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Excellence has become a watchword for goal setting and assessment in science and technology policy. While the concept has been around for many years in its commonsense meaning, it is now explicitly used for science governance; however, so far little work has been done to detail, operationalize and systematize the dimensions of value present in academic evaluators' use of the concept. This article is based on a close reading of a mid-term evaluation of several centers of excellence in Sweden, the goal of which is to achieve a detailed understanding of the evaluative components of the concept. By applying template analysis to evaluation documents, seven main components, largely referring to the organizational/institutional aspects of excellence were identified. These are analyzed and used to provide insights for evaluation scholars and practitioners into the tensions and possibilities present in the excellence concept.

PurposeTo develop a decision model supporting employee involvement in industrial vulnerability reduction.Design/methodology/approachA synthesis review of some of the relevant extant literature on technological/industrial vulnerability, and their application within a normative decision‐making model (i.e. the "Vroom‐Yetton model").FindingsThe insights on vulnerability drawn from the literature are highly amenable to a systematic decision‐making model for employee involvement. Various aspects of vulnerability, specifically with regard to substantial, social and temporal dimensions may be included in such a model.Research limitations/implicationsNew insights about the context‐dependent aspects of vulnerability are offered by considering these within a contingency decision model. This suggests that vulnerability categories are not absolute, but have to be assessed in relation to a specific decision‐making framework.Practical implicationsThe developed model provides a way of weighting various dimensions of vulnerability and making more appropriate decisions regarding leadership style in a range of circumstances.Originality/valueWhile decision models exist for assessing risk in organizations, no contingency model for employee involvement in vulnerability assessment has been presented to date.

The paper explicates the concept of innovation through the lens of social action. It is argued that the term 'innovation' carries within it certain semantic contradictions that cannot be resolved without recourse to the theory of social action underlying the process of innovation. By revisiting a number extant concepts and applications within innovation studies and unpacking these in the light of functionalist and conflict theoretical notions of social action, paradoxes as well as fruitful paths for empirical and analytical exploration are identified. A synthesis of how innovation may be interpreted in the language of social action is suggested, which builds on the dialectics between action as mental activity and physical work.

Policy Uncertainty and Risk presents a contribution to risk analysis and risk management in public policy and management at large. Special emphasis is put on the utilization of scientific knowledge by decision-makers in instances where knowledge in both spheres of science and administration is highly uncertain and contested. The book therefore contributes a model of science-practitioner interaction in a policy area of strong current relevance. The perspective is a realist constructivist one, which means that risk and policy are taken to be socially predicated insofar as we can choose and change the way we define and interact with its practices. It is realist insofar as we continually use such constructions to re-define and re-structure the world we live in. Although essentially theory-driven and conceptually oriented, the authors develop their argument for a new interpretation of policy-relevant science through a number of pressing case studies. These studies include the recent BSE/CJD crises in the UK, the introduction of Marine Protected Areas in Sweden, and the current practices surrounding risk management in corporate bodies. Drawing on empirical cases and theoretical explication, the book provides a number of suggestions as to how risk analysis and risk management may be more properly conceived of both from a practitioner as well as from an academic point of view

Promoting collaboration between university researchers and practitioners from the business and public sectors has emerged as an important tool of science policy. This article examines the discourses that policy makers employ in promoting this strategy by analyzing the narratives about the social relevance of science and its role vis-à-vis the industrial sector in the context of strategic research funding in Sweden. Four dominant discourses on science are identified and discussed. It is argued that these policy frames construct a boundary between research and practice, which is in turn used as rhetorical justification for research funding policies that seek to increase business influence and input to university research at the expense of academic autonomy in this sphere.

This paper argues that knowledge mapping may provide a fruitful avenue for intellectual capital management in academic environments such as university departments. However, while some research has been conducted on knowledge mapping and intellectual capital management in the public sector, the university has so far not been directly considered for this type of management. The paper initially reviews the functions and techniques of knowledge mapping and assesses these in the light of academic demands. Second, the result of a focus group study is presented, where academic leaders were asked to reflect of the uses of knowledge mapping at their departments and institutes. Finally a number of suggestions are made as to the rationale and conduct of knowledge mapping in academe.

How to create and transfer knowledge in organizations is the subject of a rich and stimulating discourse among academics and practitioners. This article focuses on a still relatively unexplored aspect of this issue: the evaluation of the outcomes of programmes designed to stimulate the creation and transfer of knowledge in corporations (sometimes called Knowledge Management [KM] programmes). This is done by taking the concept of organizational goals for development of knowledge, and viewing their relation to evaluation against the backdrop of epistemological concerns. It is argued that the evaluation of programmes for the creation and transfer of knowledge is a complex task for a number of reasons, one of the most important of which is the constitutive character of knowledge itself. As a conclusion the article recommends a constructivist and goal-free framework for KM-programme evaluation, which has the capacity to sensitize the organization to the transformative nature of KM. The article concludes with a number of suggestions as to how such evaluations may be carried out.

This article explores the process of small-scale technological innovation through the concept of experienced and enacted time. By conducting a series of semi-structured, deep interviews with 10 entrepreneurial innovators around issues of time and their ventures, we were able to construct four higher order concepts: time as a force, time as a flow, time as relations and time as a personal, cognitive resource; as well as 12 subcategories depicting ways in which time and innovation are weaved together. The study concludes with a number of suggestions as to how previous research on innovation may be extended in the light of the present findings. Especially important in this respect is the call for a stronger emphasis in innovation research on intentionality, uncertainty creation, vision and social action as being significant denominators of this phenomenon.