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A Study to Develop Strategies for Proactive Water-Loss Management

2006-11-21 , Park, Hyun Jung

A Study to Develop Strategies for Proactive Water-Loss Management Hyun Jung Park Directed by Dr. Mary Beth Walker Water conservation is one of the important policy concerns. However, most water conservation practices have focused primarily on reducing use by customers. Since a large amount of water lost in supply systems causes water providers to lose money, resources, and reliability, and the current passive approach cannot deal with water losses effectively, a proactive approach is necessary for water-loss management. The goal of this study is to help policymakers and water utilities develop strategies that proactively solve water losses. To develop strategies for water-loss management, it is essential to identify key factors that determine the level of water losses as well as the factors that encourage the adoption of the innovative control practices. Using three different datasets and statistical methodology, this study analyzed the factors associated with water losses and utilities responses to the problems. Based on case studies, this study explored managers perceptions about the adoption of water-loss management and identified organizational characteristics that may influence managements decisions to adopt such strategies. Operational and Maintenance (O and M) factors had the most significant impacts on water losses. In particular, system size, represented by total production or population served, and infrastructure rehabilitation were crucial factors. The effects of some internal factors on water losses were predicted but those of several internal factors were rather unclear and relatively complicated. This study confirmed that utilities were more likely to be motivated to combat water losses if certain external conditions, such as higher water demand, limited resource availability, and institutional pressure exist. This study found several internal and external factors associated with the adoption of proactive water-loss management; however, internal factors seemed to dominate in the decision-making processes over such adoption. The utilities that have already adopted proactive water-loss management seem to be more amenable to adopt new practices because they have certain characteristics and their managers have more positive perspectives. The findings suggest several policy implications and recommendations for the water industry. Finally, this study discussed limitations of the study, and suggestions for further studies.

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Searching for Patterns of Competitive and Relational Contracting over Time: Do Prime and Subcontractor Networks Follow Similar Patterns?

2006-11 , Kingsley, Gordon , Ponomariov, Branco Leonidov

This paper explores and compares two sets of contractual relationships over a twelve-year period: the patterns of contracting between a state transportation agency and its prime contractors providing engineering design services, and between the prime- and sub-contractors. We find evidence that patterns of relational and competitive contracting may co-exist in the same contracting context. While the patterns of agency-prime contracting are indicative or relational contracting, the patterns of prime-sub contracting imply relatively more competitive processes. Implications for policy and theory of outsourcing are discussed.

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Approach for Analyzing Technological Capabilities in Latecomer Software Companies

2006-10 , Rousseva, Rossitza

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Secondary Innovation: The Experience of Chinese Enterprises in Learning, Innovation and Capability Building

2006-10 , Wu, Xiaobo , Ma, Rufei , Xu, Guannan

Nowadays enterprises have played an important role in China’s economic development and increasingly become the main force of China’s growing research and innovation activities. Different from some related work on developing countries’ innovation policy and strategy, the evolutionary model of secondary innovation, based on Chinese enterprises’ innovation practice, highlights the significant role of enterprises in systems of capability building and innovation, and opens the black box to uncover the dynamic process of enterprises’ organizational learning, knowledge accumulation and capability building. Moreover, since enterprises are considered as open systems and one important job of organizational learning is to address rapidly changing environments, interactions between systems of innovation inside and outside the enterprises are also highlighted in the model. In a word, the secondary innovation model provides a useful analytical framework for better understanding the micro-level systems of learning, innovation and capability building in developing countries.

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University research centers and the composition of academic work

2006-11-17 , Boardman, Paul Craig

The purpose of this study is to assess the extent to which affiliation with a university research center affects how university scientists allocate their work time across their many academic tasks and responsibilities, including research, teaching, student advising, grants and contracts work, and service and committee duties. The key proposition is that institutional variation across university research centers can affect greatly how center affiliated university scientists allocate their work time insofar as some center level characteristics are more conducive than are others to role strain, which is the structural circumstance (Merton 1957) wherein an individual is beholden to center and departments norms and expectations that are divergent. The concept of role strain befits analysis of the impact of center affiliation on university scientists time allocations insofar as it provides a structural framework with which to characterize the time constraints that center scientists face as a result of being dually obligated to a center and an academic department. Moreover, study at the organizational level of analysis emphasizes competition and even conflict between university research centers and academic departments over the scarce resource of faculty time (Geiger 1990, Stahler and Tash 1994, Mallon 2004). This study uses data from a national survey of university scientists as well as data from interviews with university scientists who affiliate with National Science Foundation Engineering Research Centers or Science and Technology Centers. Survey results demonstrate that a centers size, multidisciplinarity, organization within the university, programmatic ties, and external relations increase the time allocated to research, grants and contracts work, and service and committee duties. These findings constitute objective evidence of center induced role strain (Pandey and Kumar 1997, Rizzo et al. 1970) insofar as they identify components of center scientists work environments suggestive of center and department norms and expectations being divergent and even conflicting. Interview results demonstrate similarly that when a center has no ties to an academic department and when its research focus is applied or commercially relevant, workload increases. These findings constitute subjective evidence of center induced role strain (Pandey and Kumar 1997, Kahn et al. 1964) insofar as it is the center scientists themselves observing these divergent norms and expectations. Implications for policy and theory are discussed.

