Franz Barjak | FHNW - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Franz Barjak

Research paper thumbnail of Accelerating Transition to Virtual Research Organisation in Social Science (AVROSS) – M4 Final Report. Draft v.2.2 of 27.10.2007. EU Service Contract No. 30-CE-0066163/00-39. http://plattformen.fhnw.ch/avross

Abstract. This paper presents the first results of a survey and case study analysis of early adop... more Abstract. This paper presents the first results of a survey and case study analysis of early adopters of e-Infrastructure across the world, focusing on continental Europe, the UK and the USA. Information was gathered on a number of possible influences on the adoption and level of usage of e-Infrastructure in the social sciences and humanities, and comparisons are made by region. We find that the most important influences affecting whether and where e-Infrastructure is adopted in these disciplines is the availability of the necessary qualified staff and of the required funding are the most important influences on whether and where e-Infrastructure. There are indications that adoption could be accelerated were the most eminent scientists from the social sciences and humanities to more widely promote the benefits to research of e-Infrastructure adoption to their colleagues in the discipline. Last but not least, we see different types of projects in continental Europe, the UK and the US.

Research paper thumbnail of Case studies of e-infrastructure adoption

This article reports results from a study of e-Infrastructure adoption in the social sciences and... more This article reports results from a study of e-Infrastructure adoption in the social sciences and humanities (SSH). The authors find that bridging barriers between computer and domain scien-tists is of key importance. In particular, SSH communities have to be accepted as being distinct and not suited to a ‘‘one size fits all’ ’ strategy of e-Infrastructure diffusion. Sustainability was also a core issue, whereas barriers to resource sharing could mostly be resolved with techno-logical solutions, and skills and training activities are a reflection of the general ‘‘user dilemma.’ ’ The authors ’ recommendations to European Union (EU) policy makers point the way to promoting e-Infrastructure development and wider application in the SSH.

Research paper thumbnail of Specialisation, Regional Clusters and Competitiveness - The Case of Northwestern Switzerland

Research paper thumbnail of Respondent Report of the Knowledge Transfer Study (data for 2010) European Knowledge Transfer Indicators Survey Code of Practice Implementation Survey Interviews with Firms Active in Four R&D Intensive Sectors

Research paper thumbnail of Studies of e-Infrastructure Adoption

We report results from a study of e-Infrastructure adoption in the social sciences and the humani... more We report results from a study of e-Infrastructure adoption in the social sciences and the humanities (SSH). We find that bridging barriers between computer and domain scientists is of key importance. In particular, SSH communities have to be accepted as being distinct and not suited to a “one size fits all” strategy of e-Infrastructure diffusion. As expected, sustainability was also a core issue, whereas barriers to resource sharing could mostly be resolved with technological solutions, and skills and training activities are a reflection of the general “user dilemma”. Our recommendations to EU policy-makers point the way to promoting e-Infrastructure development and application in SSH fields.

Research paper thumbnail of The Future of e-Research Infrastructures

In this paper, we present selected results of a systematic study of different types of e-Research... more In this paper, we present selected results of a systematic study of different types of e-Research infrastructures. The paper is based on ongoing research to compare a range of eInfrastructures of broad diversity focusing on: geographical diversity, representing efforts from around the globe; disciplinary diversity, including the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities; organizational diversity, for example, multi-institutional or federated; diverse levels of maturity, from those in the planning stage to those with a well-established user base; and diverse types of target user communities such as specialized niche, discipline-wide, or generic infrastructures. In presenting six initial cases, we discuss some general features that distinguish between different types of infrastructures across different fields of research. Previous analyses of e-Infrastructures have focused on the parallels between these infrastructures and the major infrastructures in society that support natio...

