Helena Barnard

Technology management routines that matter to technology managers

This study addresses the fragmentation in the technology management field by identifying and organising the routines used by managers of technology. In a multi-method, iterative qualitative study done jointly between academics and technology managers from a number of large industrial firms, 27 technology management routines were identified. These 27 routines were organised into a framework consisting of four categories: producing scientific and technological knowledge, transforming knowledge into working artefacts, linking artefacts with user requirements, and providing organisational support. This framework provides an organising scheme to make sense of technology management routines. In addition, because managers of technology actively participated in developing the routines, the study contributes by identifying routines practitioners regard as particularly important. Both research and practical implications are derived from the framework. 111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 2011 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30

How Demand Sophistication (De‐)limits Economic Upgrading: Comparing the Film Industries of South Africa and Nigeria (Nollywood)

More sophisticated demand is typically seen as an enabler of economic upgrading. This study questions this linearity and extends demand theory through a case analysis of the film industry in two developing countries. When unsophisticated local demand results in well‐matched supply‐ and demand‐side elements, benefits do accrue. Low exposure to technically superior products in Nigeria allowed a fully fledged film value chain to develop, as consumers were willing to support lower quality output. Although the industry is too weak to seriously threaten incumbents from the developed world on the global stage, it has substantial impact in its home country. In contrast, if demand is far more sophisticated than supply, local industry will struggle to respond to broad‐based demand signals and will achieve accelerated learning only in niche areas. South Africa has become a niche producer in the global film industry rather than film producer in its own right partly because the widespread demand for Hollywood‐quality products could not be met by local supply capabilities.

The Evolution of the Intellectual Property Management Strategy of an Emerging Multinational: Learning the Purpose of Patenting and Scientific Publications

The transition from developing country technology firm to true multinational requires both an upgrading of the underlying capability base and an understanding of the purpose of IP management. Through a detailed case study of Sasol, a leading R&D firm from South Africa, this paper tracks the coevolution of IP management with technological advancement amid the constraints of the developing country context. Using interviews, annual reports, patent, and scientific publication data, this study suggests that the value of formal IP extends beyond appropriation of own capabilities. Importantly, patents and publications also serve to signal capabilities in an attempt to gain legitimacy among peers. Fundamentally, IP management involves a social process, where firms learn to manage the sharing of key capabilities-with the attendant competition/cooperation tension-to peers.

Emerging multinationals benefiting from subsidiaries located in more developed countries: drivers for the sharing of capabilities

Two main mechanisms determine the extent to which the headquarters of multinational corporations (MNCs) from less developed countries gain useful capabilities from their subsidiaries in the developed world: learning mechanisms, and recognition by the parent. Because emerging MNCs are at an early stage of their evolution, informal learning mechanisms are more important than attempts to formalise learning. It also matters whether the parent recognises the capabilities of the subsidiary: learning mechanisms alone are not adequate. A parent that interacts frequently with the subsidiary, has high regard for the (internal) resources of its subsidiary and (external) resources of its environment is more likely to regard that subsidiary as a source of useful capabilities, and therefore more likely to benefit from informal learning exchanges. By using data gathered from subsidiaries of emerging MNCs in the US, the article documents the functioning of both learning mechanisms and the role of headquarter recognition in the sharing of useful capabilities with the parent. Prior literature strongly emphasises the importance of learning mechanisms; this article confirms the importance of capabilities, but also highlights the role played by headquarter recognition.

On the value of foreign PhDs in the developing world: Training versus selection effects

This paper compares the career effects of overseas and domestic PhD training for scientists working in an emerging economy, South Africa. Variations in scientific achievements of South African academics may arise because those who attend “better” PhD programmes receive better training, but it may also be because good students select into good universities. We examine selection and training effects for four tiers of South African and two tiers of foreign universities. Those who received PhDs from universities in industrialized countries tend to be more productive than those whose PhDs were locally granted, but universities from industrialized countries do not necessarily provide better training than local universities. Pure selection effects contribute to career outcomes nearly as much as training effects. When looking at training in isolation, PhDs from top South African universities produce a similar quantity and quality research output to those from leading universities in the developed world.

The Global Platform Economy: A New Offshoring Institution Enabling Emerging-Economy Microproviders

Global online platforms match firms with service providers around the world, in services ranging from software development to copywriting and graphic design. Unlike in traditional offshore outsourcing, service providers are predominantly one-person microproviders located in emerging-economy countries not necessarily associated with offshoring and often disadvantaged by negative country images. How do these microproviders survive and thrive? We theorize global platforms through transaction cost economics (TCE), arguing that they are a new technology-enabled offshoring institution that emerges in response to cross-border information asymmetries that hitherto prevented microproviders from participating in offshoring markets. To explain how platforms achieve this, we adapt signaling theory to a TCE-based model and test our hypotheses by analyzing 6 months of transaction records from a leading platform. To help interpret the results and generalize them beyond a single platform, we introduce supplementary data from 107 face-to-face interviews with microproviders in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Individuals choose microprovidership when it provides a better return on their skills and labor than employment at a local (offshoring) firm. The platform acts as a signaling environment that allows microproviders to inform foreign clients of their quality, with platform-generated signals being the most informative signaling type. Platform signaling disproportionately benefits emerging-economy providers, allowing them to partly overcome the effects of negative country images and thus diminishing the importance of home country institutions. Global platforms in other factor and product markets likely promote cross-border microbusiness through similar mechanisms.

Openness of innovation systems through global innovation networks : a comparative analysis of firms in developed and emerging economies

In the last decade, we have witnessed an unprecedented growth in the globalisation of innovation activities and more specifically, of global innovation networks (GINs) extending into middle-income countries. However, hitherto most of the literature is either theoretical or based on a handful of cases. We do not know what are the different forms of openness through networks in which firms participate whether in terms of the various degrees of global scope, innovativeness and network scope or other key characteristics. This exploratory paper provides empirical evidence of the different forms of openness through global innovation networks used by firms located in mature and emerging innovation systems. The paper relies on survey-based firm-level data collected in five European countries plus Brazil, South Africa, India and China.

Global Entrepreneurship through Brokerage: Connecting Socially Conscious North American Investors to South African Housing Developers

Abstract The literature on global value chains and global production networks suggests limited entrepreneurial opportunities for small firms from developing countries. However, in networks power can accrue not only to central players (such as lead firms), but also to “marginal” players that can play a brokering role. Brokers get their power from connecting parties that would otherwise not be connected and firms that can bridge structural holes may well have impact beyond what would be suggested by their size. This chapter theorizes and provides evidence for global entrepreneurship through brokerage; when entrepreneurs recognize business opportunities in one context, can identify resources from another context, and can connect the two. Global entrepreneurship through brokerage can take place any time when entrepreneurs see opportunities that can be brokered between any two countries, but it takes a specific form in developing countries. A global entrepreneur can earn rents by bridging the gap between the resources of developed countries and the opportunities in emerging markets. This study examines a South African company providing low-cost housing with funds from socially responsible institutional investors, mainly from North America. The very different institutional conditions of the two contexts facilitate an understanding of how this type of entrepreneurship takes place.