Kirsi Hyytinen, Supporting service innovation via evaluation: a future oriented, systemic and multi-actor approach, Doctoral Dissertation, Aalto University, School of Science, 30 January 2017.

Supervising Professor: Professor Eila Järvenpää, Aalto University, Finland, Thesis advisor: Research Professor Marja Toivonen, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd., Finland, Preliminary examiners: Assistant Professor Gisela Di Meglio, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain and Adjunct Professor Jari Kaivo-oja, University of Turku, Finland, Opponent: Professor Luke Georghiou, The University of Manchester, UK.

The most urgent problems of our times – concerning the environmental sustainability for example – are complex and systemic in nature (Harrisson et al. 2010). They cannot be solved via individual technologies or services but a combination of technological and service-based novelties, and collaboration between multiple actors, is required (e.g. Gallouj and Djellal, 2010; Windrum and García-Goñi, 2008). It is also necessary to understand that the creation and dissemination of innovations depend on the dynamics of the system in which innovation efforts are carried out (Geels, 2010; Geels and Schot, 2007). This systemic nature of innovation and the complex societal problems in the background are the starting points of the dissertation.

More specifically, the dissertation studies evaluation as a supporting practice in the context of innovation. It responds to the current evaluation challenge which has been noted within both general and service-based innovation research, and within evaluation research. The results of the dissertation reveal that evaluation problems manifest in two ways in particular. Firstly, innovation as a target of evaluation is defined narrowly: focus is on material i.e. technological and financial aspects, whereas their immaterial, social and systemic characteristics are neglected (Djellal and Gallouj, 2010; Rubalcaba et al., 2013). Secondly, the implementation of evaluation still follows the idea of linear 180input-output-outcome –thinking (Arnold, 2004; Rip, 2003): it does not correspond to the complex development of innovations and the multiple relationships between contributing actors.

In order to tackle these problems, the dissertation suggests an alternative approach with two main aims. Firstly, it broadens the view on innovation as a target of evaluation: besides technological novelties, service, social and system innovations are included. Secondly, it develops a new type of evaluation approach which supports innovation in the systemic context.

The new evaluation approach builds on the basic ideas of developmental evaluation (e.g. Patton, 2011), and strengthens it with three broad perspectives: futures view, systems view and multi-actor view. A futures view links evaluation with innovation, whose essence is ‘making something for tomorrow’. A systems view helps to identify the dynamic interlinkages between different factors in the target of evaluation. Finally, a multi-actor view creates understanding of the forces that make innovations to happen, spread and gain foothold.

The approach is verified and further developed in the empirical context of energy and the environment. A Finnish innovation policy actor – a Strategic Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation (SHOK) – and its programmes, is used as a case example. The methodology of the dissertation is qualitative. The empirical application concretises how the approach can be implemented in practice and how the different perspectives and related methodologies support innovation. A futures view, concretised with foresight methodology (Martin and Irvine, 1989; Miles, 2013) (trend analysis), provides understanding of the future prospects of innovative energy services. A systems view, concretised with the integration of multi-criteria analysis (Djellal and Gallouj, 2013) and dynamic modelling (Sterman, 2000), brings to the fore the multifaceted impacts of a new environmental data platform. A multi-actor view, concretised with participatory practices and the concept of ServPPINs (public-private innovation networks in services) (Gallouj et al., 2013), reveals the collaborative and interactive process in the development and implementation of innovation programmes.

References

Arnold E. (2004), “Evaluating research and innovation policy: a systems world needs systems evaluations”, Research Evaluation, 13 (1), p. 3-17.

Djellal F. and Gallouj F. (2010), “The Innovation gap and the performance gap in the service economies: a problem for public policy”, in Gallouj F. and Djellal F. (Eds), The Handbook of Innovation in Services, A Multi-disciplinary Perspective, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, p. 653-673.

Djellal F. and Gallouj F. (2013), “The Productivity in services: measurement and strategic perspectives”, The Service Industries Journal, 33 (3-4), p. 282-299.

Gallouj, F., Rubalcaba, L. and Windrum, P. (Eds) (2013), Public-private innovation networks in services, Cheltenham and Northampton, Edward Elgar.

Geels F. W. (2010), “Ontologies, socio-technical transitions (to sustainability), and the multi-level perspective”, Research Policy, 39 (4), p. 495-510.

Geels F. W. and Schot J. (2007), “Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways”, Research Policy, 36 (3), 399-417.

Harrisson D., Klein J.-L. and Browne P. L. (2010), “Social innovation, social enterprise and services”, in Gallouj F. and Djellal F. (Eds), The Handbook of Innovation and Services, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham and Northampton, p. 197-281.

