فصلنامه مدیریت توسعه فناوری
سال هشتم شماره 3 (پاییز 1399)

Due to the importance of financing technological and innovative activities in moving toward a knowledge-based economy, Iran has used different institutional arrangements to solve the problem of financing small and medium enterprises. Although, among the different tools, the credit guarantee has attracted the attention of the policymakers in Iran, its implementation framework has not yet been well organized. In this article, the proposed strategies to enhance the role of credit guarantee in financing the country's knowledge-based companies have been extracted and evaluated based on the literature review, comparative study of selected countries and identification of the challenges of the country's credit guarantee system through the in-depth interviews with the related experts. Accordingly, the nonfulfillment of the governance role in the credit guarantee system, the lack of necessary institutional support for the evaluation, validation, and valuation of intangible assets of NTBFs, the non-admittance of funds guarantees by banks, and the lack of access to high volume loans for NTBFs have been recognized as the main challenges of the system. Also, government participation in creating accreditation infrastructure, development of reliance guarantee frameworks, designing of combined ownership models, and utilization of government participation models in risk coverage are recommended to address the aforementioned challenges.

Controlling the complexities of the open innovation projects and exploiting their potential requires development of new processes and capabilities. In this research, a model for managing open innovation projects has been developed by exploring experiences at the level of open innovation projects. The approach of this research is exploratory-qualitative using thematic analysis method. Accordingly, 18 open innovation project managers in the information and communications sector focusing on market-oriented projects have been interviewed. The research findings introduce the main themes of communications management, scope management, stakeholder network management, and human resource management as the areas of interest in the literature and provide new frameworks to know how they should be implemented. Furthermore, this study recognizes the main themes of agile methodology, knowledge management, and specifically technology and innovation management as the areas in the literature which have not been well addressed and have not been studied at the project level and from the perspective of project management knowledge. Finally, this research proposes a contingency project management approach on how to implement the market-oriented projects by assessing the complexity of open innovation projects.

In the evolutionary economic geography and innovation studies, local knowledge spillovers have been conceptualized as a regional phenomena, but the mechanisms through which knowledge is transferred between firms in the region have received less attention.This study aims to investigate the dynamics and structural features of multiple networks of knowledge spillovers in the studied industrial cluster. A descriptive Social Network Analysis (SNA) approach has been used to illustrate and examine the structure of interactions in three separate but complementary knowledge networks within Khuzestan Oil, Gas, and Petrochemical Equipment Cluster. Due to the lack of data on firms innovation activities and knowledge interactions within the region, the necessary data was collected through interview and questionnaire and then using the SNA, the structural features of interactions in the three knowledge networks in the region have been studied. The results show that the firms geographical and social proximity in the region has led to the formation of various knowledge interactions between the firms. Further, among the monitoring, labor mobility, and cooperation mechanisms, the network of collaborative interactions has the highest density at the cluster level. Accordingly, the collaboration network has the greatest potential to function as a knowledge spillover channel due to its higher density and the small number of isolated firms.

Technology is a vital part of operations in any organization; however, the selection of appropriate technology is a challenging decision. This paper aims to develop a model for assessing the level of appropriateness of technologies for users of the Fars Province Gas Company. To do this, a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods was used to create and apply the necessary instrument. In this research, we first extracted technology selection criteria from national and international scientific documents. Secondly, the criteria were sifted, then the unnecessary criteria were removed using the content validity ratio method. Finally, the remained 33 criteria were classified into three categories: financial, strategic, and technological. To weigh the dimensions and criteria, the R-SWARA method was used, and it discovered that the technical dimension has the highest weight and encapsulates more criteria than other dimensions. The validity of the model was approved using experts’ ideas. Then, three alternative technologies for inspection and testing of the pipeline welding used by Fars Province Gas Company were evaluated using the designed model, and the rating of each technology was determined by the proposed model. The results reveal that the most appropriate technology is Ultrasonic Testing Technology, with a mean score of 13.2 out of 20.

With the increasing importance of the knowledge-based economy and the role of S&T parks tenants as one of its main drivers, the performance analysis of the tenants has become a key issue for policy makers and managers. The purpose of this study is to provide a framework for assessment of S&T parks tenants and the application of this framework based on the qualitative research method and action research strategy. The study population of this research consisted of 45 tenants of Tarbiat Modares University Science and Technology Park which have been evaluated from 2016 to 2017. Based on the literature review, three dimensions of strategy, market and sales; technology and intellectual property; and teamwork and human resources have been identified as the differentiating assessment factors affecting performance of the S&T parks tenants. The research findings indicate that the technological production capacity and innovation are considered as the tenant’s strengths and on the other hand, organizational and managerial issues regarding financing strategies, business plan development, division of labor and organizational structure, enhancing of human resource capabilities, marketing ability and protection of intellectual properties are among the key weaknesses of the evaluated tenants.

The Sixth Five-Year Economic, Cultural, and Social Development Plan of Iran (2016-2021), the research and technology priorities and policies of the country (2016-2021) and the Transformation Plan of Cooperation between Universities and Industry (approved by MSRT) all emphasize the importance of the R&D activities based on the demands of industry and society in the form of research projects. This study proposes an approach including four stages to evaluate and rank technology-oriented research projects. In the first stage, the key criteria in evaluating research projects are identified. In the second stage, the interdependencies of the criteria are identified by DEMATEL, and then by the analytic network process, the relative importance of the criteria is determined. In the third stage, the rank of the projects is determined and in the fourth stage, the results are compared and then sensitivity analysis of the criteria is carried out under thirteen scenarios. Finally, the results are integrated by the linear assignment method and the final rank is determined. In this study, 23 projects at the Shiraz University of Technology have been evaluated in seven dimensions including 19 criteria and then they have been ranked. The research results indicate the high priority of financial, marketing and technical dimensions in the selection of R & D projects. Thus, using a systematic approach in selecting projects allows defining them with greater accuracy.