Майснер Дирк

Communicating company culture: assessment through job advertisements analysis

2017 · PREPRINT · en

The paper explores the composition of researchers' skillsets in an innovation-driven environment from the perspective of employers. The authors analyze the relation between skills requirements described in job advertisements for researchers and the presumed innovation culture of companies. The study is based on job advertisements content analysis and in-depth interviews with chiefs of research and development companies. It uses biotechnology industry as an example as it is one of the fastest-growing and innovation-driven sectors globally. Authors used data from Russian, as well as Canadian, UK and USA job search engines to consider international context. Empirical findings demonstrated that skills composition stress on hard skills more frequently and detailed, while soft skills are often a "must have without saying". The same is for digital skills that are assumed to be essential in high-tech companies globally and therefore not fully specified in job ads. There is a certain mismatch between skills presented in the ads and articulated in the interviews as employers tend to demonstrate innovation-friendly company culture for possible applicants. The present paper enriches literature on skills assessment, giving comprehensive lists of biotech skills in-demand divided into soft and hard categories. In addition, it provides the new insight into employee skills articulated by the companies as a strong element of organizational innovation climate.

The Meaning of Doctorate Holders for Human Capital Development of Nations

2016 · CHAPTER · en

Given the constantly high demand for skilled workers in professions and industries around the world, national governments strive for developing and implementing comprehensive and sustained policy measures to develop human potential of countries. This is especially done by educating people towards tertiary graduates and most recently by enforcing doctoral education and training. The aim of these initiatives is to make highly qualified graduates available to the labor market with the ambition to achieve and maintain sustainable competitiveness of the national labor force (OECD 2011). There is consensus that if countries want to develop and maintain competencies and capacities for science, technology and innovation the education and training system needs to be strengthened at all its levels.

Integrated roadmaps for strategic management and planning

2016 · ARTICLE · en

Roadmapping is a complex long-term planning instrument that allows for setting strategic goals and estimating the potential of new technologies, products, and services. Until recently, roadmapping was used mainly for strategic planning, either from a technological or amarket research perspective. Roadmaps emphasized either technological development or satisfaction of market demands but rarely both. Consequently, roadmaps either excessively stress the technology side, which might lead to technically sophisticated solutions that lack applicability, or overstress customer needs, neglecting business competence-building. Therefore, this paper develops a newintegrated roadmapping approach that combines these two perspectives: it focuses on strategic planning by firms and public authorities for the long run goals of social and economic development, bringing together the market “pull” and technology “push” approach. This dual technique provides the potential for alternative means of choosing the most effective resource allocation. Integrated roadmaps include the various development stages of prospective innovations, e.g. stages of the existing innovation value chain, including R&D, manufacturing,market entry, services, andmarket expansion as well as prospective stages, including new technologies, products and services. The value of integrated roadmapping lies in its responsiveness to the challenges in innovation planning schemes for firms and sectors; it takes into consideration both future market requirements and the future resource basis for satisfying market needs, an approach not currently offered by traditional techniques. The paper develops a roadmapping methodology that can be used for planning firms' and public authorities' long-term innovation strategies.

Conceptualizing the Innovation Process Towards the ‘Active Innovation Paradigm’ — Trends and Outlook

2016 · ARTICLE · en

This paper introduces the evolving understanding and conceptualization of innovation process models. We categorize the different approaches to understand and model innovation processes into two types. First, the so-called innovation management approach focuses on the evolution of corporate innovation management strategies in different social and economic environments. The second type is the conceptual approach which analyses the evolution of innovation models themselves as well as the models’ theoretical backgrounds and requirements. The focus in this second approach is the advantages and disadvantages of different innovation models in how far they can describe the reality of innovation processes. The paper focuses on the advantages and disadvantages as well as the potential and limitations of the approaches. It also proposes potential future developments of innovation models as well as the analysis of the driving forces that underlie the evolution of innovation models. The article concludes that the predominant open innovation paradigm requires rethinking and further development towards an ‘active innovation’ paradigm.

Smart roadmapping for STI policy

2016 · ARTICLE · en

Roadmapping is a broadly applied management instrument for developing and implementing company technology and innovation strategies. During the last years this national science, technology and innovation (STI) policy makers have become aware of the potential roadmapping offers for strategic technology and innovation management and begun applying it in the context of STI policy and priority setting in this context especially. Still reality shows that roadmapping for STI policy purposes is by far more complex than company technology and innovation roadmapping. The article therefore develops a structured, integrated and flexible approach to roadmapping for STI policy which we name “Smart Roadmapping for STI Policy”, taking into account the complexity of STI policy as well as the need for and implications of a Targeted Open Innovation approach to STI policy and the resulting requirements to roadmaps. The proposed approach is designed to allow integration in the broader policy decision making and different level STI strategy implementation.

Identification of Stakeholders’ Hidden Agendas for Technology Diffusion

2016 · CHAPTER · en

Technology diffusion is a central element in the increasing innovation and technology competition by companies and countries. Accordingly policy makers are extending their understanding of science, technology and innovation policy beyond the initial support of technology and innovation development and begin to focus more on the actual application hence diffusion potential of innovations. The history of fuel cells is a prominent example which shows how long time a technology might need to diffuse into broad application. The reasons for delayed diffusion and market penetration are manifold as the example shows. Besides the purely technology induced problems the technology is confronted with resistance by a broader stakeholder community. For producers, hence innovators, it’s important to learn the obvious but also the hidden agendas of stakeholders at early stages of technology development already. The paper argues that diffusion of technology and innovation is strongly influenced by stakeholders. These have their own strategic intend which isn’t necessarily communicated openly. Eventually these hidden strategic intends turn out to become major potential obstacles to diffusion of technology and innovation. Therefore it’s important to include the strategic intend of stakeholders early in the development of technology and innovation at least to the extent to which these intends are recognizable.

Seizing Opportunities for National STI Development

2016 · CHAPTER · en

Science, technology and innovation (STI) involves numerous policy fields which are championed by different government ministries or agencies. A consistent and coherent anticipatory policy mix is understood to be one that ensures a timely development and implementation of various forward-looking policy instruments. Such timely implementation is crucial for the eventual impact of the policy measures. This also requires that foresight for STI policies looks beyond the potential development paths and challenges but includes the time dimension and the outline of necessary policy responses including a relevant implementation framework. In addition the institutions which are part of the National Innovation Systems (NIS) should to be considered thoroughly for a well-balanced and comprehensive policy mix. Not only national but also regional and local actors need to be involved—and they need to be involved not only in the implementation of policy but at much earlier stages in the foresight and subsequent design procedures of the policy mix. One practical approach for convincing and engaging NIS actors at different levels is to stress opportunities which offer advantages to each of them, instead of just focusing on challenges and problems.

Foresight: Turning Challenges into Opportunities

2016 · CHAPTER · en

Foresight has gained much attention as a tool for developing and informing science, technology and innovation policy and company strategies. It is frequently used for detecting not only potential development paths of technologies but also possible economic and societal changes; and for identifying challenges that nations, societies and companies might face in the future. Raising awareness within the respective communities of trends and challenges is critically important—and the biggest challenge is how we can develop measures to meet these anticipated challenges. Paradoxically, perhaps, it may be more helpful for creating and implementing successful measures if these are elaborated by thinking about grasping opportunities, rather than framing them in terms of threats that have to be responded to. Accordingly there is a need to change the mindsets in science, technology and innovation policy making—and to engender solution and opportunity orientation among scientists and engineers.

Key features of roadmapping for company and policy strategy making

2016 · ARTICLE · en

An industry perspective on the Russian technology platforms

2016 в печати · CHAPTER · en