Benedict Anderson’s deservedly famous thesis about the origins and nature
of modern nationalism turns around the central notion of an “imagined
community.” This category provides him with a matrix out of which one
can apprehend-theoretically and historically-the different variants of nationalist discourse formulated over the last two hundred years. We will refer,
in the brief comments that follow, to three basic dimensions structuring
the fabric of Anderson’s argument: 1) the presuppositions implicit in the
notion of an “imagined” community; 2) the kind of substitutability or solidarity which is required to be a member of such a community; 3) the kind
of relationship that is established between such a community-which is by
definition finite or limited-and its outside. Before that, however, let us
describe the main features of Anderson’s thesis.

On Imagined Communities

This book opens a fresh chapter in the debate on local enterprise clusters and their strategies for upgrading in the global economy. The authors employ a novel conceptual framework in their research on industrial clusters in Europe, Latin America and Asia and provide new perspectives and insights for researchers and policymakers alike.

Governance in global value chains

The notion of the bioeconomy has gained importance in both research and policy debates over the last decade, and is frequently argued to be a key part of the solution to multiple grand challenges. Despite this, there seems to be little consensus concerning what bioeconomy actually implies. Consequently, this paper seeks to enhance our understanding of what the notion of bioeconomy means by exploring the origins, uptake, and contents of the term “bioeconomy” in the academic literature. Firstly, we perform a bibliometric analysis that highlights that the bioeconomy research community is still rather fragmented and distributed across many different fields of science, even if natural and engineering sciences take up the most central role. Secondly, we carry out a literature review that identifies three visions of the bioeconomy. The bio-technology vision emphasises the importance of bio-technology research and application and commercialisation of bio-technology in different sectors of the economy. The bio-resource vision focuses on processing and upgrading of biological raw materials, as well as on the establishment of new value chains. Finally, the bio-ecology vision highlights sustainability and ecological processes that optimise the use of energy and nutrients, promote biodiversity, and avoid monocultures and soil degradation.

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What Is the Bioeconomy? A Review of the Literature

Inclusion: The Politics of Difference in Medical Research

This paper challenges the predominant view that legitimation is merely a specific phase in merger or acquisition processes. We argue that a better understanding of postmerger organizational dynamics calls for conceptualization of discursive legitimation as an inherent part of unfolding merger processes. In particular, we focus on the recursive relationship between legitimation and organizational action. We have two objectives: to outline a theoretical model that helps one to understand the dynamics of discursive legitimation and organizational action in postmerger organizations, and to examine a revealing case to distinguish the inherent risks and problems in discursive legitimation. Our case analysis focuses on the merger between the French pharmaceutical companies BioMerieux and Pierre Fabre. We adopt a critical multimethod approach and distinguish specific discursive dynamics and pathological tendencies in this case. The analysis highlights the unintended consequences of discursive legitimation, the central role of sensegiving and sensehiding in discursive legitimation, the inherently political nature of legitimation and the risks associated with politicization, the special problems associated with fashionable discourses and the role of the media, the use of specific discursive strategies for legitimation and delegitimation, and the crucial role of actual integration results. This analysis adds to the existing research on mergers and acquisitions by treating discursive legitimation as part of the merger dynamics. In particular, our case analysis provides a new explanation for merger failure. We also believe that the recursive model connecting discursive legitimation and delegitimation strategies to concrete organizational action makes a more general contribution to our understanding of organizational legitimation.

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A Recursive Perspective on Discursive Legitimation and Organizational Action in Mergers and Acquisitions

This article explores the transformative nature of the life sciences in the context of pharmaceutical mergers, acquisitions and strategic alliances. Drawing on interviews with senior scientists and managers from large pharmaceutical firms, and secondary data on general industry trends, it identifies diverse company strategies for capturing and exploiting new technologies/knowledge and explores their implications for innovation. The article suggests that mergers, acquisitions and strategic alliances represent a cluster of related activities that provide various strategic options for managing innovation and productivity deficit. However, because the preferred balance between in-house R&D and externally sourced knowledge depends on a number of firm-specific factors, as well as challenges posed by the external operating environment, there is increasing variation between large companies in how these activities are exploited and strategically managed.

Life Science Innovation and the Restructuring of the Pharmaceutical Industry: Merger, Acquisition and Strategic Alliance Behaviour of Large Firms

Investment in biotechnology has yielded relatively disappointing results and illustrates the gap between the promise and reality of new science. This begs the question: Does research on ‘life’ bring different complexities and uncertainties that act as a barrier to the application of new biology in global health and agriculture? There has been high-quality research on the social and ethical impacts of new biology and on the economics of biotechnology but few systematic and integrated attempts to undertake interdisciplinary research and address these constraints. This paper provides an original empirical analysis of contemporary and future understandings of the bioeconomy using a co-evolutionary and interactive approach to examine the extent to which it may be different from other technological transformations. We focus on the Innogen Centre’s extensive research results on three important and contemporary themes: food and energy security, life science and healthcare translational medicine, and global health.

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Twenty-first century bioeconomy: Global challenges of biological knowledge for health and agriculture

http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/102635/1/102635.pdf

James Mittra

Papers

Life Science Innovation and the Restructuring of the Pharmaceutical Industry: Merger, Acquisition and Strategic Alliance Behaviour of Large Firms

Twenty-first century bioeconomy: Global challenges of biological knowledge for health and agriculture

Identifying viable regulatory and innovation pathways for regenerative medicine: a case study of cultured red blood cells.

Evolution of Business Models in Regenerative Medicine: Effects of a Disruptive Innovation on the Innovation Ecosystem.

Analysing stratified medicine business models and value systems: innovation-regulation interactions.