International Journal of Technology Management & Sustainable Development - Volume 10, Issue 3, 2012

This article explores innovation and technology development aid targeted at the African rural poor but often failing to deliver benefit. Using five cases of UK bilateral aid (current and historic) it suggests the prime importance of securing continuous knowledge interaction across the whole of the relevant value chain, combined with the need for institutional reform of science policy in this field. The article's approach emphasizes the underlying problem as an inherent tendency to failure in knowledge markets combined with often unsuitable institutional contexts.

Agrifood stakeholders across the world are under ever-increasing pressure with globalization and new market demands – together with changing quality and safety requirements. The ability to respond to new challenges and opportunities is important not just for producers, but also for industries in developing countries. This article explores the horticulture sector of Kenya in order to gain a better understanding of what has most significantly contributed to its success in terms of innovation response capacity. This article presents what is entailed in 'innovation response capacity', especially for natural resource-based industries in a developing country context. It will also provide an analytical framework that draws elements from agricultural innovation capacity and the innovation systems framework. This is provided through case study research conducted in Kenya by exploring a prominent horticultural enterprise, HomeGrown Ltd. The article concludes that an important element of success in this case was the formation of a range of linkages that enabled a systemic sector response to challenges rather than isolated actions of individual players.

High dropout and attrition rates experienced in entrepreneurial training programmes are of great concern to all stakeholders given the importance of entrepreneurship in the South African economy. This study explores the issue of academic resilience as a key area of intervention to ensure a more resilient mindset of trainees, and higher retention and throughput rates in entrepreneurial training programmes. The study aims to assess, in particular, the personal and training contextual factors, perceived by trainees to influence their academic resilience in the New Venture Creation (NVC) training programme. It seeks to identify these factors using graduates from an NVC training programme in the Saldanha Bay Municipal Area. A case study approach is adopted to establish the extent of the influence of these factors on trainees' academic resilience. A focus group session is conducted to corroborate and validate the findings resulting from the case study research. The findings of the research show that personal and training contextual factors do influence the academic resilience of trainees in an NVC training programme. They also show that these factors have huge implications for facilitation, particularly on a pedagogical level.

The increasing number of technology innovation centres in developing economies such as Brazil, India and China are driving the emergence of new models of innovation. However, the existing technology policy literature has so far been limited in accounting for the organic growth of dynamic capabilities for innovation within resource constrained environments; e.g., institutional and organizational settings that may be restricted by the degree and scope of available resources and capabilities as well as by the relative low levels of demand for new product and services. In this article, we provide conceptual insights and empirical evidence of sustainable mechanisms promoting the organic growth of dynamic capabilities for innovation in information technology innovation centres. Our integrative framework emphasizes the systemic nature of dynamic capabilities at firm level. Based on a longitudinal study (1997-2008) of the Centre for Information Technology at Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral, a leading centre of excellence in Ecuador, Latin America, we show a concrete evolution trajectory of this type of dynamic capabilities. The resulting analysis contributes to our better understanding of the micro-dynamics of the organic growth of dynamic capabilities for innovation in information technology research centres in developing nations. As we revisit core theoretical aspects of the dynamic capability concept, we provide extended definitions based on our refreshed empirical understanding.

The practice of green building aims to reduce negative impacts on the environment and human health and is therefore more sustainable than conventional construction methods. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is the leading green building standard in the United States and has been adopted by many federal, state and local governments, as well as private developers. This article utilizes data from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the industry non-profit that governs the LEED standards, to explore the spatial diffusion of LEED projects in the United States.