O33 - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion ProcessesReturn

Cyberspace has become an indispensable part of our everyday lives. Due to the Internet of Things, it has permeated the whole of society. Nevertheless, cyberspace on its own still tends to be neglected in academia, especially in social sciences. This article aims to contribute to the debate over whether cyberspace may be labelled as global public goods. First, the essential economic theories dealing with public goods are presented forming a solid basis for the subsequent analysis and stating the basic conditions for the evaluation of cyberspace as global public goods. Second, a basic cyberspace model is introduced dividing it into three different layers - the physical layer, the application level, and the level of information. Third, an analysis is conducted testing each layer for the legitimacy of global public goods categorisation. Fourth, a final synthesis provides the answer to the question of whether cyberspace can be categorised as global public goods. Based on the findings in the analytical part of this paper, it has been concluded that cyberspace may be, although with several reservations, categorised as global public goods.

In recent years, it is not only a researcher, or a developer, who is important for technology innovation, but increasingly important there have become the micro and macro environment of the institution/company. Since, many times, technology innovation requires cooperation within the business microenvironment and supportive legal, political, economic, social or environmental factors. As analogies in Japan, USA, India, or China, also the European Community has to respond adequately to this trend through supportive legislation, management, infrastructure and cooperation. The key research question of this analysis is, how big is the difference in technological innovation/patenting between developed and developing countries of the EU and why? Also, the selected issues and challenges of technological innovation and management create the input into this systemic study of technology patenting in the EU countries since 1980.

The dynamic development in all areas of business brings shorter life cycles of products, technologies, as well as organisational structures and enterprises. The critical factor of many technological changes is not the technology innovation process, but finding a new application for an existing technology (Rycroft, 2006).The form of technology planning depends on the capabilities and requirements of a specific enterprise, but also on external determinants that affect its internal technological capabilities. Within the formulation of a technology strategy (TS), it is necessary that managers adequately incorporate different dimensions and needs of own technology in TS, but also that technology elements are appropriately designed and substitutable. This article has two main goals. The first is to describe methodically the main specific features and forms of technology planning/TS through a comprehensive study of available professional literature. The second goal is to analyse the development of technology planning methods based on a bibliometrical analysis of ScienceDirect database (1823-2013).