Research paper thumbnail of Paving the way for a new composite indicator on business model innovations

The paper conceptualises business model innovations (BMI) as a fundamental change of the mechanis... more The paper conceptualises business model innovations (BMI) as a fundamental change of the mechanisms and arrangements of how a company creates, delivers and captures value. It translates this definition into a composite innovation indicator that consists of a combination of radical product and radical process innovations, or radical product innovations combined with marketing and organisational innovations. Implementing this definition with empirical data from the Community Innovation Surveys (CIS) in Europe, we find that roughly one out of 20 SMEs has introduced a BMI in the three-year period preceding the surveys. Deepening our understanding of the construct by means of an exploratory analysis of 60 BMI case studies, we find that revenue model innovations have not been captured sufficiently in the CIS datasets. At the same time, they constitute an essential element and characterize a significant number of BMI cases. We suggest that innovation surveys should introduce questions on r...

Research paper thumbnail of Accelerating Transition to Virtual Research Organization in Social Science (AVROSS). M4 Final Report to the European Commission

This paper presents the first results of a survey and case study analysis of early adopters of e-... more This paper presents the first results of a survey and case study analysis of early adopters of e-Infrastructure across the world, focusing on continental Europe, the UK and the USA. Information was gathered on a number of possible influences on the adoption and level of usage of e-Infrastructure in the social sciences and humanities, and comparisons are made by region. We find that the most important influences affecting whether and where e-Infrastructure is adopted in these disciplines is the availability of the necessary qualified staff and of the required funding are the most important influences on whether and where e-Infrastructure. There are indications that adoption could be accelerated were the most eminent scientists from the social sciences and humanities to more widely promote the benefits to research of e-Infrastructure adoption to their colleagues in the discipline. Last but not least, we see different types of projects in continental Europe, the UK and the US.

Research paper thumbnail of eResearch2020: The Role of e-Infrastructures in the Creation of Global Virtual Research Communities. Final Report.. Report to the European Commission

Research paper thumbnail of Schaffung innovativer Wirtschaftsräume und wettbewerbsfähiger Unternehmen - Sind Cluster die Lösung?. FHNW Series A: Discussion Paper 2006-01

Research paper thumbnail of From the "Analogue Divide" to the "Hybrid Divide

Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, 2008

Research paper thumbnail of Supporting policy learning by means of an evaluation synthesis: findings from a study on Swiss innovation policies

Set up of the study • Contract work for the Swiss Federal Office of Further Education and Technol... more Set up of the study • Contract work for the Swiss Federal Office of Further Education and Technology OPET (since January 2013 State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation SERI) • Two parallel studies issued • Comparison and discussion of results with OPET and CTI 15.11.2013, Franz Barjak Evaluation synthesis of Swiss innovation policies 2 Methodological approach 15.11.2013, Franz Barjak Evaluation synthesis of Swiss innovation policies 3

Research paper thumbnail of National Cultural Diversity of Research Teams

According to social categorization theory diversity has negative effects on group processes as it... more According to social categorization theory diversity has negative effects on group processes as it places a burden on communication and cohesion. From an information processing approach, however, diversity is considered as beneficial for groups broadening the available cognitive resources. The paper compares national cultural diversity of research teams, i.e. to what degree members of research teams come from different countries, across a set of 10 European countries and four academic domains (engineering, natural sciences, biology, and social sciences). It uses different measures of diversity which include species richness, evenness and disparity to different degrees. For all measures we find that the UK and Sweden have high cultural diversities of their research teams, whereas the Czech Republic, Hungary and Italy and at domain level the social sciences have low diversities. We then relate the diversity measures to the teams’ research performance measured as journal publications bu...