Martin B. R. and Irvine J. (1989), Research Foresight: Priority-Setting in Science, London and New York, Pinter Publishers.

Miles I. (2013), “Interactive Impacts – Foresight as a Product, Service and Coproduction Process”, in Dirk Meissner D., Gokhber, L. and Sokolov A. (Eds), Technology and Innovation Policy for the Future: Potentials and Limits of Foresight Studies, Berlin, Springer, p. 63-82.

Patton M. Q. (2011), Developmental evaluation: Applying complexity concepts to enhance innovation and use, New York, Guilford.

Rip A. (2003), “Societal Challenges for R&D Evaluation”, in Shapira P. and Kuhlmann S. (Eds.), Learning from Science and Technology Policy Evaluation: Experiences from the United States and Europe, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, p. 35-59.

Rubalcaba L., Di Meglio G. and Gallego J. (2013), “Public-private innovation networks and social innovation in the service economy”, in Viñals C.R. and Rodríguez C.P. (Eds), Social innovation: New forms of organization in Knowledge-based societies, New York, Routledge, p. 188-205.

Sterman J. D. (2000), Business dynamics: Systems thinking and modeling for a complex world, Boston, Irwin McGraw-Hill.

Windrum P. and García-Goñi M. (2008), “A neo-Schumpeterian model of health services innovation”, Research Policy, 37 (4), p. 649-672.

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Sarah Ba Zrampieu (2017), Qualité et accessibilité aux services de soins maternels et infantiles dans un contexte d’exemption de paiement : cas de la Côte-d’Ivoire (Quality and accessibility to maternal and child care services in the context of exemption from payment : the case of Ivory Coast), Doctorat de Sciences Économiques, Université Lille 1, Lille (France), 27 juin 2017.

Directrice de thèse : Faridah Djellal, Professeur Université Lille 1, Membres du jury : Camal Gallouj, Professeur, Université Paris 13 Sorbonne Cité (rapporteur), Marie-Ève Joël, Professeure, Université Paris-Dauphine, Blandine Laperche, Professeure, Université du Littoral (Présidente), Valery Ridde, Professeur, École de Santé Publique, Université de Montréal (rapporteur).

Depuis la déclaration d’Alma-Ata, en 1978, à l’Initiative de Bamako en 1987, les systèmes de santé des pays en développement (PED) auront connu différentes réformes. La déclaration d’Alma-Ata est issue de la conférence internationale sur les soins de santé primaires, organisée conjointement par l’Organisation Mondiale de la Santé (OMS) et le Fonds des Nations Unies pour l’Enfance (UNICEF). Cette conférence prône « la protection et la promotion de la santé de tous les peuples du monde » (OMS, 1978) au travers du développement des soins de santé primaires. Dans cette déclaration, les soins de santé primaires sont définis, comme « le premier niveau de contacts des individus, de la famille et de la communauté avec le système national de santé » (OMS, 1978). La déclaration d’Alma-Ata prône également un coût de soins qui pourrait être supporté par tous.

Après la déclaration d’Alma-Ata et ses recommandations, le retour à la tarification des prestations sanitaires en réponse à la crise de la dette vécue par les PED, est décidé en 1987, suite à une session du comité régional africain de l’OMS. La déclaration issue de cette session est dénommée Initiative de Bamako. En effet, à partir des années 1980, les PED sont soumis aux programmes d’ajustement structurel (PAS). La mise en œuvre de ces programmes limite l’intervention de l’État en matière de dépense de santé. La réduction du rôle de l’État va fragiliser le système 183de santé. Dans ce contexte économique des années 80, l’Initiative de Bamako recommande le retour à la tarification des prestations sanitaires en vue de l’amélioration de la qualité des prestations sanitaires.

Ainsi, en moins d’une décennie, les réformes en matière de santé dans les PED seront passées, aussi paradoxalement que cela pourrait paraître, d’une volonté de favoriser l’accès des plus vulnérables aux soins de santé, en levant la barrière financière (coût des soins), à une volonté d’améliorer la qualité des services de soins, au risque d’exclure ces mêmes couches les plus vulnérables, par le retour de la tarification des services.

D’un autre côté, depuis le début des années 2000, nombre de pays africains tendent à revenir à la suppression du paiement des prestations sanitaires. Dans ce cadre, depuis avril 2011, les autorités ivoiriennes ont décidé l’adoption de l’exemption de paiement des frais médicaux à l’intention des usagers des établissements sanitaires publics et à base communautaire. En février 2012, la mesure d’exemption totale de paiement des frais médicaux prend fin et laisse place à la gratuité des soins, ciblée sur les femmes enceintes et les enfants de moins de cinq ans. Cette gratuité ciblée représente une étape transitoire vers l’instauration de la Couverture Maladie Universelle.

