The skin is a formidable diffusion barrier that restricts passive diffusion to small (<500 Da) lipophilic molecules. Methods used to permeabilize this barrier for the purpose of drug delivery are maturing as an alternative to oral drug delivery and hypodermic injections. Ultrasound can reversibly and non-invasively permeabilize the diffusion barrier posed by the skin. This review discusses the ...

Algae biodiesel is an opportunity space that has gained renewed interest for venture investment. As with any new opportunity space, determining where the greatest value capturing potential resides has important implications for directing investment and research. This paper presents a value chain analysis of algae biodiesel and maps current industry players against similar segments in the biofue...

Providing clean and affordable water to meet human needs is a grand challenge of the 21st century. Worldwide, water supply struggles to keep up with the fast growing demand, which is exacerbated by population growth, global climate change, and water quality deterioration. The need for technological innovation to enable integrated water management cannot be overstated. Nanotechnology holds great...

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between technological capabilities and firm performance. We divide technological capabilities into two types – exploitation, which refers to refinement, production and execution, and exploration, which refers to searching, flexibility, and innovation. Based on a sample of 302 small and medium-sized manufacturing firms in Japan, our an...

Price floors in greenhouse gas emissions trading schemes can have advantages for technological innovation, price volatility, and management of cost uncertainty, but implementation has potential pitfalls. We argue that the best mechanism for implementing a price floor is to have firms pay an extra fee or tax. This has budgetary advantages and is more compatible with international permit trading ...

The issues being tackled by this Conference are perennial in economics and are at the heart of the discipline. Growth and productivity were the central concerns of Adam Smith’s inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. There has been phenomenal growth in the wealth of nations since 1776, and also in economic theory, but the enduring insights prevail. The key determinants of g...

Environmental issues constitute a significant driver of innovation in business companies. The paper starts from the historical perspective by identifying which have been the factors and significant steps in technological innovation that have been related to increasing environmental awareness in recent history. Then we analyse the dimensions of technological innovation as related to environmenta...

Improving technologies create a “buy or wait?” dilemma. In this paper, we consider repeat purchases when the consumer faces an infinite stream of new technologies. We develop a probabilistic model and focus on the role of “more variability” on the process of technological innovation. Similar to real options models, we find that variability in the technological process increases value for the co...

Open innovation was defined by Chesbrough (2003) as a development process that allows ideas to flow through the boundaries of the firm. However, while open innovation has been the focus of extensive research and discussions since its definition by Chesbrough in 2003, no consensus has been reached on a single meaning of the term. Starting from a publication by Rosenberg (2009) that defines openn...