International Journal of Technology Management & Sustainable Development - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2006

The potential for publicprivate sector partnerships is likely to grow. However, despite a number of high-profile success stories, promoting partnerships has proved more difficult than many assumed. This article argues that such partnerships need to be viewed in the framework of an innovation system and a development scenario where networks of local agro-enterprises will underpin rural development and poverty reduction. This view helps reveal the importance of embedding public research organizations within these local networks and highlights the fact that constraints to building partnership is institutional in nature i.e. it relates to habits, practices and patterns of trust. The article concludes by suggesting that efforts should be focused on building social capital in agricultural innovation systems and cautioning that this should be done in contextually relevant ways.

The centrality of knowledge to strategies for poverty reduction is widely assumed, but gaps between its generation and use persist. In this article what is known about redressing these gaps, particularly between researchers and policy-makers, are drawn together with an emphasis on understanding the context, developing institutional links and engaging in effective communication. Three case studies about the positive and negative use of communication within the field of technology development are then considered. These cases research into agriculture in Ghana by two European universities, a publicprivatecivil society coalition on agro-processing in India, and researchers advising a government road-building scheme in India highlight not only the central importance of communication to scaling up the impact of research but also that very different strategies are required for different situations.

Previous research on the management competences and organisational capabilities necessary for continuous innovation in complex and dynamic environments and evidence emerging from a study of innovation in palliative care are compared. A range of research on the management of different types of innovation within changing contexts is presented along with research on the relationships between management competence, organisational capabilities and innovation choices. Evidence is presented from research into innovation management in palliative care that enables a relationship between some elements of the theory and practice of innovation management in complex and dynamic environments to be established.

The introduction of the intranet may constitute a lever of organizational changes. This article deals with the identification of the effects of intranet introduction on the organization, particularly its two aspects: structure and process. The survey that was carried out on Tunisian leasing companies shows that the impact of intranet introduction on the structure and the process of credit provision are variable. Some similarities and differences between the cases studied are noted. The impact depends on the type of intranet implemented. Despite the intranet's role in enhancing the operation of enterprises, it does not appear to involve substantial organizational changes. On the contrary, the results of recent studies carried out in industrialized countries show enterprises integrating the intranet into their management system. Whatever the trajectory followed by the firms to integrate the intranet, the issue here is the distribution of resources and knowledge between members of the organization.