline with the interpretivist approach allowing the researcher to gain an insight into the social construction of meaning in relation to the marketing practice of the high technology based small business and how such meaning can be used to inform ‘contextual’ theory development. The case study was then examined and explained using an autoenthographic narrative and positioned in three phases to show the progression from no formal marketing marketing to administrative marketing methods through to innovative and entrepreneurial marketing strategies and techniques. The outcome of the case study research has resulted in an adapted practicebased model. This research has informed the development of the 3I’s model and started to show that the weighting of each section may not be equal. The model suggests that market intelligence, marketing innovation and human interfacing used in the correct combination, as suggested by the researcher, can help high technology based small businesses and ultimately businesses in general go to market successfully.

No description available.

The fundamental question in development economics is what causes some countries to become more prosperous than others. The literature, starting with Hall and Jones (1999), has identified differences in total factor productivity (TFP) as being the driver of cross-country income differences. I investigate policies that may give rise to these differences in TFP. I pay particular attention to the influence of informal economies in developing countries and how macroeconomic policies can distort firm-level incentives to innovate and operate formally. To address these questions, I construct a series of macroeconomic models which have several common elements. First, I model firm-level decisions with regard to innovation. These firm-level decisions ultimately give rise to differences in productivity across countries. Second, I embrace the role of firm heterogeneity in productivity to examine the dynamics of firm choice. Finally, through the use of computational methods, I simulate these models to evaluate the macroeconomic effects of policy distortions on firm-level decision making. Subject to the common elements above, each chapter answers a specific policy question. Chapter II asks whether size-based tax distortions can generate firm-size distributions often observed in developing countries. I find that a model with innovation and firm-level heterogeneity can explain the prevalence of large firms in response to tax distortions, but additional frictions are necessary to explain the ubiquity of small firms in most developing countries. It also illustrates tax distortions may have little impact on aggregate output while dramatically reducing innovation. Chapter III documents that tax rates can negatively affect growth by inducing firms to participate in the informal sector rather than the formal sector. Finally, Chapter IV shows how tax revenues are affected by changes in tax rates given the provision of a productive public good.

O ambiente de negócios está sob severa mudança ultimamente, requerendo das empresas não apenas a diferenciação da concorrência, mas também o desenvolvimento da capacidade de adaptação a novos cenários como uma forma de manter a competitividade e até mesmo sobreviver. Esta não é uma tarefa fácil, especialmente para grandes corporações, onde as políticas, regras, burocracia, comportamentos ortodoxos, para listar alguns, conspiram para dificultar a inovação. É ainda mais difícil quando estas empresas operam em mercados bem estabelecidos, com produtos maduros e até padronizados. Não fosse isso o suficiente, no Brasil tais corporações também precisam enfrentar desafios adicionais em relação à economia do país e à burocracia, bem como um sistema nacional de inovação ainda emergente. A literatura sobre inovação é vasta, e inovação em si é um tema cercado por vários aspectos diferentes. No entanto, até onde sabemos, não existem artigos que tratam da questão de como projetar e implantar um framework de gestão da inovação para uma corporação como as características descritas acima. O objetivo deste trabalho é ajudar essas empresas neste esforço, descrevendo e analisando a concepção e implementação de um framework de gestão da inovação em uma grande empresa brasileira de aço, bem como gerar conhecimento para apoiar futuras pesquisas acadêmicas no campo. O objetivo foi atingido através de uma pesquisa-ação e os resultados não só confirmaram a importância dos fatores de influência para inovação, como estratégia, liderança, cultura, recursos e sistemas de gestão, mas também apresentaram maneiras de combinar esses fatores de forma inter-relacionada para criar uma capacidade de inovação sustentável. / The business environment has been under severe change lately, requiring firms not only to differentiate themselves from competition, but also to develop capabilities to adapt to new scenarios as a way to keep competitiveness and even to survive. This is not an easy task, especially for large corporations, where polices, rules, bureaucracy, orthodox behaviors, to list a few,, collude to hinder innovation. Even more difficult when these corporations operate in well established markets, with mature and even standardized products. Would that not be enough, in Brazil such corporations also need to face additional challenges regarding the country`s economy and bureaucracy as well as facing an emergent national innovation system. The literature on innovation is vast and innovation itself is a topic surrounded by several different aspects. However, to our knowledge, there are no articles dealing with the question of how to design and implement and innovation management model for a corporation such as those described above. The objective of this work is to help these companies on this endeavor by describing and analyzing the design and implementation of an innovation management model in a large Brazilian steel company, as well as to generate knowledge to support further academic research on the field. The objective was accomplished through an action research and the results not only confirmed the importance of innovation drives such as strategy, leadership, culture, resources and management systems, but also presented ways of combining these drives in an intertwined fashion to create a sustainable innovation capability.

