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The article explores integration of knowledge-enabling digital technology into community functions through the development of local Digital Communities of Practice. This analysis includes both general considerations--in terms of domain, community, and practice dimensions--as well as results from an exploratory research project in Minnesota. The domain is described as integrated deployment of virtual services (education, human services, government) in local communities; the community is comprised of the local stakeholders and residents that would use or benefit from such services; and the practice is considered as a decision-making processes for designing and deploying these services. The paper concludes with research and policy considerations for providing an enduring source of knowledge about local virtual services, needs, and solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the world is becoming both digital and urban, cyberspace advancements pose a serious challenge to the study of modern cities' development. This research work stresses the importance of investigating the intervention and effectiveness of public policies and agencies that involve the development of the cyberspace in urban restructuring. Thus, the present paper reviews and analyzes the deployment of urban cyberspace policy initiatives in Manchester, during the 1989-1999 decade, reflecting critically upon the questions raised from the literature regarding the cyberspace paradigm in urban policy and planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature in the area of innovation systems (IS) has been growing in importance and the IS approach has become well established. It is widely used in North America, Western Europe and Scandinavia, both in academic contexts and also as a framework or tool for policymaking. This paper examines work by sociologists, historians and others who have attempted to provide new insights into the nature of technology, in order to determine how the new sociology of technology literature--particularly social construction of technology methodologies--can contribute to, and unpack the study of innovation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the construction of claims in an effort to mobilize state activity and criminal sanction to control a newly problematized form of behavior, the sharing of musical files over the World Wide Web. With documents from Canada, the United States, and other countries a process of redefinition of technologies, practices, and multiple other elements such as benefits, harm, competition, etc. is identified and analyzed. The conclusion shows that the problem and its solutions, especially those involving recourse to the criminal justice system, stem from this process rather than from objectively identifiable facts, conditions, or situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a review of words and their meanings in the field of technology studies, and an analysis the semantics of an idealistic international technology-related social movement that flourished briefly during the second half of the twentieth century. Sloppy nomenclature employed by proponents and observers of the movement led to people with opposite views appearing to agree (and vice versa), with the consequence that the movement's valuable policy insights exerted only marginal influence on mainstream technology policy. I conclude that poor technological semantics may undermine effective technological practice. Suggestions for a constructive technological nomenclature are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to make intelligent decisions about implementing and managing a technology, managers must be able to estimate the value of the technology ex ante and to measure that value ex post. If it is going to be of practical use, any overall theory of technology must include methods for estimating and measuring the value of technology. While some of this value is tangible and relatively easy to estimate and measure, much of the value is intangible and very difficult to estimate and measure. Unfortunately, the state of the art in estimating and measuring the value of technology, particularly intangible value, is primitive at best. The bursting of the dot-com bubble is only the most recent example that illustrates the inadequacy of current practice. Using information technology as an example, this paper explores techniques for estimating and measuring the intangible value of technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors are building a knowledge management system (KMS) for use by several U.S. federal agencies. Its use must harmonize with multiple agency and disciplinary cultures, and also link with the efforts of at least one international agency. In this paper, we present the KMS project's technological contributions and implementation considerations as a case in knowledge management (KM). We link the public-sector case with our assessment of KM's current status and future prospects. We find the challenges for KM's future are in theory, interactivity, integration, the recognition of cultural differences, and the design of marketing programs that respect these differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the function of cities in the knowledge economy. The knowledge economy asks for "creative cities," i.e. competitive urban areas that combine concentration, diversity, instability and a positive reputation. For a review of the concept of creative cities from a historical and theoretical perspective, we draw the conclusion that knowledge, creativity and innovation cannot be planned from scratch by local governments. However, creative cities par excellence such as Austin, the Øresund and Barcelona demonstrate that local policymakers in fact can play a part in preparing cities for the requirements of the knowledge economy. We conclude that local governments can increase the chance that urban creativity emerges by providing the appropriate underlying framework conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an instrument of national integration, domestic television in many post-colonial countries has long neglected cultural minorities. Transnational television via newer satellite and cable technologies has been able to target cross-border ethnic groups which then constituted viable audience markets. Governments in Asia sought initially to control access to transnational broadcasts out of paternalistic nationalism, but audiences and entrepreneurs have circumvented such policies. Thus over the last decade the political economy of television in countries such as Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand have been transformed, though in differing ways. Belated media deregulation has often led to alliances between business and political elites. This paper argues that most policy developments in Asian television have been driven by business and government imperatives rather than by civil society involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software is a difficult technology to understand strategically. Many frameworks developed for strategic technology analysis are specific to physical technologies. This paper analyzes two frameworks, the cascade model of