This paper develops a model to investigate the diffusion process of a cost-reducing process innovation within an industry. Two factors drive the diffusion process. First, the gradually declining production cost with the innovation makes the adoption of the innovation more profitable, and consequently motivates more firms to adopt it over time. Second, the switching from old technology to new technology requires suitable organizational knowledge, which is costly to acquire. This tends to slow down the diffusion. The interaction between the two factors determines the path and the speed of the diffusion process. The model is able to explain three observations in technology diffusion, including (1) the S-shaped diffusion path; (2) the rejection of an innovation by some firms; and (3) unprofitable technology adoption. A policy implication of the model is that, through subsidizing the transfer of relevant knowledge from adopters to non-adopters, government can facilitate the diffusion of innovations and improve social welfare.

Post mortem imaging (PMI) is increasingly being adopted as an alternative to invasive autopsies in forensic pathology. PMI can be used as a sole technique or adjunct to an autopsy. The Lodox Xmplar-dr is an X-ray imaging system that has been adopted for use in PMI. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the perceived usability of this imaging system by focusing on the satisfaction of forensic pathologists in use of the system. Assessment of satisfaction was guided by the subjective satisfaction characteristics of likability, pleasure, comfort and trust. Incorporation of user needs into updated system designs may lead to greater perceived ease of use, acceptance and adoption, resulting in increased device utilisation. The study location was the Lodox Xmplar-dr installation site at the Salt River Forensic Laboratory, Cape Town. Five forensic pathologists were observed using the Xmplar-dr system and four were interviewed on their experience using the system. A qualitative research design which used thematic analysis with the aid of NVIVO11 qualitative data analysis software was used to extract key usability and satisfaction themes emerging from the data, to show the extent of user satisfaction. Two key themes emerged. These were categorised as forensic pathologist-related, which focused on the hedonistic and subjective aspects of their satisfaction with the system, and systemrelated, which centred on the satisfaction users derived from the system’s ability to meet their pragmatic and objective expectations in their use of the system. In general, the forensic pathologists were satisfied with the Xmplar-dr system and it exceeded their expectations. Pleasure was derived from the ability of the system to increase work throughput by reducing the need to perform a dissectional post-mortem unless it was deemed absolutely necessary, i.e. when cause of death could not be determined from the X-ray images generated by the system. Participants felt that the system was an indispensable device when performing post mortems. Likability came from the ease of learning to use the basic functions of the system; the study participants stated that the system aided them in determining cause of death and saved time, in line with the definition of the likability characteristic that is centred on the extent to which a user is satisfied with perceived achievements of pragmatic goals. Trust was derived from participants’ views that the system worked as intended, although there could be improvements in terms of robustness, reliability and the imaging system`s support services. Image manipulation on the human-computer interface (HCI) and image representation were concerns highlighted. Most functions could be performed through the system’s HCI rather than by manipulation of the body being examined; this increased the physical comfort satisfaction characteristic. The need for manual placement of bodies on the system`s table by assistants and the associated health consequences were however raised as a concern that diminished the comfort-in-use characteristic of satisfaction. Understanding the user experience of the forensic pathologists who use the Lodox Xmplar-dr system to perform post mortems enabled the identification of areas for improvement. The improvements may increase user satisfaction resulting in better utilisation of the imaging system. The insights gained may be useful for the design of other imaging systems used in forensic pathology.

