Technological Change and Grand Strategy

What is the relationship between technological change and grand strategy? Can great powers promote technological trends that allow them to pursue specific grand-strategic goals? Or is technological change beyond the reach of great powers, and thus it acts like an independent enabler or an independent constraint? This chapter provides a brief introduction to the interconnection between technological change and grand strategy. First, drawing from other social sciences, this chapter summarizes the most relevant direct and indirect effects of technological change on international politics, with particular attention to its long-term generation of wealth, to its distributional implications within and among countries, to the uncertainty that it brings about, and to the complementary assets that it requires. Second, this chapters shows the main channels through which technological change can modify the domestic sources of grand strategy, promote the pursuit of new grand strategic goals, and enhance or undermine existing instruments. Third, this chapter identifies possible intended and unintended technological trends resulting from the adoption of specific grand strategies, and how, in the medium-to-long term, they can strengthen a country in its strategic competition with adversaries.

Managing Complementary Assets to Build Cross-Functional Ambidexterity: The Transformation of Huawei Mobile

ABSTRACT During technology transitions, incumbents are frequently faced with the ambidextrous challenge of exploiting existing capabilities and exploring new ones. While extant studies focus on radical changes in the product domain, we notice radical changes can happen in both product and market domains. Pioneering studies indicate that cross-functional ambidexterity addresses this challenge at the business-unit level by juxtaposing exploration and exploitation across different functional domains (particularly in product and market domains) and that complementary assets address this challenge at the organizational level. However, how efforts at two levels can be combined to build cross-functional ambidexterity and what roles complementary assets play remain unclear. Therefore, this study conducts an in-depth case study of Huawei Mobile, which managed to achieve superior performance during a technology transition that triggers radical changes in both product and market domains. We find that multi-level synergies contribute to the transition process. Specifically, cross-functional ambidexterity is constructed by prioritizing exploration in the product domain ahead of that in the market domain, and that it generates learning, brand and channel extension, matching, and brand alliance benefits at the business-unit level. Complementary assets help to reduce the uncertainty of exploration and resolve functional conflicts at the organizational level.

Specific Features of Anti-Crisis Personnel Management in Modern Conditions

Aim. The presented study aims to examine approaches to anti-crisis personnel management in the context of a pandemic.Tasks. The authors identify the features of remote work as a method of anti-crisis personnel management and provide recommendations for organizing efficient anti-crisis personnel management in the context of a pandemic.Methods. This study uses general scientific methods of cognition to analyze the problems of personnel management in the context of a pandemic and their possible solutions.Results. It is possible to apply recommendations for improving the anti-crisis personnel management system in the context of a pandemic using the model of complementary assets for switching to remote work. Conclusions. As a modern direction of anti-crisis personnel management, remote work is a promising method of organizing work activities. The proposed recommendations make it possible to adjust an organization's personnel management policy and facilitate the use of different forms of remote work.

Intellectual property protection by incubated companies: Using formal and non-formal methods

Objective: to verify and characterize the use of formal and non-formal methods to protect intellectual property by incubated companies that operate in the health sector. Methodology/approach: bibliographic research, research with primary sources, and comparative study of the interaction of organizations with the environment. The incubated companies' primary source information was obtained through face-to-face interviews in field research carried out at the Celta incubator, in Florianópolis/SC, Brazil. Main results: there was an intense use of non-formal methods by the companies studied. The literature adequately predicted non-formal methods adopted by companies. It was also identified that regularity in certifications with Anvisa – Brazilian National Health Surveillance Agency, constitutes an important complementary asset for the appropriation of intellectual property (Teece, 1986) for the companies studied. Theoretical/methodological contributions: identification of the use of non-formal methods by companies and their composition of use with formal methods contributes to the advancement of literature and business practice. Relevance/originality: this study emphasized research on the use of non-formal methods to protect intellectual property by incubated companies, a topic little explored in the literature. Social and practical contribution: the use of non-formal methods is of particular interest to small and medium-sized companies because their implementation is under the company's control and, also, because they circumvent the time and costs incurred in the formal registration. It is recommended to expand the understanding concerning the role of complementary assets (Teece, 1986) for technology-based companies.

Which access to which assets for an effective liberalization of the railway sector?

In the European rail industry, to enable competition in the market, entrants should be granted access to a large set of complementary services, beyond access to the tracks. For an efficient and effective entry, temporary access to quasi-essential complementary assets like rolling stock, mechanical maintenance workshops, data, schedules, etc. is required. In the liberalized rail sector, several observed anticompetitive practices involve distorted access to these quasiessential facilities. Therefore, competition agencies must deal with litigation between the incumbent and new entrants. Most cases have been settled, resulting in commitments from the incumbent. We argue that such transitory and case-by-case remedies fail to produce favorable conditions for a secure and efficient entry. Thus, we propose to systematize such remedies through asymmetric and enduring ex-ante regulation.