.: 05/04/2004

Seminar Series 2003-2004

Tuesday, 19 August 2003

Professor Steve Fuller
Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, United Kingdom

Title: Knowledge Management and the Future of the University

Abstract: In a world where sociologists routinely call ours a `knowledge society' and `Chief Knowledge Officers' (`CKOs') occupy top posts in universities, corporations and public sector agencies, it may come as a shock to learn that the pursuit of knowledge is becoming an endangered species of human endeavour. The very idea that knowledge is something that needs to be `managed' suggests that its growth should not be left in a wild state: at best it remains unused and at worst it wastes resources. Yet, this managerial mindset goes against the grain of the last 2500 years of Western thought, or for that matter a much longer tradition of Eastern thought, which has valorised the pursuit of knowledge `for its own sake', regardless of its costs and benefits. What has changed in the interim? Has it been for the better? And if not, what can be done about it? What has become the role of the university under these changed circumstances?

Thus, to overcome the knowledge manager's jibe that universities are 'dumb organizations', universities must endeavour to be wholes much greater than the sum of their parts. But this means that a university's value must be measured beyond the short-term benefits it provides for immediate clients, including students. The ideal of uniting teaching and research promised just such a breadth of organizational vision, one worth updating today. Universities remain uniquely placed to produce new knowledge (through research) that is then consolidated and distributed (through teaching). In the former phase, academia generates new forms of social advantage and privilege, while in the latter phase, it eliminates them. This creative destruction of social capital entitles universities to be called the original entrepreneurial organizations. However, universities have been neither produced nor maintained in a social vacuum. With the slow but steady decline of the welfare state, it is time to recover the university as one of the original corporations, whose style of "privatization" is superior to the "trade fair" model that has dominated modern economic thought and today threatens the institution's integrity.

Tuesday, 4 November 2003

Dr. N. Dayasindhu
Senior Research Associate, Infosys Technologies
Bangalore, India

Title: A Theory of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the IT Industry:
Critical Assessment of the “Indian Silicon Valley” at Bangalore

Abstract: The presentation attempts to provide a theory for innovation and entrepreneurship that nurtures formation of new organizations in the IT industry based on sociological and knowledge management theories. Embeddedness (strong social relationships) and knowledge transfer are the foundations of innovation and entrepreneurship. Since a central feature of the proposed theory is knowledge transfer, it is well suited to explain the success of those industries that are knowledge intensive like electronics and information technology. The success stories of global leadership in the microelectronics industry in Silicon Valley, USA and the semiconductor industry in Hsinchu Industrial Park, Taiwan provide the empirical testing ground for the theory. Based on this theory, the paper will critically examine the state of innovation and entrepreneurship at Bangalore, India, the so-called “Indian Silicon Valley.” The action plan for the software industry in Bangalore are policies to foster inter-organization relationships, human resources development, infrastructure development, and a champion who can provide a visionary leadership.

Wednesday, 3 December 2003

Professor Peter Drahos
Law Program, Research School of Social Sciences
Australian National University

Title: The Global Intellectual Property Ratchet in the Information Age: Consequences and Costs

Abstract: The first part of this talk discusses the corporate strategies that are being used to create a global intellectual property paradigm for the knowledge economy of the 21st century. The second part looks at some of the consequences and costs of this paradigm.

Thursday, 12 February 2004

Chung Peichi, PhD
Assistant Professor
Institute of Communication Studies, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan

Title: The Internet as an Emerging Alternative Medium:
An Investigation of Taiwanese Political Movement in Cyberspace

Abstract: This presentation is about a study of online political struggle among Taiwanese. The study examines the use of the internet as an alternative medium for political expression in Taiwan. It focuses on nationalist Taiwanese who previously did not own a strong voice in Taiwanese society. By examining three internet-related groups, the study contends that the internet is an ideal site for cultural practice in which the Taiwanese are able to nourish their national identity and allow such identity to grow to an emerging strong voice in the global media space.

