Richard Joseph

Political myth, high technology and the information superhighway: an Australian perspective

Abstract Discussion about the information superhighway and the global information infrastructure has now spread to many countries and governments are active in formulating responses to these technological challenges. Australia is no different and there have been numerous official reports on the matter over the past year. This paper aims to provide a commentary on why the adoption by governments of a concept such as the information super-highway can be made so relatively easily and uncritically. It is argued that the dynamics of international modelling plays an important role. First, states are involved in international competition underpinned by technological change. Second, modelling theories suggest that bureaucrats will act “rationally” by following leader countries. Finally, it is argued that during the 1980s the political myth of Silicon Valley promoted a boom in high technology development — including technology parks. There seems to be a similarity in process between this recent period of technological development and the information superhighway debates. This paper puts forward these explanations as reasons contributing to the popularity of the information superhigh-way concept.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND INVESTMENT IN THE GREAT SUPRANATIONAL REGULATORY GAME.

This paper has two ambitious goals. One is to explain how telecommunications policy has become part of an emerging supranational regulatory order and the impact of that on telecommunications policy. The second is to emphasize one very important link in the interdependent supranational regulatory system, the link between telecommunications and investment. It is argued that the traditional international regulatory regime based on monopoly and protection is slowly being integrated into an emerging supranational regulatory system which now emphasizes market access. Various strategies and organizations exist at the supranational level to promote the widespread acceptance of the market access model, and these are discussed. Direct foreign investment (DFI) in telecommunications is a key policy area where there are strong pressures for the relaxation of regulation in order to promote market access. It is suggested that, for less powerful states, the relaxation of DFI restrictions needs to be addressed cautiously. A strategy of staying out of multilateral negotiations on telecommunications as part of the post-Uruguay Round negotiations on services could be disadvantageous.

Rethinking Silicon Valley: New Perspectives on Regional Development

Silicon Valley in Southern California has, over the past 30 years, become a model for high technology development in many parts of the world. Associated with Silicon Valley is a common rhetoric and mythology that explains the origins of this area of high technology agglomeration and indeed the business and entrepreneurial attributes needed for success. Governments in many parts of the world (including Southeast Asia and Australia) have tried to emulate this growth through various industry and regional development mechanisms, in particular, the science or technology park. More recently, promoting developments in information technology has come to be seen as an integral feature of these parks activities. In this paper, we argue that the modeling process used by governments to promote Silicon Valley-like regional development has tended to model the wrong things about Silicon Valley. The models have tended to be mechanical and have failed to reflect the nature of information and information industries. While we have not sought to develop a model for Silicon Valley in this paper,we address a number of issues that require attention on the part of anyone serious about this project. After discussing problems with previous attempts to model Silicon Valley and problems associated with the activity of modeling itself, we move to consider four issues that must be addressed in any real attempt to model Silicon Valley in Southeast Asia. The first is the role of the state and the problems that state involvement may create. The second concerns the contribution that universities can make to the project. The third is the role of firms, particularly Chinese firms. The fourth is the cultural context within which the model will sit. Since technology parks are seen as a popular way of promoting high technology development by governments, the revised history suggested in this paper provides fresh thinking about modeling Silicon Valley in the Southeast Asian region.

Direct foreign investment in telecommunications: A review of attitudes in Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany and the UK

This paper reviews attitudes to direct foreign investment (DFI) in telecommunications in five countries: Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany and the UK. The paper discusses the following themes: the forces influencing the internationalization of telecommunications; issues relating to DFI and telecommunications such as why companies invest internationally and why governments regulate DFI; and attitudes to DFI in each of the countries. It is argued that, as countries progressively move towards a more liberalized telecommunications environment, DFI will become an increasingly important factor in telecommunications policy.

RECENT TRENDS IN AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT POLICIES FOR TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION

This paper examines the rhetoric underlying policies for technological innovation in Australia over the past five or six years. The analysis is based on two approaches to policies for technological innovation which compete in the political arena: non-interventionism and economic nationalism. These approaches are completely general and aim to outline the scope of the rhetoric surrounding policies for technological innovation. Major policy statements and reports of the Liberal government prior to the federal election in March 1983 are analysed in terms of the two approaches, as is the Science and Technology Platform and pre-election statements of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Recent policy initiatives taken by the Labor government are also reviewed. It is concluded that the rhetoric of the non-interventionist approach has dominated the development of policies for technological innovation up to March 1983. The ALP rhetoric is more in line with economic nationalism and this is seen to provide some challen...

Converging telecommunications technologies: Challenges facing government and regulators in Australia and New Zealand

Abstract Converging technologies in telecommunications, computing and broadcasting are creating challenges as well as opportunities for governments and regulatory agencies. This paper reviews different meanings of the term ‘convergence’ and considers the relevance of these meanings to policy and regulatory issues. From this perspective, policy developments as they relate to ‘convergence’ in Australia and New Zealand are discussed. Comment is made on various issues arising from the different regulatory approaches adopted in the two countries.

Raising the Standard of Management Education for Electronic Commerce Professionals

The teaching of electronic commerce in universities has become a growth industry in itself. The rapid expansion of electronic commerce programmes raises the question of what actually is being taught. The association of electronic commerce as primarily a technical or information technology (IT) phenomenon has not been sufficient to constrain it to IT and information systems departments. Business schools have been keen entrants into the electronic commerce coursework race and they are developing electronic commerce programmes in an environment where there is no agreed definition of the term. This paper draws on the work of Kenneth Boulding who argued that the dynamics of change in society are largely a product of changing skills and the way these skills are arranged into roles at the organizational level. It is argued that an overly technical interpretation of electronic commerce narrows the skills being acquired as part of formal education. Universities, under pressure from the market and technological change, are changing their roles resulting in a further narrowing of the breadth of issues that is seen as legitimate to be included as electronic commerce. The outcome is that aspiring electronic commerce professionals are not being exposed to a wide enough agenda of ideas and concepts that will assist them to make better business decisions.

Privatising the public university: the case of law

yses. Economic geography, these authors write, has much to gain from incorporating concepts from evolutionary economics. History matters. Geoff Hodgson is cited (‘The role of institutions and organizations in shaping radical innovations’) as subscribing to the view that routines are ‘metahabits’ which diffuse across populations of organizations within an institutional environment, an insight he is said to borrow from evolutionary biologists such as Ernst Mayr (see Mayr, 1992), and which may owe something to Veblen. There is much else in these rich volumes which cannot be given justice in a brief review. They deserve a place in any well-stocked university library.

The cost of bad behavior: how incivility is damaging your business and what to do about it

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