J. Youtie

ABSTRACT We explore pilot web-based methods to probe the strategies followed by new small and medium-sized technology-based firms as they seek to commercialize emerging technologies. Tracking and understanding the behavior of such early commercial entrants is not straightforward because smaller firms with limited resources do not always widely engage in readily visible and accessible activities such as publishing and patenting. However, many new firms, even if small, present information about themselves that is available online. Focusing on the early commercialization of novel graphene technologies, we introduce a “web scraping” approach to systematically capture information contained in the online web pages of a sample of small and medium-sized high technology graphene firms in the US, UK, and China. We analyze this information and devise measures that gauge how firm specialization in the target technology impacts overall market orientation. Three groups of graphene enterprises are identified which vary by their focus on product development, materials development, and integration into existing product portfolios. Country-level factors are important in understanding these early diverging commercial approaches in the nascent graphene market. We consider management and policy implications of our findings, and discuss the value, including strengths and weaknesses, of web scraping as an additional information source on enterprise strategies in emerging technologies.

ABSTRACT While much of the economic development literature urges greater emphasis on demand-based strategies, policies designed to create economic development advantage by leveraging telecommunications investment continue to be supply side oriented. The rationale underlying telecommunications investment efforts is that if the technology is low cost, both financially and from a cognitive usability standpoint, then it will be used. This paper examines the use of supply side strategies by one small community, LaGrange Georgia. LaGrange sought to enhance its competitiveness in the knowledge economy through the deployment of an Internet television like service designed to be free and easy to use called LITV. Based on a survey of 494 households and selected case studies, the study found that a major group of households that took up the service already had an Internet computer at home. They adopted LITV primarily because it was free rather than because it was an upward path toward economic transformation, as was the case for a segment of African-American female-headed households that adopted LITV. In spite of the fact that LITV was free and nominally easy to use, many citizens did not adopt LITV. Nonadopters and those who initially adopted but then dropped the service spanned the socioeconomic spectrum—rich and poor, well educated and dropouts, with Internet computers at home and beyond. This finding suggests that reducing the cost of technology alone is not enough to raise demand. More attention must be paid to tailoring policies to stimulate demand through targeted applications and broader supporting policies.

A key element in many future-oriented technology analyses is the expert forecasting workshop. These workshops provide a means of combining codified and tacit knowledge to explore the plausibility of various technology options, providing key intelligence for assessing the potential innovations that may stem from them. This paper offers a five-stage approach to conducting such a workshop. It reflects on attributes of one such session, conducted within a larger study concerning biosensor innovation pathways. The workshop drew upon quantitative and qualitative data to stimulate the consideration of future prospects. We reflect on issues in conveying prior analyses to the workshop participants, keying on the value of succinct visualisations. Post-workshop synthesis resulted in the generation of three innovation pathways for nanobiosensors.

Abstract This article provides a field agent's perspective on the factors that influence the success of industrial modernization services. We begin with an overview of the field agent's role in the industrial extension system and discuss the technical assistance services ...

This study examines how programs sponsored through the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) have influenced the organization and delivery of industrial modernization services to small and medium-sized manufacturers in regions in the United States. The study found that increased service coordination has occurred and that this, in turn, has mostly improved the quality and comprehensiveness

There has been increased attention to the importance of knowledge in economic success. The ability of a region to develop learning capabilities has been linked to knowledge-based success. However, conflicting perspectives exist about whether and how it is possible for policies and institutions in a lagging location to foster a learning region. This article examines this debate in the context

... expansion. It reoriented its marketing message about telecommunication services to one that represents tele-communications as part of a bundle of municipal services demonstrating the city's efficient service delivery. CONCLUSION ...