The study includes three modes of internet use to observe how political activists in Taiwan use the internet to bypass government dominance of the mainstream media and how they construct their national identity online. Seeing the internet as a production site of collective identity, this study describes the example of Taiwan’s most prominent portal company, Yam, with its successful story of making Taiwanese identity a strong presence in cyberspace. The study also sees email distribution list as an effective form of information exchange. The study shows the internet to be a transnational place for identity negotiation for Taiwanese in the diaspora. The study shows how web sites provide another dimension for being a broadcast center to promote identity. The case of Taiwan’s marginal political organization demonstrates the powerful role internet use can have in giving political minorities a site to develop ideas and build a base of support for social change. This study shows how Taiwanese voice was able to transform itself from a marginal to an influential position that advocates Taiwanese sovereignty in the virtual space.

Tuesday, 17 February 2004

Dr W. Wayne Fu
Assistant Professor of Communication Research
School of Communication and Information,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Title: Termination-Discriminatory Pricing, Subscriber Bandwagons,
and Network Traffic Patterns: The Taiwanese Mobile Phone Market

Abstract: This presentation draws from a study of network effects induced by termination-based price discrimination in the evolving Taiwan mobile phone market. An econometric model that estimates the effects attests the formation of bandwagon behavior among network subscribers. It is shown that networks with a large subscriber base will recruit a disproportionately greater share of new users ceteris paribus compared with low-penetrating operators. The strength of the subscriber bandwagon varies closely with the price differential of intra- and inter-network calls. Also, analysis of network traffic reveals that an average mobile phone user consumes considerably less inter-network than intra-network airtime; consequently, mobile phone use is largely clustered within respective networks and hindered from traversing others.

Thursday, 4 March 2004

Ms Lynette Lim
Michigan State University, and
Project Manager, Media Interface and Network Design Lab (M.I.N.D. Labs)

Title: Creating Culturally–Tailored Interfaces to Accommodate Individual Differences

Abstract: The user interface is always the initial point of contact that any user would have to activate any piece of technology. For computers and the Internet, the user interface more often than not will consist of hypertext and two-dimensional images. Two interfaces were developed as alternatives to the static webpage: a three-dimensional interactive avatar and a three-dimensional interactive environment that were used to present educational information to a variety of test subjects from different cultural backgrounds. This study used various quantitative scales to measure the attitudinal, behavioral and cognitive characteristics of the test subjects and record ethnographic observations of each individual. The greater social and cultural implications of the results will be discussed. The presentation will also include a short demonstration of the interfaces and current and future developments in the original research.

Tuesday, 9 March 2004

Mr T T Sreekumar
Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology
and Institute of Management in Government, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

Title: Community Informatics of Rural Change in India: Rhetoric and Practice

Abstract: This paper presents some preliminary findings of a study on the growing presence of information & communications technologies (ICTs) in developmental projects initiated by civil society organizations (CSOs) in India. Informed by a social constructivist theoretical framework, it draws on the experience of ‘Village Knowledge Centres’ in Pondichery (MSSRF) and ‘TARAkendras’ in Bhatinda, Punjab (Development Alternatives). We argue that there is a wide chasm between the expectations and actual benefits of CSO initiatives in rural India. Contrary to popular belief, these social enterprises are not rooted in the resource-base of the local economy; their prospects of evolving into a structural mould capable of drawing on local community resources for their sustenance appear to be bleak. Their ability to contribute to local economic regeneration and, thereby, contributing significantly to the national economy through creation of jobs, developing local services and markets, and providing training for skill enhancement and entrepreneurship, and building social capital and so on depend heavily on contexts. Consequently, they do not constitute universally replicable models for configuring social enterprise projects based on ICTs. State-civil society relations in ICT projects are marred by tensions and contradictions. State’s adoption of ‘quangocratic’ organizational models and the failures of the social enterprise models to work with the state and its agencies reflect a growing fissure in state and civil society relations.