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Machine intelligence, used extensively throughout modern bureaucracies, is quickly evolving, giving rise to machine agents that accomplish tasks typically reserved for human beings. This shift affects task completion, human/machine coproduction, and the control of the bureaucracy itself. Using Max Weber’s ideal type bureaucracy as a guiding construct, we argue that machine agents may offer technical capacity for task completion beyond that of humans. Furthermore, the technical strengths of machine intelligence, including (1) speed, (2) dispassion, (3) predictability, and (4) rational rule-based functioning, mirror those found within Weber’s ideal type. Through this lens, the evolution of both bureaucratic structures and the decision-making agents within them presents at least three important challenges for modern scholars: (1) deciding the scope of tasks machine agents should complete, (2) adapting the bureaucracy to work with machine agents, and (3) retaining the role of humans and human control.

This article tests whether managers and staff evaluate artificial intelligence (AI)-based process innovations differently. Scholars have argued perceptions of innovation vary systematically as a fu...

This chapter examines the use of artificial intelligence (AI) systems by public organizations and the resulting critical challenges of dehumanization and loss of human control. It further identifies core challenges to modern public organizations and modern governance through the lens of Max Weber’s ideal type bureaucracy and Herbert Simon’s administrative behavior including challenges of: (1) a decreased scope of tasks for human bureaucrats, (2) a loss in human managerial control, and (3) an evolving bureaucracy structure, (4) a reshaping of the bounded rationality of agents, (5) value alignment of public organizations, and (6) a changing balance of formal and informal communication. Furthermore, our analysis reveals how understanding and adjusting to the interrelated dynamics of bounded rationality, hierarchy, facts, specialization, and human judgment can help public organizations maintain AI while preserving and reasserting human dignity and control. Finally, we highlight that the theoretical lenses provided by Weber and Simon may diminish in relevancy in the presence of hybrid human and machine bureaucracies.

Small firms are often viewed as the remedy of regional development and growth, but there is little empirical evidence if the cluster of innovative small firms thrives regional innovation performance. This paper attempts to answer a timely policy question of “How vital is small-firm dominated ecology for regional innovation?” by investigating the mix of firm size within a region. The results find that the effect of the proportion of small firms in a region is nonlinearly associated with the regional innovation activity, proposing that a mix-model of large and SME firms induces more innovation commercialization. The results of this study shed some light for policymakers to assess the “knowledge searching” strategies of firms when choosing locations.

How do firms decide which R&D projects to pursue and which ones to cast aside? We use a real options approach to advance our understanding of how firms manage uncertainties in R&D project management, in particular uncertainties linked to the external scientific environment. Our findings highlight how these uncertainties have an impact on the initiation and discontinuation of R&D projects. We examine these effects in the context of shifts in US science policy in the cell therapy field, using a dataset on 570 R&D projects in the global cell therapy sector, initiated over the period 1986–2011. We find decreased R&D project initiation rates and higher discontinuation rates for projects initiated by US firms in the aftermath of policy shifts that increased uncertainties about public funding support for US cell therapy research. We also highlight how this effect was reversed as the US public funding outlook for such research recovered.

Viewing cybersecurity as a matter of national security, in May 2018, authorities in Taiwan passed the Information and Communication Management Act (ICM Act) in response to the increasing awareness ...

All public values (transparency, accountability, civic participation, and collaboration) of open government could be difficult to achieve without administrators' good implementation. This paper raises concern that perceived risks to OGD accountability lead to undesired strategic resistance. Using a nation-wide government survey data of Taiwanese public servants, this study empirically tests for differences in OGD behaviors between two types of perceived risks (individual accountability vs. organizational accountability). Results find the existence of perceived risks to accountability in the process of data release and positive effects on inducing strategic workaround when implementing OGD policies. These findings shed light on the understanding of practices of open government and contributes to knowledge of administrative behavior.

This paper explores the relationships between institutional logics and institutional work when a new technological change is occurring in the field. We argue that when institutional work (actions) does not align with institutional logics (rules), the institutionalization process might not always connect to or generate positive outcomes. By examining a case of the Sony Blu-ray Disc versus Toshiba HD DVD standard war, our results compare differentiated institutional work and institutional logics between two Japanese companies, as well as analysis of mechanisms that led to different business outcomes. Through content analysis of media reports and archival data over 2002–2008, we found two institutional logics (corporate logic vs. consumer logic) based on correspondent institutional work (i.e., stakeholder management, copyright protection, and production performance) between Sony and Toshiba. Findings also show that Toshiba, as an incumbent firm, was not able to align institutional works with its logic, resulting in a failure in the standard war.

Like the US before it, Japan has adopted a series of policy initiatives designed to encourage the commercialization of academic science. However, such initiatives may also adversely affect “open-science”. Based on matched surveys of almost 1000 researchers in Japan and over 800 in the US, the paper examines rates of commercial activity, reasons to patent, and secrecy related to research results. In particular, it examines the extent to which participation in commercial activity is associated with publication secrecy. The results show that patenting rates are higher in Japan, while industry funding is more common in the US. In addition, the overall level of publication secrecy is greater in Japan. And, in both countries, individuals who are commercially active are less likely to share their research results through publication. But, patents are less directly linked to commercial activity in Japan than in the US, and have less impact on academic secrecy. The results suggest that academic entrepreneurship is associated with reduced participation in open science, but that the extent of adverse effects depends significantly on institutional context.

Aims: Some allogeneic cell therapies requiring a high dose of cells for large indication groups demand a change in cell expansion technology, from planar units to microcarriers in single-use bioreactors for the market phase. The aim was to model the optimal timing for making this change. Materials & methods: A development lifecycle cash flow framework was created to examine the implications of process changes to microcarrier cultures at different stages of a cell therapy's lifecycle. Results: The analysis performed under assumptions used in the framework predicted that making this switch earlier in development is optimal from a total expected out-of-pocket cost perspective. From a risk-adjusted net present value view, switching at Phase I is economically competitive but a post-approval switch can offer the highest risk-adjusted net present value as the cost of switching is offset by initial market penetration with planar technologies. Conclusion: The framework can facilitate early decision-making during process development.

Corporate and public R&D investments in fields such as RNA interference, gene therapy, and regenerative medicine where publicly funded science drives advances in product development are often compl...

To advance our understanding of the institutional-level influence of intellectual property policies on innovation, this article investigates a set of hypotheses questioning the links between state-level non-competition agreements, inventor mobility, and patent commercialization. It uses US inventor survey data covering a sample of 1,900 triadic patents. Results provide some evidence in support of the prevalent, yet under-researched, proposition that mobile inventors perform better than non-mobile ones in terms of commercialization activity. This article also finds that the severity of judicial enforcement of non-competition agreements has hampered the positive contribution of inventor mobility to invention commercialization and concludes that legal infrastructure is a crucial factor in innovation and invention success stories. Findings, therefore, have considerable policy implications with respect to the role of the judiciary in the enforcement of non-competition agreements.

The past decade has seen remarkable advances in the availability of tools to support scientific collaboration at a distance. This is especially good news for international collaborations, where in the past constraints on collocation and travel have made such collaborations a major challenge. The emergence of advanced cyberinfrastructure and associated tools is changing the landscape for international collaborations. However, as the papers in this session show, there is much more than good engineering involved. There is a complex interplay of social, organizational, legal, and technical issues. Just because something is possible does not mean it will happen. Many forces involving incentives to work together through emerging technologies and policies that govern how such work might proceed serve as inhibitors to success. The papers in the session that led to this chapter explore a number of these issues.