Cette thèse examine la généalogie du concept d’utilisateur et sa mise en scène contemporaine dans la recherche et développement industriel. De nombreuses recherches du champ des sciences et techniques, du design et de la stratégie ont mis en évidence ces 40 dernières années le rôle clé de l’utilisateur dans le processus d’innovation. Le laboratoire de recherche Bell Labs sert de terrain d’analyse car il permet d’observer sur une période de 88 années les raisons institutionnelles, économiques et socio-techniques qui ont établi l’utilisateur comme un artefact à même de répondre aux enjeux industriels de formalisation des conditions de réceptions et d’usages dans le but de les intégrer aux objets en développement dans le domaine des télécommunications. Ancré au confluent des approches sémiotique (C. S. Peirce), symbolique (L. Sfez), et de la théorie de l’acteur-réseau (B. Latour), nous analysons les différents termes du système représentatif de l’utilisateur et sa symbolique aux Bell Labs : la diffusion du concept dans le journal scientifique de Bell Labs à partir d’une analyse statistique, les différents types de figures de l’utilisateur présents dans ce journal avec une analyse de discours, et le processus de prise en compte de l’utilisateur par l’analyse socio-technique d’un projet d’innovation. Pour ce travail, nous avons développé une méthodologie permettant le suivi et l’analyse de l’émergence et de la diffusion des concepts d’innovation. In fine, nous défendons que les Bell Labs, au travers des représentations de l’utilisateur, ont progressivement établi une équivalence entre l’homme et la machine qui porte l’utilisateur au rang d’image symbolique mi-homme mi-machine. / In this thesis we examine the genealogy of the concept of user and its contemporary dramaturgy in industrial research. For forty years, the literature in sciences and technology studies, in design and in strategy have been revealing the importance of users in the innovation process. This thesis is the result of a doctoral research that aims at exploring further this issue by studying the institutional, economical and socio-technical reasons that settle the user as an artefact in the research laboratory of Bell Labs. Our theorical frameword combine both semiotic (Charles S. Peirce) and symbolic (Lucien Sfez) aproaches, and the theory of actor-network (Bruno Latour). We focus on the terms of the representational system of the user and its symbolic implications in Bell Laboratories : the diffusion of the concept in the scientific journal of Bell Labs through a statistical analysis, the different types of user-model in Bell Labs history through a speech analysis, and the process of user integration through the socio-technical analysis of an innovation project. For this research, we developed a methodology designed at tracking and analyzing the birth and propagation of concepts in innovation. Finally we defend that Bell Labs, through its user-models, have established an equivalence between human and machine that make the user a symbolic picture half human, half-machine.

Les incubateurs corporate (IC) sont un dispositif d’innovation ouverte à la mode dans les grands groupes. Cependant, si les grands groupes considèrent ce dispositif comme LE modèle à adopter pour gérer les relations avec des startups, presque aucun ne sait réellement comment mettre en œuvre, développer et piloter ces dispositifs et les échecs sont fréquents. La problématique générale de notre travail fait donc écho aux difficultés rencontrées par les grands groupes dans le montage de ces dispositifs d’innovation. Nous concentrerons notre attention la nature du travail managérial requis pour faciliter l’adoption d'une innovation managériale comme les IC ? Notre démarche vise à mieux comprendre les actions et pratiques effectivement mises en œuvre dans les grands groupes pour favoriser l’adoption de ce modèle d’innovation ouverte. Bien que l’IC soit un modèle d’innovation ouverte très répandu dans les grands groupes, cette réalité managériale reste encore mal connue et peu étudiée. L’originalité de notre approche consiste à appréhender l’adoption des IC dans les grands groupes à travers le prisme des innovations managériales. Nous analysons à travers cinq études de cas, les similarités mais également les différences entre les processus de diffusion de cette innovation managériale dans cinq grands groupes industriels français. Nos résultats permettent d'illustrer le processus d'institutionnalisation d'une proto-institution - les IC comme des institutions en devenir - à travers une analyse fine des pratiques mises en œuvre par les responsables de ces structures dans le cadre de leur travail d'adaptation managériale. / Corporate incubators (ICs) appear to be a very popular open innovation model in large groups. However, if large companies consider this model as a THE model to manage relationships with startups, almost none really knows how to implement, develop and pilot these structures, and failures are frequent. Our work echoes the difficulties large groups are facing when assembling these open innovation models. Our approach aims to better understand the actions and practices effectively implemented in large groups to encourage the adoption of this open innovation model. The originality of our approach is to consider the adoption of ICs through the prism of managerial innovations. We analyze, through a comparative case study of five ICs the similarities but also the differences between the diffusion processes of these managerial innovations in large companies in France. Our results illustrate the institutionalization process of a proto-institution i.e. ICs as emerging institutions, through an in-depth analysis of the practices implemented by those managers (and their teams) responsible for these structures.