Aussi, depuis son adoption en février 2012, la politique d’exemption de paiement direct des soins de santé ciblée sur les femmes enceintes et les enfants de moins de cinq ans est-elle effectivement appliquée en Côte-d’Ivoire ? Quelles sont les conséquences de la mise en œuvre de cette politique sur la qualité et l’accessibilité aux services de soins maternels et infantiles de Côte-d’Ivoire ? Cette thèse tente de répondre à ces questions à partir d’un cadre théorique, principalement fondé sur la théorie de l’asymétrie informationnelle, la théorie lancastérienne et l’approche par les capabilités. Nous avons ainsi réalisé une analyse quantitative de données issues des Enquêtes Niveau de Vie des ménages, réalisées par l’Institut National de la Statistique de Côte-d’Ivoire, en 2008 et 2015. D’autre part, nous avons réalisé une analyse qualitative d’entretiens semi-directifs menés, durant les mois de mai 2016 et janvier 2017, auprès de patientes, de personnels de santé et de la population à proximité de quatre centres publics de santé ivoiriens, dont deux à Songon (CSR-DM public de Songon Agban, et le CSU-DM public de Songon Kassablé) et deux à Port-Bouët (CSR-D public Abou de Port-Bouët, CSU-D public Centre Médical Base Aérienne de Port-Bouët) dans le Sud de la Côte-d’Ivoire.

Les résultats issus de l’analyse quantitative des données ENV 2008 et 2015 font apparaître que l’application de la suppression du paiement direct des soins n’est pas totalement effective en Côte-d’Ivoire en 2015. Le pourcentage de femmes concernées par le coût de consultation nul des services de soins maternels et infantiles a évolué de seulement 7 % sur une période de 7 ans en sachant que la politique de suppression du paiement direct des soins a porté sur les femmes enceintes et les enfants de moins de 5 ans à partit 2012. Ainsi, même après 3 ans de mise en œuvre de la suppression du paiement direct des soins, le nombre d’Ivoiriennes qui paie pour bénéficier des services de consultation prénatale demeure encore élevé. D’un autre côté, l’analyse bivariée réalisée pour les échantillons des ENV 2008 et 2015 montre que le niveau d’association entre l’exemption de paiement et les déterminants de l’accessibilité financière et géographique que sont les frais de consultation, les frais d’ordonnance, le coût du transport, le coût des hospitalisations, l’insuffisance du personnel de santé et l’éloignement du centre de santé n’est pas significatif tant aux seuils de 1 %, 5 % et 10 %.

Par ailleurs, les résultats de l’analyse qualitative des 55 entretiens semi-directifs menés auprès de femmes ayant accouché au cours des 6 derniers mois précédant l’enquête et qui ont consulté dans l’un des centres de santé de Songon et de Port-Bouët concernés par notre enquête, révèlent que la quasi-totalité des femmes sont satisfaites de la qualité des soins offerts dans ces centres de santé. Aussi, l’accessibilité géographique aux centres de santé concernés par notre recherche n’est pas remise en cause par les femmes interrogées. De plus, la plupart des professionnels de santé interrogés, lors des 12 entretiens semi-directifs, estiment que la charge de travail n’est pas convenable en considérant l’effectif du personnel soignant, le matériel et les équipements à disposition. Par ailleurs, le manque d’information des patientes concernant l’existence et l’application de la politique d’exemption de paiement des soins apparaît comme un obstacle majeur à la bonne mise en œuvre de cette politique.

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Robert Wentrup, The Internationalization Process of Online Service Providers – Geographical Perspectives on the Emerging Online Economy, Economic geography, PhD, Centre for International Business Studies, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, 12 January 2017.

Supervisor: Patrik Ström, Associate Professor, University of Gothenburg, Deputy supervisor: Claes-Göran Alvstam, Professor, University of Gothenburg, Defence committee: (Main opponent) Grete Rusten, Professor, University of Bergen, Norway, Örjan Sölvell, Professor, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden, Johan Jansson, Associate Professor, Uppsala University, Sweden, Carina Gråbacke, Docent, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Since the launch of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s, “the web” has progressively developed into a marketplace for firms. Commerce on the Internet has often been described as a ‘new’ online economy with a ‘new’ business logic starkly characterized by speed. On the one hand, the Internet has become a sales channel for traditional firms, e.g., producers of goods and services, but on the other hand it has also been a catalyst for a new type of firms, i.e., firms that produce services that are only available and used via the Internet. This thesis deals with the latter form of firms, which I refer to as “Online Service Providers” (OSPs). Some of the world’s largest enterprises, like Google and Facebook, fall into the category of OSPs, but OSPs also include micro-sized firms or startups, and they can be found in almost all countries today.