ABSTRACT This project investigates the features of the research environment that enable and foster highly creative research in nanotechnology and human genetics in the US and Europe. It also examines the influence of career patterns. The study contributes to the methodology of science studies by further developing and extending curriculum vita (CV) analysis. The identification of factors in the research environment has broader implications for research and human resource management, and the design and implementation of funding schemes. The use of comparative fields extends the range of impact to two different emerging fields. Public datasets containing variables related to the creative researcher nominees is made available for use by others. The lead sponsor is National Science Foundation under award number SBE-0738126 (Science of Science and Innovation Policy). This project also draws on earlier research funded by the European Commission under award number EU-NEST/CREA-511889.

Abstract In this paper, we probe nanotechnology research and commercialization at a regional level. The study identifies leading US and European prototype “nanodistricts” or metropolitan areas active in nanotechnology research over the 1990-2006 timeframe. We ...

ABSTRACT Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy 2009 This presentation was part of the session : Organizations of Science and Innovation Scientific and technological progress is propelled by creative research. Creative research is also a prerequisite for advances toward addressing critical societal challenges. However, we know and understand little about how creative research is conducted. Moreover, much of our knowledge is focused on individual prominent scientist, particular renowned laboratories, or national level indicators. This partial and fragmentary nature of knowledge about creative research limits our ability to develop policies that can enhance organizational and institutional factors to support and encourage novel, ambitious, and valuable work. Research Questions This paper reports on a study which is investigating characteristics at the meso-level of the research setting which advance highly creative and exceptional research activities in nanotechnology. We also compare these results with another emerging research domain, which is somewhat less multidisciplinary and has a longer - albeit still emerging - history, human genetics. Several research questions to be addressed in this study will be probed in this paper, including the following. Is highly creative research associated with a pattern of career choices, such as, postdocs under specific mentors, experience in non-academic institutions prior to a tenure track job in a university, an early job at a highly prestigious institution or one already populated with highly creative researchers? Do highly creative researchers demonstrate more mobility than a comparison group in the early career stage? Do highly creative researchers have or develop a stable set of collaborators that allowed them to pursue risky projects or what seem to be far-fetched ideas? Or, similarly, are highly creative researchers more or better networked in some sense within the research community? Is there a direct association of highly creative research with publication productivity? Does the timing of creative events have a systematic pattern within their career? Will creative events be associated with affiliation in universities or industry research organizations that are larger and more oriented to multi-disciplinary activities and approaches to problems? Do highly creative researchers have more stable sources of funding during the period prior to the creative event? Methods The study builds on previous research into highly creative scientists in these two scientific fields in the U.S. and Europe (1). It examines institutional, organizational, team, and career development features and directions of this highly creative research through quantitative comparison approaches. An initial effort involved development of a comparison group for highly creative researchers, based on publication data from the Science Citation Index (SCI) through the Web of Science (WOS). These data were extracted according to definitions in Porter et al (2008), for nanotechnology, and Heinze et al (2007) for human genetics (2). The core analysis is centered on gathering and using curriculum vitae (CV) to measure and code information on institutional, organizational, and career development factors. Insights are offered for research management, research funding, and organizational designs to stimulate highly creative research. Preliminary Results Preliminary results have been focused on the complex task of developing a robust method for creating a matched comparison group for the highly creative researchers. One method that was explored is propensity score matching of highly creative researchers to a large random sample of researchers in the nanotechnology or human genetics domains based on propensity scores. In this case, the propensity score is the predicted probability of being categorized as an HCR conditional on a set of covariates. A second method matches researchers based several early career characteristics such as (1) first year of publication of the HCRs, (2) subject category of the first publication, and (3) publication volume for the first six years. In addition, continental (i.e. US or EU) affiliation was also taken into consideration. We have found that the second method yields results with greater face validity. The heterogeneity of the random sample of researchers in the comparison group does not lend itself to propensity score matching as a readily as it does to the second, more purposive, approach. Moreover, we observe that nanotechnology appears to have less heterogeneity with respect to our primary matching feature - citations per year (logged) - than does human genetics. The purposive approach has been used to form the basis for development of a set of 8 to 10 comparison researchers to ensure there is at least 1 comparison researcher CV for each of the highly creative researchers in nanotechnology and human genetics. These matched researchers have been contacted and…