Showing papers by "Arie Rip published in 1999"

Improving Distributed Intelligence in Complex Innovations Systems

Abstract: Science and technology (S&T) are considered to be a central source, or at least a basic medium, of societal and industrial innovation, while innovation is conceived to basically feed the regeneration of our welfare. The suppliers of S&T in Europe as well as the users of their „products“, are confronted with a number of challenges today. We want to stress here that it was not the primary goal of our Advanced Science & Technology Policy Planning (ASTPP) Network to come up with proposals how the strategic character of European S&T policies could be strengthened. The ASTPP-network instead focuses on one aspect: the provision of strategic intelligence necessary to identify and develop strategic choices. The underlying hypothesis is that the existing body of experiences with technology foresight, technology assessment and S/T policy evaluation provides a basis for the development of an advanced S&T policy „planning“ approach by trying to enhance, interlink or even integrate the growing, but still dispersed experience in these three areas of intelligence. By „intelligent“ we mean that the inter-relatedness of S&T, industrial efforts, societal needs and political interventions becomes more transparent so that interactive collaboration between them will be facilitated.

STS in Europe

Abstract: The acronym can be spelled out to read science and technology studies: an interdisciplinary approach to the study of science and technology, in which history, philosophy and social studies contribute, and more recently, also economics, political science and cultural studies. Work in science and technology studies is published in interdisciplinary scholarly journals like Social Studies of Science. It can also contribute to the disciplines it draws on, sometimes raising new issues, as in the so-called empirical turn in the philosophy of science and technology. My favourite example of a contribution to a main-

Improving Distributed Intelligence in Complex Innovation Systems

Abstract: Science and technology (S&T) are considered to be a central source, or at least a basic medium, of societal and industrial innovation, while innovation is conceived to basically feed the regeneration of our welfare. The suppliers of S&T in Europe as well as the users of their „products“, are confronted with a number of challenges today. We want to stress here that it was not the primary goal of our Advanced Science & Technology Policy Planning (ASTPP) Network to come up with proposals how the strategic character of European S&T policies could be strengthened. The ASTPP-network instead focuses on one aspect: the provision of strategic intelligence necessary to identify and develop strategic choices. The underlying hypothesis is that the existing body of experiences with technology foresight, technology assessment and S/T policy evaluation provides a basis for the development of an advanced S&T policy „planning“ approach by trying to enhance, interlink or even integrate the growing, but still dispersed experience in these three areas of intelligence. By „intelligent“ we mean that the inter-relatedness of S&T, industrial efforts, societal needs and political interventions becomes more transparent so that interactive collaboration between them will be facilitated.

Organisatie-adviseurs en de illusie van "agency"

Abstract: Als managers hun mogelijkheden om resultaten te sturen overschatten, zoals een recent artikel in Elsevier (Crooijmans, 1998) in de ondertitel benadrukt, op welke wijze moeten organisatie-adviseurs managers dan bijstaan in het leiden en vormgeven van hun bedrijf? Hen tot bescheidenheid manen, maar wel ondersteunen bij hun inspanningen? Volgens ons gaat het dieper dan dat. Adviseurs hebben te maken met een fundamentele ambivalentie. Aan de ene kant moeten zij managers steunen bij het leiden en vormgeven van hun organisatie, maar aan de andere kant worden zij geconfronteerd met de beperkte stuurbaarheid van organisaties, de complexiteit van veranderingsprocessen en de onzekere en meerduidige effecten van het handelen van zowel de manager als de adviseur zelf. Een adviseur staan daarbij twee verschillende routes open. Hij kan – ‘modernistisch’ – proberen de complexiteit te reduceren om voor zijn client de (schijn van) stuurbaarheid te verhogen, of hij kan de complexiteit juist accepteren, omarmen en proberen te benutten bij zijn advisering. De vraag die we in dit artikel aan de orde stellen is: hoe gaan adviseurs te werk die voor deze tweede route hebben gekozen en hoe creeren zij een meerwaarde voor hun opdrachtgevers. Op basis van diepte-interviews met organisatie-adviseurs is het mogelijk om enkele typen in deze tweede route te onderscheiden en empirisch te illustreren. Met de typologie worden adviesaanpakken bespreekbaar voor adviseurs en hun clienten en kan bewuster voor een aanpak gekozen worden.