ISSN 1995-459X print E-ISSN 2312-9972 online ISSN 2500-2597 online English
Editor-in-chief Leonid Gokhberg
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2021. vol. 15. No. 3
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Strategies
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6–21
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Advanced Manufacturing (AM) markets are a major factor of contemporary worldwide growth that to a large extent determines countries’ competitiveness. Strengthening and/or optimizing the positions on AM markets is among the major challenges for modern industrial policy. This article discusses the structure and dynamics of the development of advanced manufacturing markets, as well as the specifics of the policies of the countries strengthening their positions in these markets. Gaining entry into AM markets currently implies individual countries’ and industries’ adopting different models which combine a wide range of factors. Small nations are rapidly applying such approaches, gaining advantages and thus increasing their competitive edge, which creates certain challenges for leading high-tech countries too slow to adjust their industrial policies. So far the basis for Industry 4.0 markets is just emerging, and remains limited to a few nations including developing ones. Country cases are presented below to illustrate the development of AM markets. The authors conclude that in the current context, no universal approaches to shaping a successful industrial policy remain. The most productive strategy is to combine the unique advantages of a particular economy. |
Innovation
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23–34
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The subject of this study is the innovation market. To understand the laws of its functioning, this article introduces the concept of a technology frontier. This is understood as the relative productivity of labor (relative to the technological leader – the United States), the achievement of which makes it justified for developing economies to move from large-scale borrowing of foreign new technologies to their development within the country. The purpose of the article is to determine the specified frontier, for which a simple econometric model based on international statistics for 61 countries is proposed. To improve the accuracy of the calculations, countries were clustered into two groups: advanced, for which the technology frontier has been crossed and their own developments of new technologies prevail, and developing, for which the problem of the technology frontier remains important. The current value of the technology frontier is in the region of 70% of labor productivity in the United States. The comparison with previous estimates shows that this value tends to increase, which creates additional difficulties for the transition of catching-up countries from the mode of borrowing to the mode of creating new technologies. Taking into account the technological frontier allows avoiding both an undue delay in the development of proprietary technologies as well as a premature transition to the creation of innovations while ignoring the possibilities of borrowing. |
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35–51
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The lasting global economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic allows decision-makers and societies to re-think the basis and drivers of economic growth, laying the foundation for sustainable development. The green economic recovery takes place with a leading role played by the energy industry. This paper focuses on the application and desired effects of green digital technologies in the electric power industry in ten countries — the largest electricity producers and consumers. The study is designed in the framework of the sectoral innovation systems concept. The research tasks were addressed, first, through horizon scanning (the analysis of research and analytical publications). Second, the green digitialization indicators for the electric power industry in the selected countries were identified with the use of statistical and other available reliable data and compared. Third, a comparative analysis of national strategic documents was performed, along with corporate tasks and indicators that reflect the digital transformation at micro level. As a result of the study, key trends and three models of green digitalization at the national level were identified, the prerequisites and potential social and economic effects of the application of these technologies in electric power industry were described. |
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52–65
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Creating and developing innovative business models (BM) is currently one of the key success factors for contemporary business. Rapid complex changes in the world reemphasize the need to better understand how BM can be successfully innovated in different markets. The digital component of BM innovation comes under a special spotlight, using the example of a company within the pharmaceutical industry. In particular, this study demonstrates how BM innovation can be developed and implemented in practice within the pharmaceutical market, which accelerates its digital transformation to increase the value it brings to the healthcare systems around the world while sustaining the ongoing crisis. In order to do that, the current paper offers a framework for BM innovation that defines BM elements, BM innovation aspects, and BM innovation logic. The study covers six markets that represent different value creation systems and mechanisms. This paper demonstrates how technological innovations can be activated using managerial tools and insights and also how they can be combined into the holistic system based on the needs of the key value chain actors. |
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66–80
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The creation of effective innovation ecosystems (IES) at the national or sectoral level remains a difficult and not always feasible task. Basing on evidence from the Brazilian automotive industry, a case of unused opportunities for building a strong IES is considered. This is due to the insensitivity of such ecosystems to new complicated configurations and the formats of non-traditional interaction that they suggest - a “new ecology of competition”, etc. The internal context of companies in relation to the practice of open innovation has been studied. Despite joint projects with close value chain partners, carmakers are showing a closed attitude to external collaboration, unlike players in industries such as aerospace or information and communications technology that gained growth and major transformation by building a broader IES. Only a high demand from the government for creating a strong IES can change the situation. |
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81–92
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Apart from “future-shaping” tools (such as forecasting, scenario planning, etc.), many countries also use “backward-looking” approaches to develop long-term strategies for switching to a new economic model. A retrospective assessment of accomplishments and failures (or policy learning, PL) helps learn lessons, and improve the effectiveness of innovation policy. Using the example of Iran, the paper examines the use of PL to assess key initiatives in the field of science, technology, and innovation over the past two decades. Field research allowed to identify the main policy goals, analyse their evolution and the changes in the perception of previously made decisions by politicians themselves. The active use of technical and conceptual PL indicates a relative progress in adjusting the policy vector. At the same time partisan policy learning remains common, applied to legitimise the current course, which indicates insufficient maturity of Iran’s political system (as is the case in many other developing countries). It is concluded that to make real progress and increase the effectiveness of innovation policy, technical, conceptual, and social PL should be applied, while keeping the use of partisan policy learning at the minimum. |
Master Class
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94–104
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Many different information technology frameworks have been proposed to assist organizations implementing information technology. However, these frameworks are complex, difficult to implement, and overlap with one another making their simultaneous implementation even more difficult to accomplish by organizations. This study proposes to develop an overlapless maturity model that helps organizations deal with the aforementioned problems. The model was applied and evaluated by experts at five organizations. This approach was recognized as useful, complete, and helpful in a multi-framework implementation by problem management (PM) experts. This research provides contributions for academics since it distinguishes itself from the existing studies in the body of knowledge and is a baseline for further investigation. |
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105–121
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Despite the accelerated dynamics of the environment, higher education institutions slowly update their curricula in entrepreneurship education according to global challenges and market needs. Moreover, knowledge and good practice exchanges between educators of futures studies, business representatives, and academics is limited. This article aims to present a methodology for prototyping an online course for individuals to become more future-oriented in their professional and personal settings. The main research problems tackled by the authors relate to: 1) the identification of competences that would help academics, entrepreneurs, and students to deal with uncertainty and to 2) convey the competences to the target groups through learning topics selected from futures studies and the entrepreneurship repertoire. The authors of the article undertook and coordinated theoretical and empirical research on foresight and Futures Literacy and its correspondence with entrepreneurship within the beFORE project funded under the Erasmus+ program’s Knowledge Alliance scheme. The research process resulted in the identification of 12 key competence items and the development of a free, approximately 34-hour-long online course consisting of seven self-standing modules, 25 lessons, and 79 learning topics corresponding to these competences. The originality of the paper is in its contribution to the discussion on the competences and online course content that efficiently increase the capacities of using the future(s) in professional, academic, and personal settings. |
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