Research paper thumbnail of Understanding the relationship between organizational culture and inbound open innovation

European Journal of Innovation Management

PurposeThe relationship between corporate culture and inbound open innovation (OI) has been limit... more PurposeThe relationship between corporate culture and inbound open innovation (OI) has been limited to two sub-constructs: a culture for openness and an innovation culture, but until now a richer conceptualization of corporate culture is missing.Design/methodology/approachThe authors apply Quinn and Rohrbaugh's (1983) competing values framework and regress these together with company internal and external control variables on five measures of inbound OI, reflecting product innovation, process innovation and the sourcing of innovation activities. The authors use data from a survey of more than 250 Swiss companies, primarily SMEs.FindingsThe importance of the firms' market environments suggests that the results are affected by the specific situation in which the firms found themselves at the time of the survey: after a strong currency shock, inbound OI activities seem to be a reaction to external pressure that favored planning and rule-oriented (formal) cultures to implement c...

Research paper thumbnail of Organisational mission and the involvement of academic research units in knowledge sharing with private companies

Research paper thumbnail of Wirtschaftsentwicklung in Sachsen-Anhalt: empirischer Befund und politische Empfehlungen

Research paper thumbnail of Beschäftigungsentwicklung in Ostdeutschland: Räumliche Muster und Hinweise auf einige Determinanten

Research paper thumbnail of Regional Disparities in Transition Economies: A Typology for East Germany and Poland

Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 14631370120074849, Aug 19, 2010

ABSTRACT This article uses cluster analysis to construct a typology of regions for East Germany a... more ABSTRACT This article uses cluster analysis to construct a typology of regions for East Germany and Poland on the basis of indicators for economic capability and their determinants. The results show that, in both countries, the most capable regions are those with or in the vicinity of the largest agglomerations. Besides high income, low unemployment and population gains from migration, these regions have comparatively large stocks of qualified labour and participate in technical progress. Two regional types in particular could be established as problematic: (1) rural regions peripheral to the agglomerations and (2) old industrialised regions. Indicators of investment are not very well suited to indicating the future economic capability of regions under the circumstances of transformation.

Research paper thumbnail of Arbeitsmarktentwicklung an der früheren innerdeutschen Grenze - Was folgt daraus für die Regionen an den EU-Ostgrenzen?

Research paper thumbnail of Development Problems and Policies at the German Border with Poland – Regional Aspects of Trade and Investment

Research paper thumbnail of Accelerating Transition to Virtual Research Organisation in Social Science (AVROSS) – M4 Final Report. Draft v.2.2 of 27.10.2007. EU Service Contract No. 30-CE-0066163/00-39. http://plattformen.fhnw.ch/avross

Abstract. This paper presents the first results of a survey and case study analysis of early adop... more Abstract. This paper presents the first results of a survey and case study analysis of early adopters of e-Infrastructure across the world, focusing on continental Europe, the UK and the USA. Information was gathered on a number of possible influences on the adoption and level of usage of e-Infrastructure in the social sciences and humanities, and comparisons are made by region. We find that the most important influences affecting whether and where e-Infrastructure is adopted in these disciplines is the availability of the necessary qualified staff and of the required funding are the most important influences on whether and where e-Infrastructure. There are indications that adoption could be accelerated were the most eminent scientists from the social sciences and humanities to more widely promote the benefits to research of e-Infrastructure adoption to their colleagues in the discipline. Last but not least, we see different types of projects in continental Europe, the UK and the US.

Research paper thumbnail of Case studies of e-infrastructure adoption

This article reports results from a study of e-Infrastructure adoption in the social sciences and... more This article reports results from a study of e-Infrastructure adoption in the social sciences and humanities (SSH). The authors find that bridging barriers between computer and domain scien-tists is of key importance. In particular, SSH communities have to be accepted as being distinct and not suited to a ‘‘one size fits all’ ’ strategy of e-Infrastructure diffusion. Sustainability was also a core issue, whereas barriers to resource sharing could mostly be resolved with techno-logical solutions, and skills and training activities are a reflection of the general ‘‘user dilemma.’ ’ The authors ’ recommendations to European Union (EU) policy makers point the way to promoting e-Infrastructure development and wider application in the SSH.