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Why some countries develop (while others stay poor): The role of "capabilities" in development

2006-10 , Fagerberg, Jan , Srholec, Martin

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Harmonization of Patent Rules and Regulations and its Plausible Implications in Developing Countries: A Case Study of India

2006-10 , Bhattacharya, Sujit

Historically it has been the privilege of each country to define rules and regulations of its patent system, scope of patenting, exceptions and enforcement mechanism. This had resulted in sharp differences in patenting provisions in different countries; particularly the differences were substantial between developed and developing countries. Majority of the developing countries like India had limited term of patenting, product patents were not allowed in some sectors (mainly ‘pharmaceutical’), etc and enforcement mechanism was not so strong. This type of patent system was in force in developing primarily to enable industries in these countries to catch up with their counterparts in the industrialised economies. The multilateral trade agreement, the WTO (World Trade Organisation) enacted in 1994, enforced new rules and regulations for trade between countries. It was for the first time through the TRIPS (Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights) agreement in the WTO, protection and safeguard of intellectual property rights was introduced in trade between countries. International trade is increasingly becoming technology driven. Share of high technology goods in export is becoming important component of international trade particularly by developed countries. In this technology driven market, creation and successful translation of proprietary knowledge allow firms to be competitive. Firms have increasingly complained that there are widespread infringements of their protected technologies particularly in developing countries due to weak patent laws and inadequate enforcement mechanism. This has been the major argument for inclusion of IPR provisions in international trade agreement i.e. the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organisation (the WTO Agreement) (However, this argument has also come in for criticism as it has been argued by developing countries as well as international agencies such as the WHO, that inclusion of stringent IPR provisions can retard the growth of countries which are in different stages of development). TRIPS agreement has three broad components: (A) Goals, objectives and standards of IPR, (B) Mechanism for enforcement, (C) Specific needs of developing countries. This agreement, explicitly defined through various articles, specifies the patent provisions that member countries would have to provide in their patent law. Thus in other words it essentially leads to the creation of a harmonised patent system i.e. to a large extent creating similar patent rules and regulations in member countries. The present article by taking the case of India, a country in transition and a member of the WTO, examines the changes that were undertaken by it in its patent provisions to comply with the TRIPS agreement. The article also underscores the plausible implications of these changes. In a broad sense the situation in India i.e. the patent system in the country and the effect of TRIPS agreement would be similar to other developing economies. The paper is articulated in five main sections. Section 2 looks at Indian Patent System) for patenting in India and the major deviations from the TRIPS agreement. Section 3 covers changes that were required in the Indian Patent Act to comply with the TRIPS agreement. Section 4 discusses the plausible implications of the amendments. Section 5 examines India’s preparedness by examining patenting trends of Indian firms. This section also covers impact of India joining Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) by observing patent filing by Indian firms through the PCT route as well as foreign patents that are entering India through this route. Section 6 highlights the main findings that emerge from this study and their implications.

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Learning from People, Things, and Signs

2006-11-15 , Hoffmann, Michael H. G.

Starting from the observation that small children can count more objects than numbers—a phenomenon that I am calling the "lifeworld dependency of cognition"—and an analysis of finger calculation, the paper shows how learning can be explained as the development of cognitive systems. Parts of those systems are not only an individual’s different forms of knowledge and cognitive abilities, but also other people, things, and signs. The paper argues that cognitive systems are first of all semiotic systems since they are dependent on signs and representations as mediators. The two main questions discussed here are how the external world constrains and promotes the development of cognitive abilities, and how we can move from cognitive abilities that are necessarily connected with concrete situations to abstract knowledge.

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Knowledge Capital and Globalisation: Towards A New Conceptual Model

2006-10 , Baskaran, Angathevar , Boden, Rebecca

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India and China: Changing Patterns of Comparative Advantage?

2006-10 , Veeramani, C.

The present paper attempts a comparative analysis of the changing patterns of exports and specialization in India and China since 1980. Drawing upon the Chinese experience, the study throws some light on what needs to be done for accelerating India’s exports. The analysis shows that the fear of “Chinese invasion” of India’s export markets is only a popular myth. On a more general level, the analysis provides some insights into the patterns of resource reallocation under trade liberalization and its implications for the cost of adjustments. The analysis excludes the service sector exports and uses data on merchandise exports at the 3-digit level of SITC during the period 1980-2003. The data are taken from the various issues of the Handbook of Statistics brought out by UNCTAD. The rest of the paper is structured as follows. A brief overview of trade policy changes in India and China is provided in Section II. The impact of the policy changes on aggregate exports in both the countries is briefly discussed in Section III. The changing patterns of exports and comparative advantages in the two countries are analyzed in Section IV. Some concluding remarks and implications of the findings for policy are provided in Section V.

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