The South African titanium metal industry is underdeveloped and has a fragmented value chain. The aim of this study was to investigate fragmentation within the local titanium metal value chain by using industry technology roadmapping as a tool to comment on the completeness of each value chain stage. Roadmapping for the period 2021 to 2030 was applied to a novel value chain produced for the local titanium metal industry. Within the fragmented value chain, it was indicated that from the eight identified stages only four were established locally. The identified stages of the titanium metal value chain were: stage 1 - mineral reserves; stage 2 - slag; stage 3 – TiCl4; stage 4 – sponge; stage 5 – melted products; stage 6 – mill products; stage 7 – metal powder production and stage 8 – metal powder products. Stages 1, 2, 6 and 8 are already established in South Africa. The roadmapping type selected to address the fragmented South African titanium metal value chain was an industry technology roadmap. This type of roadmap focuses on forecasting the development, commercialisation and deployment of new technologies. The overall industry roadmap was designed using individual roadmaps for the value chain stages. These individual roadmaps were used as a guideline on what to include and what to exclude from the overall industry roadmap. The technology roadmap layout consisted of five layers namely market, product, technology, R&D, and resources. These roadmapping layers were applied to each stage of the titanium metal value chain resulting in the production of individual roadmaps for each stage. The roadmap model was based on the three fundamental questions in roadmapping: “Where are we now?” addressing the current state of each value chain stage, “Where do we want to go?” addressing the vision elements for each value chain stage and “How will we get there?” addressing how the vision elements would be achieved for each value chain stage. The methodology used in this study relied on data collection from two main sources. The first was primary data collected through conducting interviews and a survey. The main aim of the interviews (conducted with industry and R&D experts) was to establish a vision element for each of the titanium metal value chain stages which was validated though the survey. Secondary data was then combined with the collected expert driven data in order to follow the selected roadmapping approach and complete a roadmap for each of the value chain stages following the specified layers (top-down approach). The vision elements were then combined to obtain an overall South African titanium metal value chain vision. The consolidated vision, based on what should be included in the South African titanium metal value chain and what not, was used as driver for compiling the overall South African titanium metal industry roadmap. This was done by considering and combining the required actions needed from the value chain stage roadmaps (top-down visioning approach) to achieve the identified overall roadmap (bottom-up visioning approach). The newly developed vision for the South African titanium metal industry is: South Africa should continue to mine and upgrade titanium mineral concentrates in a sustainable and efficient manner. The country should commit to the establishment of two additional stages within the titanium metal value chain, which is TiCl4 production and titanium metal powder production. Capacity and expertise within the two already developed downstream stages (mill product and powder product production) should be expanded for both the local and the export markets. Within the mill product market, the focus should be on producing products for the medical, chemical and aerospace industries while the powder product markets should focus on medical, aerospace, leisure and automotive industries. In addition to the vision and roadmap establishment, other outcomes of this study indicated that the South African titanium metal industry is fragmented and should remain fragmented over the next decade. This thesis presents novel research on the production of a roadmap for a fragmented industry. To the best knowledge of the author, no other industry roadmap approach has first considered the production of individual roadmaps in a fragmented value chain and then combine them into a single overall industry technology roadmap. South Africa can apply the newly obtained titanium industry vision and roadmap, since there was no prior vision that addressed the development of the industry’s fragmented value chain. The newly produced roadmap can be used to advance and develop the South African titanium metal industry in order to improve local value addition to the already existing resources. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / The main sponsor wat the CSIR, Additive Manufacturing Initiative (AMI) UP Postgraduate Bursary for Masters and Doctoral students / Graduate School of Technology Management (GSTM) / PhD / Unrestricted

The purpose of this research is to identify socio-economic factors which may influence the adoption of auto-steer technologies by row crop farmers in Mississippi. The variables of geographic location, size of farm, age of the farmer, and educational level of the farmer were analyzed using a binary logistic regression analysis to determine if those variables could be used as predictors in the farmer’s adoption of auto-steer. Analysis revealed that the size of the farm and the age of the farmer are both statistically significant predictors of the probability of a farmer adopting auto-steer in the state of Mississippi. Geographic location and level of education were both included in the model but failed to indicate significant predictive ability. Among farmers who adopted auto-steer respondents ranked the importance of saving time and profitability as the most important and second most important factor in their decision to adopt auto-steer. Future research involving precision agriculture technologies should also include advances in the fields of beef production, forestry, and aquaculture. These can provide helpful insight into the reasons why a producer would adopt a particular precision agriculture technology.

