RSA International Conference Leuven, June 2006 1

Shaping EU Regional Policy: Economic Social and Political PressuresRSA International Conference Leuven, June 2006

Flows and Cohesion:Flows and Cohesion:balancing capabilities across an balancing capabilities across an

expanded unionexpanded union

Dinar Kale PhDCentre for Innovation, Knowledge and Development,

Open University.

Stephen E. Little PhDHead, Centre for Innovation, Knowledge and Enterprise,

Open University Business School,Walton Hall,

Milton Keynes MK7 6AAUnited Kingdom

s.e.little@open.ac.ukPaper at: http://www.design-and-determination.com

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A New Context for Cohesion

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A New Context for Cohesion

Post-Cold War Era, • growing global economic integration • disparate national and regional cultures

increasingly interacting within networked and globalised organisations.

• facilitation through information & communication technologies

In the post-cold war era difference and diversity are resources (Delamaide; 1994, Ohmae; 1995).

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Shifting the Debate

Global Production Chains replaced by Global Production Networks• linkages among members of the Triad account for

the majority of global trade (Dicken, 1998)– production AND consumption at both ends – substantial areas and populations are excluded from the

global cycle of technical innovation and improvement Network Organisations

• flexible coalitions– within and between existing corporations (Castells,

1996)– between independent partners (Inoue, 1998)

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International Migration in the Global Context

“Zebra strategies” (Ohmae; 1995)• play to the relative strength of the most developed

components of national economies • create regional synergies. • Taiwan Straits• Malaysia-Singapore• South Wales - Northern Spain

Differential development entrenched• global infrastructure driven by the priorities of the

dominant developed economies.• key supporting technologies, in particular ICT

infrastructure, may be optimised for externally-driven activities.

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International Migration in the Global Context

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Shifting the Debate

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Exploiting the Possibility of Intellectual Remittances

Differences between centre and periphery, between large and small scale economic activity • central to an understanding of the impact of globalisation

and its supporting technologies. Differences within individual national states

• as significant that those between developed and developing states.

Excluded regions• difficulty maintaining modest economic objectives. • excluded from policy making processes • no influence over the emerging global information system • reducing ability to negotiate sustainable exploitation of their

own resources

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Exploiting the Possibility of Intellectual Remittances

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Conclusion

Divisions in both developed and developing countries present the less advantaged actors with a major problem • accessing or utilising technologies which have

been shaped by other players towards the support of different priorities.

Existing inequalities will be reinforced unless access to these technologies can be achieved.

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A Shifting Context for Community Informatics

Management ------ Governance• Ultimate consequence of Williamson (1975) and

transaction driven view of organisation• governance replacing management• governance flows along the value chain • disntermediation and re-intermediation

Microsoft ----------- OSF

Cathedral --------- Bazaar Raymond E.S. (2001)

Information Sharing ---------- Knowledge Sharing• hierarchies ---------------------- distributed CoPs

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Diaspora and community

Digital Divide• access to the “information economy” as important

as physical location Excluded communities

• difficulty maintaining modest economic objectives. • excluded from policy making processes • no influence over the emerging global information

system • reducing ability to negotiate sustainable

exploitation of their own resources

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Conclusion

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Access versus Ownership

Skill in the diaspora low cost internet-based telephony

Business centres & internet cafes located at the margins

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Diasporic Community in Action

On 26th December 2004 the son of a Tamil On 26th December 2004 the son of a Tamil Nadu fisherman working in Singapore Nadu fisherman working in Singapore saw TV news coverage of the tsunami saw TV news coverage of the tsunami and telephoned a warning to his sister and telephoned a warning to his sister

which was relayed from the village which was relayed from the village Knowledge Centre, allowing all the Knowledge Centre, allowing all the

villagers to escape to safetyvillagers to escape to safety

www.stevedenning.com

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Bottom up response to disaster

Public response to the disaster• powerful images and accounts counter

“compassion fatigue”• tourist technologies

– digital video cameras– cell phones

http://www.digital-review.org/aud16a.htm.• same technologies delivered ad-hoc warnings to

Knowledge Centres around Pondicherry http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com

• collective logging of events and monitoring of relief and recovery efforts continues

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Tracks and Traces: The Braceros

350,000 contract workers in 1942 1,000,000 US residents descended from these

workers or their families Oaxaca Index

a matrix of materials surrounding los braceros,

http://www.geocities.com/archiving_practice/losbraceros.html

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Proximities and Identities

Use of available infrastructure• affordable internet cafés

Portal metaphor• Linguisic barriers removed (Abatte 2000)• Diasporic Communities re-connected

(Miller & Slater 2000)• Global Knowledge for Development• Community Informatics

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Metagovernance

Closing loop along the value/delivery chain • IS driven and enabled feedback from

customer/public to both provider and government/regulator

Implications for government and business strategy and tactics

http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/ http://

www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20010514&s=gevisser

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Technologies with Potential

Next Generation Mobile Communications• Switching from geostationary Earth orbits (GEOs)

to medium Earth orbit (MEO) and low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites

• Geophysics dictates equality of coverage WiFi Access

• Low cost access to higher speed connections • The last kilometre is often the biggest barrier to

access

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Reversing the Panopticon: surveillance by the surveilled

The technologies which have enabled military and managerial surveillance of distributed resources also, paradoxically, enable the communities so scrutinised to develop their own distributed strategies and patterns of relationships with external parties

Little & Grieco (2003) New paradigm

• bottom-up and networked response, • feedback loop from those on the receiving

end

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Windows of Opportunity

How can “small” players influence an emerging new "techno-economic paradigm" (Perez, 1985) ?

A window paradigm for globalising information systems• using available technologies without regard for their

underlying assumptions– mobile phones and micro-enterprises

“Windows of opportunity” may be inadvertently closed by the momentum of mainstream technical development• E-commerce already mutating in to M-commerce