Research paper thumbnail of Specialisation, Regional Clusters and Competitiveness - The Case of Northwestern Switzerland

Research paper thumbnail of Respondent Report of the Knowledge Transfer Study (data for 2010) European Knowledge Transfer Indicators Survey Code of Practice Implementation Survey Interviews with Firms Active in Four R&D Intensive Sectors

Research paper thumbnail of Studies of e-Infrastructure Adoption

We report results from a study of e-Infrastructure adoption in the social sciences and the humani... more We report results from a study of e-Infrastructure adoption in the social sciences and the humanities (SSH). We find that bridging barriers between computer and domain scientists is of key importance. In particular, SSH communities have to be accepted as being distinct and not suited to a “one size fits all” strategy of e-Infrastructure diffusion. As expected, sustainability was also a core issue, whereas barriers to resource sharing could mostly be resolved with technological solutions, and skills and training activities are a reflection of the general “user dilemma”. Our recommendations to EU policy-makers point the way to promoting e-Infrastructure development and application in SSH fields.

Research paper thumbnail of The Future of e-Research Infrastructures

In this paper, we present selected results of a systematic study of different types of e-Research... more In this paper, we present selected results of a systematic study of different types of e-Research infrastructures. The paper is based on ongoing research to compare a range of eInfrastructures of broad diversity focusing on: geographical diversity, representing efforts from around the globe; disciplinary diversity, including the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities; organizational diversity, for example, multi-institutional or federated; diverse levels of maturity, from those in the planning stage to those with a well-established user base; and diverse types of target user communities such as specialized niche, discipline-wide, or generic infrastructures. In presenting six initial cases, we discuss some general features that distinguish between different types of infrastructures across different fields of research. Previous analyses of e-Infrastructures have focused on the parallels between these infrastructures and the major infrastructures in society that support natio...

Research paper thumbnail of Paving the way for a new composite indicator on business model innovations

The paper conceptualises business model innovations (BMI) as a fundamental change of the mechanis... more The paper conceptualises business model innovations (BMI) as a fundamental change of the mechanisms and arrangements of how a company creates, delivers and captures value. It translates this definition into a composite innovation indicator that consists of a combination of radical product and radical process innovations, or radical product innovations combined with marketing and organisational innovations. Implementing this definition with empirical data from the Community Innovation Surveys (CIS) in Europe, we find that roughly one out of 20 SMEs has introduced a BMI in the three-year period preceding the surveys. Deepening our understanding of the construct by means of an exploratory analysis of 60 BMI case studies, we find that revenue model innovations have not been captured sufficiently in the CIS datasets. At the same time, they constitute an essential element and characterize a significant number of BMI cases. We suggest that innovation surveys should introduce questions on r...

Research paper thumbnail of Accelerating Transition to Virtual Research Organization in Social Science (AVROSS). M4 Final Report to the European Commission

This paper presents the first results of a survey and case study analysis of early adopters of e-... more This paper presents the first results of a survey and case study analysis of early adopters of e-Infrastructure across the world, focusing on continental Europe, the UK and the USA. Information was gathered on a number of possible influences on the adoption and level of usage of e-Infrastructure in the social sciences and humanities, and comparisons are made by region. We find that the most important influences affecting whether and where e-Infrastructure is adopted in these disciplines is the availability of the necessary qualified staff and of the required funding are the most important influences on whether and where e-Infrastructure. There are indications that adoption could be accelerated were the most eminent scientists from the social sciences and humanities to more widely promote the benefits to research of e-Infrastructure adoption to their colleagues in the discipline. Last but not least, we see different types of projects in continental Europe, the UK and the US.

