Showing papers in "Technological Forecasting and Social Change in 1986"

TL;DR: The general question of whether Delphi users have learned from Delphi research of the past decade is addressed and specific attention is given to examining the nature and quality of the growing number of Delphi dissertations.

TL;DR: In this paper, it is shown that motor vehicles evolved as an integral component of road transportation through a series of interlaced substitutions of old by new technologies and that these substitution processes can be described by simple rules.

TL;DR: In this article, a simple algebraic estimation procedure is developed to estimate the parameters of diffusion models of new product acceptance, which is conceptually easy to use and can be implemented by using a hand calculator.

TL;DR: In this article, the influence of decision style on strategic decisions made by 137 top executives is described, using concepts proposed by Jung, in terms of the decision maker's introversion-extroversion and judgement-perception predispositions, as well as data and data processing preferences.

TL;DR: DecDecision styles, defined by the primary and secondary considerations in choice making and the implementation tactics preferred by managers, are used to explain the ways in which managers with a given style take action as mentioned in this paper.

TL;DR: In this paper, the role of technology as the master key for sustainable development, discusses the current activities related to the measurement of technology, presents a few conceptual schemes, and a framework for the assessment of national technological capabilities and needs.

TL;DR: In this article, a five-parameter model is proposed in order to cover the above two different characteristics of innovation diffusion, i.e., asymmetry and the appearance of positively or negatively influencing forces.

TL;DR: It is shown that the Japanese position is strong in technologies related to resources and environment, whereas the United States is in the lead in computer- aided design technologies.

TL;DR: The results indicate the advantages and disadvantages of a robust heuristic approach which smooths data as opposed to providing an optimal fit in a dynamic time-varying parameter model.

TL;DR: The morphogenetic economic model as discussed by the authors includes in its analysis both change-amplifying and change-counteracting causal loops, and it differs from the existing economic theories in its calculation of the level of equilibria and of crowdingout effects.

TL;DR: It is argued that the handling of structural variabilities in prediction requires a formalization of the prediction process, and that it should strive for closer connections to the general process of creating knowledge.

TL;DR: In this article, a dynamic control theory approach is used to shed light on the economic decisions of the university relating to the hiring of faculty and the production of products, and the likely result of such decisions is the fallover time of undergraduate output and the rise of research output.

TL;DR: The research focus has shifted to the emerging competition between human workers as machine process controllers in certain highly engineered environments, and the use of sensor-based, computerized systems for the same purpose.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the policies and strategies of science and technology development in the industrialization of a developing country from a point of view of industrial growth as the prime source of impetus for national development.

TL;DR: It is argued that a new and different world view needs to be introduced into the training of future generations of engineers, for with the increased networking of society, not just management but also technological problem situations will move more and more towards the ill-structured end of the spectrum.

TL;DR: This paper examines several different paradigms that have proven useful in other fields—engineering, biology, linguistics, computer science, chemistry—and to explore the degree to which these “metaphors” can be used to characterize manufacturing systems.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the utility and validity of the concept of people as assets or liabilities, the structure and cultural contexts for a proposed model of the dynamics of value that account for opportunity costs, and links between information technologies and human resources management, including planned development of these resources.

TL;DR: Current theories developed in nonequilibrium thermodynamics and other sciences of complexity can be applied to model societal phenomena without reductionism, as these theories describe how complex nonlinear systems behave in a flow of energy far from equilibrium regardless of the nature of the system and the identity of its components.

TL;DR: A simple model of evolutionary processes (i.e., processes showing far-reaching analogies with biological evolution) and the results of a simulation study of the model are presented to show how the tempo and mode of evolutionary process depend on the population diversity in which those processes take place.

TL;DR: In this paper, the potential of using simple trend extrapolation curves for forecasting electricity consumption is investigated with reference to New Zealand sectoral data, and the choice of the most viable model, the logistic model, is made.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors have criticised the limits to growth view and the implausibility of generalizing present rich country living standards to all people, arguing that the earth and its people are sufficiently resourceful to continue sustaining the present trends.

TL;DR: An algorithm is presented for the selection of a group of experts for long-range forecasting from a set that has a determined structure of specialization that consists of the smallest number of elements and include representatives of each scientific domain.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors pointed out that new forces are emerging in the semiconductor industry, which are likely to change the pattern and speed of technical change in that industry and that the changes include: (1) movement towards greater service and customer orientation; (2) higher prices for technology sales; (3) greater emphasis on strategic alliances for technology and market sharing; and (4) greater U.S. government involvement in protecting the US. industry.

TL;DR: In this paper, a system for planning and evaluating new technological ventures is presented and the role played by innovation diffusion models is indicated, and the research needed in increase their utility in new-venture decision making is discussed.

TL;DR: The results indicate that there was no significant effect on users' jobs or on the allocation of their time to different activities due to the introduction of the MCs, and this positive attitude was directly related to users' perceptions of changes in decision-making processes and in the power structure of their units.

TL;DR: The problem of dealing with, managing, and ultimately controlling nuclear arms is the preeminent issue of our times as mentioned in this paper, and more and more policy analysts are beginning to appreciate that the problems of dealing dealing with the world's economic and social problems are not separable from the problems that dealing with world's huge and ever-increasing stockpile of nuclear weapons.

TL;DR: In this article, a critical assessment of India's electronics policy from its very inception to the present time is provided, and it is argued that despite its narrow scope and many shortcomings, the Indian government's new electronics policy based on the principle of liberalization is a step in the right direction.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide an assessment of the factors influencing the decision to undertake a substitution using neighborhood workcenters as the major alternative, and the impacts of these decisions on one urban area are simulated with respect to cost and time savings for commuters, reductions in gasoline consumption and reductions in air pollution.

TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that standard DFT analysis is inappropriate for these time series, as is the multiple curve-fitting exercise used to isolate the trends in the data, instead, the spectral analysis has been redone using a method recently developed by the authors that is appropriate to such limited time-series data.