In humanitarian settings (such as natural disasters, conflicts, famines, etc), innovation can be as important as regular programmatic activities or research, and can sometimes be difficult to distinguish from either of these. At once experimental and responsive, innovation can be a welcome response to an unresolved problem, but also lack the oversight of research and the reliability of established practices. To help address the unique ethical tensions that arise in humanitarian innovation, the research presented in this dissertation was conducted as part of a consultancy-grant with the Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF). The aim of this partnership was to support the development of evidence-based ethics tools for innovation in humanitarian contexts. In this dissertation I present three unique contributions to the body of knowledge surrounding humanitarian ethics research. The first article presents the overarching research architecture that was employed in partnership with the HIF, highlighting strengths and weaknesses of this approach to the development of ethics tools. The second article presents the findings from a scoping review of academic and grey literature focusing on ethics and humanitarian innovation, identifying ethical tensions across innovation stages as well as a common thread of solutionism. The final article presents a qualitative description of key stakeholder interviews, which highlighted the need for micro (tools for reflection), meso (funding structures), and macro (sectoral learning and transparency) level shifts to foster ethical humanitarian innovation. Taken together, these contributions point to a humanitarian innovation ecosystem that is very much still in its nascency, potentially vulnerable to exploitation by market interests, and has not established effective mechanisms to facilitate learning and collaboration between funders, innovators, and affected populations. This research and the associated toolkit begin to respond to the immediate need for resources, and provide empirical support for larger sectoral change. Further research and the establishment of a community of practice surrounding these tools will be critical to the continued pursuit of humanitarian innovation in an accountable, ethical, and impactful manner. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Over the past decade there has been an intense proliferation of innovation activities in the humanitarian sector (challenges, labs, accelerators), but a lack of practitioner-oriented resources to facilitate ethical decision making and reflection when pursuing these activities. This research was conducted through a consultancy-grant between the Humanitarian Innovation Fund & the Humanitarian Health Ethics Research Group, with the aim of supporting the development of evidence-based resources to foster ethical innovation in humanitarian contexts. Qualitative interviews and literature reviews were used to explore the landscape of what is known and to identify gaps and needs, which informed the series of iterative tool workshops. This research ultimately produced five unique tools and a series of case studies, as well as greater understanding of the ethical dimensions of humanitarian innovation. Further research and the establishment of a community of practice surrounding these tools will be critical to the continued pursuit of humanitarian innovation in an accountable, ethical, and impactful manner.

Open innovation that Henry Chesbrough introduced in 2003 promotes the usage of the input of outsiders to strengthen internal innovation processes and the search for outside commercialization opportunities for what is developed internally. Open innovation has enabled both academics and practitioners to design innovation strategies based on the reality of our connected world. Although the literature has identified and explored a variety of benefits and costs, to the best of our knowledge, no study has reviewed the benefits and costs of open innovation in terms of their importance for strategic performance. To conduct such a study, we need to take into account two main issues. First, the number of benefits and costs of open innovation are multifold; so, to have a comprehensive comparison, a large number of benefits and costs must be compared. Second, to have a fair comparison, benefits and costs must be compared in terms of different performance criteria, including financial and non-financial. Concerning the issues above, we will face a complex process of exploring benefits and costs. In this regard, we use multiple criterion decision-making (MCDM) methods that have shown promising solutions to complex exploratory problems. In particular, we present how using a stochastic multi-criteria clustering algorithm that is one of the recently introduced MCDM methods can bring promising results when it comes to exploring the strategic importance of benefits and costs of open innovation. Since there is no comprehensive understanding of the nature of the benefits and costs of open innovation, the proposed model aims to cluster them into hierarchical groups to help researchers identify the most crucial benefits and costs concerning different dimensions of performance. In addition, the model is able to deal with uncertainties related to technical parameters such as criteria weights and preference thresholds. We apply the model in the context of open innovation for universities concerning their research collaboration with industries. An online survey was conducted to collect experts' opinions on the open-innovation benefits and costs of university-industry research collaboration, given different performance dimensions. The results obtained through the cluster analysis specify that university researchers collaborate with industry mainly because of knowledge-related and research-related reasons rather than economic reasons. This research also indicates that the most important benefits of university-industry research collaboration for universities are implementing the learnings, increased know-how, accessing specialized infrastructures, accessing a greater idea and knowledge base, sensing and seizing new technological trends, and keeping the employees engaged. In addition, the results show that the most important costs are the lack of necessary resources to monitor activities between university and industry, an increased resistance to change among employees, conflict of interest (different missions), an increased employees' tendency to avoid using the knowledge that they do not create themselves, paying time costs associated with bureaucracy rules, and loss of focus. The research's findings enable researchers to analyze open innovation's related issues for universities more effectively and define their research projects on these issues in line with the priorities of universities.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Intense global competition and rapid technological advances have seen innovation become central towards enabling firms to adapt and rejuvenate themselves. While firms become increasingly focused on innovation, the challenge of managing innovation and developing innovation capabilities still remains. The purpose of this thesis is to analyse and evaluate the innovation capabilities of Ericsson’s Shared Services Organization (SSO). To do so, the existing literature and theories are synthesized and a multi-dimensional framework is utilized to conceptualize the determinants of organizational innovation capabilities. This framework is applied to analyse and evaluate the innovation capabilities of Ericsson’s SSO. Empirical data are collected through interviews in conjunction with qualitative content analysis of internal documents and participation in several meetings and discussions.Overall, the analysis of the case study revealed some common areas related to innovation capabilities, such as strategy intent for innovation, employees’ engagement with innovation initiatives, structured approach for innovation and management support. The conclusions and implications suggested reflect on the ways in which the case study could create a functional innovation program for fostering innovation in the organization and reaching its performance goals by exploiting untapped resources for innovation.