O ambiente de negócios está sob severa mudança ultimamente, requerendo das empresas não apenas a diferenciação da concorrência, mas também o desenvolvimento da capacidade de adaptação a novos cenários como uma forma de manter a competitividade e até mesmo sobreviver. Esta não é uma tarefa fácil, especialmente para grandes corporações, onde as políticas, regras, burocracia, comportamentos ortodoxos, para listar alguns, conspiram para dificultar a inovação. É ainda mais difícil quando estas empresas operam em mercados bem estabelecidos, com produtos maduros e até padronizados. Não fosse isso o suficiente, no Brasil tais corporações também precisam enfrentar desafios adicionais em relação à economia do país e à burocracia, bem como um sistema nacional de inovação ainda emergente. A literatura sobre inovação é vasta, e inovação em si é um tema cercado por vários aspectos diferentes. No entanto, até onde sabemos, não existem artigos que tratam da questão de como projetar e implantar um framework de gestão da inovação para uma corporação como as características descritas acima. O objetivo deste trabalho é ajudar essas empresas neste esforço, descrevendo e analisando a concepção e implementação de um framework de gestão da inovação em uma grande empresa brasileira de aço, bem como gerar conhecimento para apoiar futuras pesquisas acadêmicas no campo. O objetivo foi atingido através de uma pesquisa-ação e os resultados não só confirmaram a importância dos fatores de influência para inovação, como estratégia, liderança, cultura, recursos e sistemas de gestão, mas também apresentaram maneiras de combinar esses fatores de forma inter-relacionada para criar uma capacidade de inovação sustentável. / The business environment has been under severe change lately, requiring firms not only to differentiate themselves from competition, but also to develop capabilities to adapt to new scenarios as a way to keep competitiveness and even to survive. This is not an easy task, especially for large corporations, where polices, rules, bureaucracy, orthodox behaviors, to list a few,, collude to hinder innovation. Even more difficult when these corporations operate in well established markets, with mature and even standardized products. Would that not be enough, in Brazil such corporations also need to face additional challenges regarding the country`s economy and bureaucracy as well as facing an emergent national innovation system. The literature on innovation is vast and innovation itself is a topic surrounded by several different aspects. However, to our knowledge, there are no articles dealing with the question of how to design and implement and innovation management model for a corporation such as those described above. The objective of this work is to help these companies on this endeavor by describing and analyzing the design and implementation of an innovation management model in a large Brazilian steel company, as well as to generate knowledge to support further academic research on the field. The objective was accomplished through an action research and the results not only confirmed the importance of innovation drives such as strategy, leadership, culture, resources and management systems, but also presented ways of combining these drives in an intertwined fashion to create a sustainable innovation capability.

No description available.

Faced by ever increasing expenditure on Information Technology (IT), organisations are turning to what can be perceived as measures of world-class performance such as benchmarking to identify weaknesses in their practices. The objectives of this research were two-fold: Firstly, to explore in what way an organisation identifies its Information Technology costs, and secondly, to determine what IT cost benchmarking takes place within an organisation and to determine its value and relevance to the organisation. The research was conducted as a qualitative two phase snapshot case study across five regions within GoodsCo. Data collection comprised of unstructured face-to-face interviews and five semi-structured telephonic interviews. Content analysis was then used to identify the key patterns or themes which emerged. The research established that Information Technology costs within GoodsCo consists of primarily direct costs components, and that most indirect cost components and contextual elements are not accounted for. Finally it was established that limited and infrequent benchmarking occurs within these regions, and that GoodsCo derives limited value and relevance from their current benchmarking practices. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted