• STI Policy Review
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.106-131
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• 2016

The general purpose of this paper is to identify opportunities for and to measure existing collaboration on research and development between institutions from the countries of Asia and Latin America in FEALAC's framework, in the fields of biotechnology and nanotechnology and their convergence. The methodological approach includes scientific and technological surveillance and research seeking to identify both the R&D and innovation capacities of the countries as well as the degree of international cooperation between countries of the two regions; case studies and a study of the governance framework of international collaboration in R&D about issues considered global challenges. The study has three main findings. First, nanotechnology, biotechnology and their convergence contribute to solving the problem of contamination by heavy metals affecting most of the countries that are part of FEALAC and to address problems arising from the accelerated rate of energy consumption, which also contributes to environmental damage. In this scenario, important business opportunities arise from the adaptation and development of bio-refinery technologies. Second, the scientific relationship between FEALAC countries, mainly between Asian and Latin American countries, is weak as can be seen in research for articles and patents. But there is plenty of room and potential for improvement. Third, current and upcoming joint R&D programs and projects should be linked both to existing governance structures and to new ones that serve as experiments of STI public policy regarding innovative management of intellectual property and capacity building. Practical implications are included in lessons learned and a set of recommendations involving a couple of proposals. One proposal calls for research and innovation in promising fields for international cooperation. Another proposal creates mechanisms in the governance framework for sharing knowledge, capacity building, and funding.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.60-84
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• 2016

What impact does the sharing economy have on existing businesses? This paper empirically examines how Uber transformed the taxi industry in New York City. Using a regression model controlling various potential influencing factors, we find no direct evidence that daily trips or revenue per taxi driver decreased since Uber entered the taxi industry. However, a closer investigation into other dimensions of taxi trips reveals that taxi drivers were forced to change their way of doing businesses to retain existing daily trips and revenue. Since Uber crowded out yellow taxis from the central area of Manhattan, yellow taxis responded by serving customers outside of the Manhattan borough. From enlarging their geographical coverage and serving customers that were previously ignored, yellow taxis were able to retain their previous level of taxi trips and market share. We also find that yellow taxis responded by improving their service quality to better serve customers' needs. Our result suggests that incumbents actively responded to Uber's entry and provided substantial benefit to consumers. Combined with the incumbent's response, the sharing economy transformed the existing market in a welfare-enhancing way. This paper provides managerial and policy implication on how incumbents affected by the disruptions of the sharing economy should respond. Even though it might be yet premature to examine the impact of Uber, results suggest that incumbents have effectively defended against Uber's entry so far. We conclude that the sharing economy and the existing economy can create positive value in our society through well-intentioned competition, complementing each other's weaknesses and strengths.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.1-17
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• 2010

Many organizations have had deep interests in studies concerning leadership and also in academic area, not only management but also psychology. Until now, the leadership has been accentuated to managers or team leaders especially. Recently, however, the concept of self-leadership that lead one's own activities toward right direction through self-control or self-management is being focused on practices and academia. This study is to investigate the influence between self-leadership strategies and learning performance at IT classes mediated by attitude of attendance focused on the social science students in an university. Research results can give us right direction of task-taking attitudes in firms or learning attitudes in teaching organization and implications to human resource manager who are in charge of improving learning performance or productivity.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.65-71
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• 2017

With advances in technology, many researchers have made an effort to find out educational methods with customized instruction. The purpose of the research is to investigate i) if flipped learning is beneficial for the students taking intermediate-level English grammar and writing class compared with the traditional class, ii) if the flipped learning class is advantageous for all the score level students in terms of student achievement and iii) if the students feel motivated with the flipped learning class. T-test was utilized to determine any differences between pretest and posttest in student achievement. The result in terms of the academic achievement revealed that the flipped classroom approach for the low score group was found to be the least effective among others. In the case of flipped learning teaching method, the instructor should develop contents according to the level of learners. The development of customized contents tailored to the level of learners will enhance learners' learning achievement.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.130-151
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• 2012

Fraunhofer was founded in 1949 and grew into Europe's largest application-oriented research organization. Fraunhofer currently employs over 20,000 members in Germany, is internationally networked, and manages an R&D budget of over 1,8 Billion Euros per year. An important step for Fraunhofer to become an integral component of the German innovation system was the introduction of the Fraunhofer Model of financing based on a performance-related system of financial management. The underlying model of the allocation and distribution of public funding to Fraunhofer that is subsequently allotted to specific research groups is one of the success factors of Fraunhofer. Fraunhofer is proud of its decentralized organizational model. Fraunhofer is comprised of 60 Institutes in Germany working in different fields, under one legal framework, and with a strong brand value. Every Fraunhofer Institute is affiliated with a German University and every institute director simultaneously holds a chair at the affiliated university. It is a challenge for the headquarter organization to balance the intended competition of individual Fraunhofer Institutes with complementarity cooperation in science among Fraunhofer-Institutes, especially when coming from different knowledge domains; however, this goal results in a significant advantage. The unique strengths of Fraunhofer offer system solutions in a world with increasingly complex R&D challenges. While growing to become the largest organization on Europe to focus on applied research it is the challenge to remain an agile organization that is flexible in organizational structure. Fraunhofer has reached a well-recognized position in the European innovation landscape. It is often referred to by science and governments as a role model for innovation policy and a key element of the latest successes in the German economy that has recovered quicker from the latest economic crisis than most other western economies. The paper explains Fraunhofer as an organizational paradigm and its underlying management model to elaborate on the challenges of managing a research organization. We wish to show how it is possible to transfer the management model and philosophy of Fraunhofer to innovation systems with different framework conditions and challenges. A universal conclusion may be drawn based on the description of Fraunhofer; however, changes in existing structures and innovation systems cannot be implemented over night.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.152-171
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• 2012

In April 2001, many Japanese national institutes were reorganized as Independent Administrative Institutions (IAI) based on the General Act for Independent Administrative Institutions and the act for each institution. Under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) was established by the merger of the National Research Institute for Metals (NRIM) and the National Institute for Research in Inorganic Materials (NIRIM). One of the biggest changes was the expansion of autonomous administration. The nanotechnology and material R&D field was prioritized in the 2nd (2001-2005) and the 3rd (2006-2010) Science and Technology Basic Plans; subsequently, NIMS was assigned to take the initiative in nanotechnology as well as materials science. NIMS has proactively expanded research fields through the introduction of researchers from polymers, electronics, and biotechnology as well as member institutes of the World Materials Research Institute Forum (WMRIF). Globalization has been promoted through programs that include the International Center for Young Scientists (ICYS) and the International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA). The 4th Science and Technology Basic Plan (2011-2015) emphasizes outcomes-recovery and rebirth from the disaster, green innovation, and life innovation. The Midterm Plan for NIMS also follows it. R&D collaboration by multi-partners (that include industry, university, and GRI) should be strategically promoted where GRI are especially required to play a hub function for innovative R&D and open innovation. NIMS highlights are Tsukuba Innovation Arena (TIA) and the Nanotechnology Platform Project. On January 20, 2012, a new organization was decided on by the Japanese Government where several IAI from different science and technology areas will be merged to realize more effective R&D as well as administrative cost reductions. NIMS is also supposed to be merged with 4 other R&D IAI under MEXT by the end of 2013.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.111-129
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• 2012

The integration of products and services is being expanded in both manufacturing and service companies such as in Apple's iPod & iTunes, Amazon's Kindle, and Hyundai Motor Company's Mozen. This phenomenon has recently accelerated due to multiple factors including market change, lessening of differences in quality of products or services, the paradigm of participation and sharing, and deindustrialization and evolution toward becoming a service economy. The objective of this paper is to investigate and analyze the status and characteristics of integration of products and services in Korean firms and to suggest policy directions promoting this integration. Towards this purpose, income statements from the Korea Listed Companies Association (KLCA) database of companies listed on the Korea Stock Exchange are analyzed regarding the servitization of manufacturing firms as well as the productization of service firms. In addition, this research investigates the Korean Innovation Survey 2011 database for the service sector and 2010 database for the manufacturing sector in order to evaluate R&D activity in each. In the manufacturing sector, the average ratio of service sales (servitization) was low at 0.208, with bias in the level and distribution of ratios associated with the manufacturing sector. 18 out of a total of 23 sectors (78%) have low servitization, showing there's a long way to go for servitization in the Korean manufacturing sector. In the service sector, the average ratio of product sales (productization) was 9.53%, which is relatively high compared to that of the manufacturing sector. However, the distribution of ratios is also biased, as with the manufacturing sector. Based on this analysis, policy directions are proposed in terms of 1) R&D, 2) concept boost, 3) R&D result spread, 4) statistics, 5) infrastructure and 6) green growth.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.46-62
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• 2012

