International Journal of Technology Management & Sustainable Development - Volume 11, Issue 1, 2012

This article sets out to explore the nature of new organizational and institutional vehicles for managing innovation in order to put research into use for social gain. It has reviewed four classes of such vehicles found in South Asia. The first two contract farming and organized retailing – represent what is becoming commonly accepted in policy circles: namely that the private corporate sector can play a more prominent role in agricultural development, particularly in arrangements that combine providing access to markets in combination with access to technology needed to service those markets. The second two classes of vehicles – hybrid enterprises and social venture capital (SVC) – represent a new, albeit fluid in definition, class of initiatives and organizations that combine features referred to as bottom-of the-pyramid and below-the-radar innovation. For each of these classes of innovation management vehicles this review has mapped the diversity of emerging examples and discussed their relevance for putting research into use for social gain. The article concludes by saying that it is these new and as yet poorly understood modes of innovation that have the greatest potential to effect change, although developing ways of supporting them is going to require some creative public policy instruments.

Sustainable mobility is a relevant challenge addressed today by policy-makers, public managers and researchers worldwide. In addition to engineering and infrastructural issues, the problem is also generating increasing interest in the service management field. This article aims to present a framework useful to support the design of more sustainable mobility systems within territorial communities. A review of extant literature, ongoing projects and research initiatives is used to derive a six-component integrative framework aimed to improve a mobility system by introducing new services, evaluating trade-offs, and assessing or promoting the use of services already in place. Two cases are presented as illustrative examples of application. The proposed framework can support further investigations aimed to define new ways to face the sustainable mobility challenge through a service innovation perspective. The framework can also support the design of interdisciplinary curricula for competence development in the mobility field. The work investigates the challenge of sustainable mobility through complementary socio-technical and service management perspectives, and provides a contribution of potential value to conceive more effective solutions to mobility management.

The Carlos Chagas Filho Foundation for Support to Research in the State of Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) is a public institution, linked to the Rio de Janeiro State Department for Science and Technology. It was set up for the purpose of promoting research and encouraging the scientific and technological activities necessary for the sociocultural development of the State of Rio de Janeiro. The aim of this article is to evaluate the evolution of FAPERJ’s role with reference to public policies developed in support of innovation, and to analyse the transition of policy objective from provision of a system of foment for scientific and technological development to another one that also induces innovation. The study involves an analysis of FAPERJ’s performance in the context of the national public policy provision of incentives to technology and innovation with reference to the types of programmes supported and the diversity of the players involved in those activities.

By identifying the success factors of a programme on positive seed potato selection, this article analyses the role of research in agricultural innovation. The positive seed selection programme developed an approach to improve the quality of seed potatoes by ware potato growers, complementary to specialized seed production systems now widely promoted in sub-Saharan Africa. With more weight being placed on innovation rather than on research outcome, the role of research has been widened and research has assumed responsibility for developing and piloting effective training through partnership with extension. Researchers effectively contributed to innovation because they were given and took the liberty of pursuing a ‘bright idea’. The case discussed in this article points out that innovation can emerge from old technology within existing institutional environments, and can be surprisingly simple as long as researchers have room to manoeuvre and opportunity to engage in partnerships with practitioners.

Factors affecting diversification before initiation of the scaling out of farmer-to-farmer learning and innovation were examined for 2308 households in eighteen villages in eight sub-districts (tambons) in four districts (amphoes) of south-eastern Khon Kaen Province, Thailand. The districts, sub-districts and villages were selected in a rapid process based on the criteria of similarity with a pilot site: predominance of sandy soils, undulating topography, presence of farm ponds, absence of large areas with saline soils, absence of other development projects and presence of similar cropping systems based on rain-fed rice, sugarcane and cassava. Each district had two paired tambons termed ‘intervention’ and ‘control’. All 2308 farm households were classified in a rapid census based on the number of farm ponds and combinations of three types of income generating agricultural diversification activities using pond water: (1) fruit, (2) livestock and (3) vegetables. Amphoes, tambons and villages with similar topography, soil and cropping system had similar number of ponds, household size, level of diversity and income levels. Farms with higher numbers of ponds generated more diversification activities. Total and agricultural revenue increased as diversification level increased. Agricultural revenue increased more rapidly as diversification level rose to 2 and 3, while only one diversification activity had less effect.