technology evolution and the concept of technology potency. Modifications to the cascade model are proposed that make it more compatible with software. Difficulties with the concept of technology potency when applied to software are illustrated and directions for further research are pointed out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the effort put into discovering or defining the nature of technology has been along "party lines," for example, either favoring technology or not. Although there is a clear divergence in the stand that various authors take with respect to this topic, I believe they share a common assumption, namely, that there is such a thing as "the essence" or "nature" of technology. My claim in this paper is that the broad use to which we put the term "technology" is better understood on the model of "family resemblance," a model put forward by Ludwig Wittgenstein, than it is on models that utilize the notion of "essence" or "nature." Not only does the family resemblance model serve us better in understanding the wide variety of uses of the term, but it also helps to ameliorate the antipathy between the parties that their discussions often invoke. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a method of conceptual mapping of knowledge during the consolidation process of an interdisciplinary domain into an emerging discipline. This approach allows tracking the evolution of an emerging discipline of technology management. Knowledge consolidation is the result of colliding source disciplines and the simultaneous influence of changing paradigms. Three paradigms have played major role in recent development of the emerging discipline: (1) engineering management paradigm, (2) management of technology paradigm, and (3) technological entrepreneurship paradigm. The changing needs of practice drive the process. Knowledge mapping approach identifies elements of that process. Those elements (concepts) are identified and used for building a map of knowledge. The impact of different source disciplines (such as economics, management science, psychology, engineering sciences, systems science, and sociology) is characterized by affinities they have with concepts developed and applied in the emerging discipline. Linkages among those concepts are graphically interpreted in the map of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standardization processes under the aegis of standards bodies in different geographic domains exhibit similar institutional features, such as the consensus principle in decision making. Nevertheless, among national and regional standardization systems there are significant differences that primarily refer to different attitudes that actors in the respective domains hold towards standardization, Furthermore, these differences in attitude are the result of different cultural, socio-economic and even mental states. Using an institutional approach, this paper argues that the state of standardization system may serve as an indicator of the respective overall mental, cultural and social-economic states in different domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s, the success of high-technology industries has been seen as essential for the economic growth of developed nations. Researchers have naturally gravitated to study of the national differences in systems for technological innovation. These studies have identified potential antecedents to innovation success, such as the role of suppliers, customers and government policy. But the results have varied dramatically between countries and sectors, raising concerns about generalizability given the small number of sectors studied. We examine the cellular telephone industry, a sector with an unusual industry structure. Mobile telecommunications infrastructure depends on scarce resources that require government policy for allocation to specific service providers. Also, production of goods is inextricably linked to the consumption of services, with a complex three-way relationship between manufacturer, service provider and end-user. In a recent report, OECD (1999) identified four driving forces for National Innovation Systems (NIS): 1) globalization; 2) deregulation; 3) changing patterns of demand; and 4) advances in scientific and technological development. We see these forces as interdependent in the case of development of cellular mobile telephony industry. In this paper we analyze the relationship between the four driving forces and the role of standardization as a critical and necessary attribute of sustainable innovation process in the wireless telecommunications sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a model of technology standardization based on modular standards and the effect of market uncertainty on the value of modularity in standards. A real options model quantifies the value of modularity in standards, illustrating that a rational way to standardize some IT technology in uncertain markets is with modular design, end-2-end structure, and proper staging of the standard. Highly modularized standards provide a higher option value because of the ability to select the best modules to change at a fine granularity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic growth and development is a complicated process that falls into the domain of many disciplines in social sciences and humanities. It is natural then to study fundamental aspects of economic growth synthesizing research in relevant fields. In this short paper, we argue that this has rarely been the case in the economic growth literature. We briefly discuss past growth theories and empirics, and present a broad framework to compare and evaluate work on economic growth from an interdisciplinary perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the association between research and development (R&D) and the growth rate of output per capita at a national level. Do countries that allocate a larger share of output to R&D grow faster than otherwise similar countries? After reviewing past literature, I examine the association between R&D and economic growth in 20 OECD countries using a multivariate regression. There is not found to be a strong association between the two. But when considering only G-7 countries, there is reported to be a positive association between industry R&D expenditures and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the recent development of growth theory, focusing on the consistency between theory and evidence in terms of effects of population on growth, and presents some policy implications. Although positive effects of the population size on growth are likely to exist, the size does not necessarily mean the size of the domestic population. In the world with substantial but costly international knowledge diffusion, what affects growth is the population size of the technological leader country, the United States, from which knowledge spills over, and it is the world population when diffusion is costless. Therefore, policies to promote population growth may not be growth-enhancing for most advanced countries. A more effective population-related policy objective theoretically suggested is to encourage international knowledge diffusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]