This study focuses on university—industry—government (UIG) linkages and their influence on innovation in Taiwan. The innovation effects are estimated using a quartet of measures — technology transfers, technology licensing, firms incubated and patents granted — while the UIG influence is estimated via its differential impact according to the size of the firms involved, the type of innovation (process or product-oriented), the stage of the technology cycle, and the role of government. Using a Structural Equation Model (SEM) method to examine these interactions, the study reveals that UIG linkage effects vary with the size of company, in that the major incentive for UIG linkages for large companies is an attempt to acquire a skilled and qualified workforce, while SMEs (small and medium enterprises) tend to use them to gain marketing advantage, particularly for those SMEs or start-ups in emerging industries. The study concludes that Taiwan's innovation capacity is heavily reliant on building the capability of SMEs and continues to depend greatly on government leadership through technology-capability-enhancing institutions such as ITRI.

Organisations are increasingly investing in complex technological innovations such as enterprise information systems with the aim of improving the operations of the business, and in this way gaining competitive advantage. However, the implementation of technological innovations tends to have an excessive focus on either technology innovation effectiveness (also known as system effectiveness), or the resulting operational effectiveness; focusing on either one of them is detrimental to the long-term enterprise benefits through failure to achieve the real value of technological innovations. The lack of research on the dimensions and performance objectives that organisations must be focusing on is the main reason for this misalignment. This research uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative, three-stage methodological approach. Initial findings suggest that factors such as quality of information from technology innovation effectiveness, and quality and speed from operational effectiveness are important and significantly well correlated factors that promote the alignment between technology innovation effectiveness and operational effectiveness.

This study investigates the impacts of information technology on business process reengineering from intra- and extra-organizational perspectives. This research proposes a framework for facilitating business process reengineering efforts towards competitive organizations. The framework was tested using data from a sample of 382 chief information officers or senior information systems managers, each of whom completed a survey. The survey results indicate that organizational innovation, market pressure and competitive intensity positively affect information technology adoption, which in turn trigger changes or business process in terms of workplace, workforce and business structure.

Commitment has received great attention in the inter-organisational relationship literature but there is widespread debate and contention on what constitutes its key determinants, specifically in an import supplier context. Furthermore, inconsistencies in empirical findings of the buyer–seller relationship studies limit the theoretical development and use of internationalization theories in management practice. Yet this area warrants attention as it may assist in enabling the integration of the spectrum of importer commitment in the importer–exporter relationship. Essentially, this paper integrates and synthesises over eighty conceptual and empirical studies on commitment in the buyer–seller relationship from different contexts including grounding on internationalisation process theory, resource based theory of the firm and transaction costs economics. Conceptual arguments are assessed and empirical findings are evaluated across studies with the aim of developing a framework. With the support of three basic theories and extant literature, ten antecedents of importer commitment are identified. The causal direct and some indirect relationships are specified. Seventeen propositions are offered to guide future research efforts in this important field.

Australian business graduates are deemed by industry as not being ‘job ready’ (BCA 2006; BIHECC 2007), lacking the skills required to successfully apply disciplinary knowledge and add value to our globalised, knowledge economy. There exists a lack of empirical evidence and professional input for business schools on profiling the attributes valued by industry. This is especially true for those majoring in management who are consistently overshadowed by their more commercially attractive postgraduate counterparts. In a bid to satisfy industry demands, the most common response among Australian business schools are the development of employability skills and enhanced involvement of industry professionals in curricula content and design, both subject to potential failings and criticism. This review of business school efforts to bridge the skills gap also examines the role, function and impact of undergraduate management education, a research area significantly overlooked in recent years.

Organizations today expect employees to manage their own career development although some will provide extra opportunities. We do not know exactly how career self-management impacts on employees' organizational commitment in terms of affective, normative and continuance components. This paper is based on the model of organizational commitment put forward by Meyer and Allen (1997). We propose that organizational HRM and career self-management influence employee perceptions (such as perceived support) and the three components of commitment in different ways. Data from 196 managers showed that organizational career development (OCD) practices, were positively related to employee perceptions and the three components of commitment. On the other hand, career self-management was negatively correlated with normative commitment. These results have implications for the career development alternatives that organizations provide to employees.

Organizational control is conventionally – from a critical stance – viewed as a negative and restrictive phenomenon, which in one way or another subjugates workers. In this theoretical paper, we argue that organizational control is often based on a particular understanding of power; an understanding that views power as repressive, equating it with domination and subjugation while paying little attention to its productive function. We question what the implications for understanding organizational control would be if we were also to see power as productive. We contend that the Foucauldian notions of pastoral power, disciplinary power, and governmentality can be used together through the concept of regime of practices to enrich our understanding of the workings of organizational control. We thus delineate an analytical framework for the study of organizational control based on an open-ended investigation of the regimes of control in local settings.

Two gaps appear in the theory of ‘expertise’: expert work as an individual endeavor; and, researchers and managers understanding little of expert practice. To bridge these gaps, ‘collective expertise’ can describe ways of organizing professional expert work in collective settings. This study analyzes ‘collective expertise’ in three Scandinavian cases using ethnographic methods: a product development process at Volvo; a description of computer programmers' work; and an analysis of nano physicists' organizing practices. The empirical results are used to build a ‘collective expertise’ theory, based on seven factors identified as contributing to collective expertise: concrete work routines, minimal structure, generosity and gift giving, narratives and story-telling, aesthetic capabilities, room for individuality, and mixed practice zone.