Matilde Luna

Bridging the Gap between Firms and Academic Institutions The Role of ‘Translators’

In university-industry relationships, ‘translators’ facilitate communication among individuals, institutions, business organizations and groups. However, systematic study of the functions and characteristics of these translators has been scant. Drawing on interviews with participants in knowledge networks, this paper argues that ‘translation’ contributes to the integration of academic knowledge with economic development by reconciling different cognitive orientations, cultures, disciplines, codes and interests. The paper also identifies the personal and professional characteristics that enable some individuals to act as ‘bridges’ between academia and industry. Finally, the authors analyse the relationship between trust and translation, and discuss the pros and cons of creating a position explicitly devoted to performing translation functions.

Knowledge Networks: Integration Mechanisms and Performance Assessment

This ground-breaking new volume evaluates the capacity of the triple helix model to represent the recent evolution of local and national systems of innovation. It analyses both the success of the triple helix as a descriptive and empirical model within internationally competitive technology regions as well as its potential as a prescriptive hypothesis for regional or national systems that wish to expand their innovation processes and industrial development. In addition, it examines the legal, economic, administrative, political and cognitive dimensions employed to configure and study, in practical terms, the series of phenomena contained in the triple helix category.

Power Without Representation: The Coherence and Closeness of the Trilateral Commission

This chapter argues that governance networks claiming to represent the global public opinion need to follow two opposing principles: coherence and openness. To probe this argument and observe its practical implications, the authors focus on the Trilateral Commission (TC), which brings together leaders of several influential think tanks and outstanding personalities from business corporations, political organizations, academic institutions, and media firms. They find that the TC is highly coherent but excessively endogamous, centering on an exclusive group of pro-US leaders, members of transnational corporations, and partisans of free trade. Thus, the TC is a coherent but closed network, very powerful but scarcely representative, which is ironic for a network that claims to promote the use of “soft power” in the international sphere.

Los empresarios y el gobierno : modalidades y perspectivas de relacion en los años ochenta

Uno de los aspectos mas notables de la vida politica de Mexico en los uiltimos doce afos es la presencia politica de los empresarios, misma que se ha desarrollado en el marco de graves conflictos con el gobierno y agudas crisis economicas. En este trabajo nos concentraremos en las modalidades de esta presencia. La presencia empresarial manifiesta una serie de caracteristicas entre las que destacan su desarrollo discontinuo sujeto a flujos y reflujos, el surgimiento de diferencias dentro del sector empresarial (que contrasta con la unidad y fuerza que alcanza en ciertos momentos) y su expresion en modalidades de distinta naturaleza. Esta caracterizacion se relaciona sin duda con una variedad muy compleja de aspectos y procesos de la vida economica, social, politica y aun cultural de Mexico; sin embargo, en esta exposicion quisieramos solamente explorar algunos de los elementos que de manera significativa se vinculan con tales caracteristicas y permiten esbozar las modalidades y perspectivas de la presencia empresarial en los aiios ochenta. El desarrollo discontinuo de la presencia empresarial en la vida politica se encuentra relacionado con lo que podriamos llamar la naturaleza reactiva de la accion politica empresarial, esto es, con su caracter eminentemente dependiente de las iniciativas estatales. Por otra parte, el surgimiento de diferencias dentro del sector empresarial expresa las dificultades que enfrentan las cupulas empresariales para ejercer un liderazgo que permita la identificacion de sus componentes con un proyecto unico de clase. Por ultimo, las distintas modalidades de la actual presencia empresarial remiten a un complejo proceso de desestructuracion y transformacion aceleradas en los afos setenta y principio de los ochenta, de un modo tradicional de vinculacion entre el gobiemo y los empresarios. Partiendo de estos elementos, nuestra proposicion central es que la