Research paper thumbnail of eResearch2020: The Role of e-Infrastructures in the Creation of Global Virtual Research Communities. Final Report.. Report to the European Commission

Research paper thumbnail of Schaffung innovativer Wirtschaftsräume und wettbewerbsfähiger Unternehmen - Sind Cluster die Lösung?. FHNW Series A: Discussion Paper 2006-01

Research paper thumbnail of From the "Analogue Divide" to the "Hybrid Divide

Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, 2008

Research paper thumbnail of Supporting policy learning by means of an evaluation synthesis: findings from a study on Swiss innovation policies

Set up of the study • Contract work for the Swiss Federal Office of Further Education and Technol... more Set up of the study • Contract work for the Swiss Federal Office of Further Education and Technology OPET (since January 2013 State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation SERI) • Two parallel studies issued • Comparison and discussion of results with OPET and CTI 15.11.2013, Franz Barjak Evaluation synthesis of Swiss innovation policies 2 Methodological approach 15.11.2013, Franz Barjak Evaluation synthesis of Swiss innovation policies 3

Research paper thumbnail of National Cultural Diversity of Research Teams

According to social categorization theory diversity has negative effects on group processes as it... more According to social categorization theory diversity has negative effects on group processes as it places a burden on communication and cohesion. From an information processing approach, however, diversity is considered as beneficial for groups broadening the available cognitive resources. The paper compares national cultural diversity of research teams, i.e. to what degree members of research teams come from different countries, across a set of 10 European countries and four academic domains (engineering, natural sciences, biology, and social sciences). It uses different measures of diversity which include species richness, evenness and disparity to different degrees. For all measures we find that the UK and Sweden have high cultural diversities of their research teams, whereas the Czech Republic, Hungary and Italy and at domain level the social sciences have low diversities. We then relate the diversity measures to the teams’ research performance measured as journal publications bu...

Research paper thumbnail of Understanding the relationship between organizational culture and inbound open innovation

European Journal of Innovation Management

PurposeThe relationship between corporate culture and inbound open innovation (OI) has been limit... more PurposeThe relationship between corporate culture and inbound open innovation (OI) has been limited to two sub-constructs: a culture for openness and an innovation culture, but until now a richer conceptualization of corporate culture is missing.Design/methodology/approachThe authors apply Quinn and Rohrbaugh's (1983) competing values framework and regress these together with company internal and external control variables on five measures of inbound OI, reflecting product innovation, process innovation and the sourcing of innovation activities. The authors use data from a survey of more than 250 Swiss companies, primarily SMEs.FindingsThe importance of the firms' market environments suggests that the results are affected by the specific situation in which the firms found themselves at the time of the survey: after a strong currency shock, inbound OI activities seem to be a reaction to external pressure that favored planning and rule-oriented (formal) cultures to implement c...

Research paper thumbnail of Organisational mission and the involvement of academic research units in knowledge sharing with private companies

Research paper thumbnail of Wirtschaftsentwicklung in Sachsen-Anhalt: empirischer Befund und politische Empfehlungen

Research paper thumbnail of Beschäftigungsentwicklung in Ostdeutschland: Räumliche Muster und Hinweise auf einige Determinanten

Research paper thumbnail of Regional Disparities in Transition Economies: A Typology for East Germany and Poland

Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 14631370120074849, Aug 19, 2010

ABSTRACT This article uses cluster analysis to construct a typology of regions for East Germany a... more ABSTRACT This article uses cluster analysis to construct a typology of regions for East Germany and Poland on the basis of indicators for economic capability and their determinants. The results show that, in both countries, the most capable regions are those with or in the vicinity of the largest agglomerations. Besides high income, low unemployment and population gains from migration, these regions have comparatively large stocks of qualified labour and participate in technical progress. Two regional types in particular could be established as problematic: (1) rural regions peripheral to the agglomerations and (2) old industrialised regions. Indicators of investment are not very well suited to indicating the future economic capability of regions under the circumstances of transformation.

Research paper thumbnail of Arbeitsmarktentwicklung an der früheren innerdeutschen Grenze - Was folgt daraus für die Regionen an den EU-Ostgrenzen?

Research paper thumbnail of Development Problems and Policies at the German Border with Poland – Regional Aspects of Trade and Investment