This study investigates the effects of the two most important indicators of a nation's state of scientific infrastructure: R&D investment and the number of R&D researchers engaged in high-tech product export competitiveness for a panel of 11 countries/economies from East Asia from 1994 to 2010. A GMM panel estimation method was employed to account for the dynamic effect of trade and to control for un-observed country specific effects that may arise due to an inter-country differences and intra-country dynamics. Accordingly, the empirical results reveal that (once controlled for the influence of per capita income) physical capital and infrastructure, a 1% increase in a country's expenditure on the ratio of R&D to GDP may increase high-tech product export performance by approximately $397 million per year. Other factors constant, a 1% increase in the number of R&D researchers is expected to increase the ability to export high-tech products by approximately $67 million. The East Asian development experience demonstrates how latecomers can follow systematic industrialization and join the handful of economies that have come a long way toward closing the knowledge gap with the global technological leaders. However, this does not mean that the policy approaches and overall commitments pursued by each East Asian economy in relation to R&D investment and acquisition of an adequate pool of researchers, and their ultimate achievements in high-tech product export competitiveness were uniform. As a result, there is still a significant variation among countries/economies in terms of performance. This study recommended a number of potential tools and policy instruments that may assist policy makers to foster R&D as an engine to enhance the high-tech product export competitiveness.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.79-91
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• 2012

With the globalisation of the world's economies and the increasing role of multinational corporations in the generation of knowledge, global research and development (R&D) activities in emerging countries are following a new trend. This paper describes case studies of two large companies and discussion of the motives (demand vs. supply) and tasks (demand-driven vs. supply-driven) of R&D activities outside their home country. This work is based on an analysis of four overseas R&D units of two Korean ICT companies - here, ICT refers to goods and services in the information technology and communication technology fields - in India and China. The research findings are as follows: (1) The overseas R&D activities of Korean ICT enterprises in emerging countries may be driven by a combination of demand and supply factors of host countries; and (2) Korean overseas R&D centres in emerging countries may need to carry out both demand- and supply-driven tasks in view of the overlap between demand and supply factors of the host countries. Based on the results of this research, the following policy implications can be drawn for encouraging more effective overseas R&D activities of Korean enterprises in emerging countries. First, the government needs to expand the support systems so that enterprises can manage local R&D centres more effectively and actively use the variety of local support systems and useful information. Second, the government needs to expand the support systems so that the overseas R&D centres of Korean enterprises revitalise collaborations with locally excellent universities and research institutions.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.92-110
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• 2012

An active policy role is suggested for collaboration that will enhance national level Science and Technology (S&T) capabilities. In contrast, some studies see a limited role of policy support for collaborative S&T research at the individual level (including research groups or institutional levels) due to their self-organizing nature. Two views on S&T collaboration look at different levels but existing research largely ignores the context of developing countries. This paper shows how S&T collaborations between Brazil and Korea have developed over the past two decades. The paper indicates the gaps between initiation and the actual establishment of collaborative research at national and individual levels, differences in the focus areas of research, differences in resources and project planning, and the nature of collaborations. Collaborative research activities at the national level were initiated before the individual level but activated later than the individual level; in addition, the focus areas of research were laid down earlier at the national level with individual collaborations focused on different areas. Project types remained different at each level (i.e. top-down and bottom-up) or with a slightly changing mix. This study suggests appropriate policy measures (such as the timely and effective information collection of activities at different levels and proactive coordination) that could reduce the gaps in the timing and alignment of research areas. This paper also alludes to an evolutionary model to develop S&T collaboration among developing countries.