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Journal Name: Prometheus, Volume 18, Number 3, 2000
Papers
Social Information: A New Perspective on Social Research about Information and Communication Technologies
By Rob Kling
ABSTRACT
Social information is the body of research that examines the design, uses and consequences of information and communication technologies in ways that take into account their interaction with institutional and cultural contexts. This article draws upon some 25 years of systematic, analytical and critical research about information and communication technologies (ICTs) and social change to illustrate key ideas from social informatics research.
Keywords:
electronic journals, information and communication technologies, intranets, networks, social informatics.
Towards a Knowledge Economy? Changes in New Zealand's Information Work Force 1976-1996
By Hans-Jurgen Engelbrecht
ABSTRACT
The New Zealand economy has undergone tremendous change since 1984, being transformed from one of the most regulated OECD economies to one of the most deregulated. Recently, the concept of a 'knowledge economy' has received attention in New Zealand, and policies are now aimed at creating such an economy. This study contributes to the debate by exploring the changes in the country's information work force in recent decades, and by attempting to relate them to some of the major features of the economy which have to be addressed in the search for an appropriate knowledge economy model.
Keywords:
information work force, knowledge economy and policies, economic growth, transaction sector, income distribution, innovation systems.
Innovation and Industry Development: A Policy-relevant Analytical Framework
By Jane Marceau
ABSTRACT
Public attention is increasingly focusing on the role played by product and process innovation in the economic development of modern nations. There have been many studies of national innovation systems, regional and local innovation systems, and technological and sectoral systems. There have been innovation surveys and efforts concentrating on measuring the effectiveness of different innovation systems. The 'system' debate has distracted attention from the search for policy mechanisms to encourage development in a more specific manner. The approach developed in this paper enables the analyst to both hone in on the general dynamics of industrial change as they relate to particular situations and to highlight the points that may need public or private action if a country, region or locality is to maximise the.efficiency of the players in its national, regional or local innovation systems, or indeed its social ones.
Keywords:
innovation, national innovation systems, industry, policy.
Rationality and Rhetoric in the Corporate World: The Corporate Annual Report as an Aristotelian Genre
By Robert White & Dallas Hanson
ABSTRACT
This paper is part of a research programme into corporate annual reports. Reports do provide the information on the past performance, present state and future prospects which investors in listed companies require for the rational choices attributed to them. They also reveal the companies' responsiveness to the publics comprising the civil societies in which they are embedded. This effect requires more than strict rationality. To use Simon's distinction, the reports then entail both substantive and procedural rationalities. We argue that classical rhetoric and its recovery in the 'new rhetric' yield useful approaches to the latter, and that annual reports comprise a genre in the rhetorical sense. We illustrate our case through generic features in the reports of the Australian-based multinational, Amcor. We suggest for future research that accounts of corporate functioning are incomplete unless they include the pre-structured interaction between companies and their publics which we have shown here through rhetoric.
Keywords:
genre, rhetoric, rationality, annual reports, Amcor.
Pharmaceutical Patent Term Restoration n New Zealand
By John Parker
ABSTRACT
This paper draws attention to the 1998 legislation in Australia which introduced a drug-specific patent term restoration procedure called a supplementary protection certificate. After investigating effective patent life data the results suggest that there is a case for such a measure in New Zealand.
Keywords:
pharmaceuticals, patents, effective patent life, patent reform and multi-nationals.
(This journal is available online: http://www.tandf.co.uk/online.html)
Posted with permission from the publisher.
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