As the appearance of OSPs in the economy is quite recent, we still know little about their geographical expansion, their geographical mobility, and about how and at what speed and frequency they enter new markets. We know quite little about their internationalization process. The internationalization process of OSPs is important to understand given that OSPs are having an unneglectable and growing influence on the economy and society. The online services that we use, e.g., social media and infotainment, 186are mostly produced by OSPs. OSPs are also the intermediaries and part of the infrastructure in online commerce. Spurred by the emerging digitization of society, and consequently, the blurriness of what we regard as online and offline, we can thus expect OSPs to increase their role in the future economy. This transition will inevitably cause turbulence and, potentially, shifts in the geographical power balance in the world economy (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2014). Some geographical spaces (regions, countries, and cities) in the Global North and the Global South will be “winners”; whereas, others will end up in less favorable positions in the “new” online economy. How this power balance evolves will much depend on the internationalization pattern of the OSP. Given the growth of OSPs in society, it is important to understand their internationalization patterns. There is little clarity of how OSPs enter new markets and about the effects this has on the economic geography. Therefore, the first aim of the thesis is to contribute with theory on internationalization of OSPs, and secondly to discuss how usage and production of online services are distributed throughout geography. Consequently, there are two main research questions in the thesis. The first one concerns the internationalization process of OSPs, whereas the second one addresses the effects of this pattern from an economic geographic perspective.

RQ1. How do OSPs internationalize in terms of speed, geography, and mode of entry?

RQ2. How are online users and online production dispersed in the Global North and the Global South?

The PhD thesis consisted of five separate articles1 and a comprehensive introduction to the theoretical framework around the main research 187problem and the two specific research questions. The full introduction of the PhD thesis, including Methodology, Theoretical framework, Delimitations etc. can be found on this link: https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/49556/1/gupea_2077_49556_1.pdf.

The remaining part of this summary is structured as follows. It starts with a section that captures the discussion regarding RQ1, hence the internationalization of OSPs. Thereafter, a section regarding RQ2 and the geographical dispersion of online users and online production is presented.

Although OSP is a new species, its influence on the economy and society has already been remarkable. Research has, up till now, concluded that the world’s largest OSPs come from concentrated spatial areas in the Global North. This is aligned with the findings of economic geographers stressing the importance of cluster stickiness to certain urban spaces in producer services. The example of Stockholm as an area of dense flows of knowledge of Internet technology skills as a consequence of converging technological clusters has been put forward. Article 1 and Article 2 show that the case firms (iZettle, Klarna, Wrapp, and Truecaller), which are all founded in Stockholm, belong to the same entrepreneurial network operating offline within a regionally limited area. This can appear as a paradox. At the same time as the Internet has a geographically decentralizing capacity, not at least in terms of usage, the entrepreneurial activity remains geographically bound to specific micro localizations in rich urban areas.

The thesis presents an internationalization model for OSPs, which accentuates the three main elements in the internationalization process, namely speed, geography, and mode of entry. It is argued that the relative onlineness in terms of the OSP’s business model and the service itself is important to understanding the speed, the mode of entry, and also the geographical choice of an OSP. Although some OSPs enjoy a high degree of onlineness and with a high ‘online spatial quotient’ (defined as “number of online users per number of offline offices of the OSP”), most OSPs are highly dependent on offline resources, e.g. local staff, which also explains why most OSPs enjoy a regional internationalization path and why they keep their headquarters in distinct geographical areas over time. Again, the offlineness, or the geographically bound stickiness, does matter.

In terms of mode of entry, the OSPs studied use controlled modes due the complex nature of the OSP services, which is explained in Article 1. Regarding speed, it is an uncontroversial statement among Internet geographers that OSPs internationalize fast in comparison to traditional firms, although there is yet little empirical evidence supporting it. I do not make any quantitative claims regarding the actual speed of OSP, but I notice a difference in the speed depending on the OSPs’ relative onlineness. OSPs with a high level of onlineness, e.g., B2C-oriented OSPs, can enjoy a longer online to offline interval than OSPs with high level of offlineness, e.g., B2B-oriented businesses. Therefore, a key challenge for OSPs is to carefully manage the online–offline balance in the internationalization process. Putting too much commitment in the online domain might backfire in the offline domain, which has been seen in some of the case studies in the articles from the thesis.

I also stress the importance of agglomeration effects and the dependence of offline context for the OSPs, both at their home market, but also in steering their choice of international markets. These two factors underpin the heterogeneity in the online economy and are the roots for the diverse online gaps, which are discussed in the next section.

The second part of the thesis shows how the internationalization of online services has spread across the geography at a rapid pace, and how it has created new online gaps between primarily the Global North and the Global South (Graham et al. 2015; van Dijk, 2006; Peck and Sarkar, 2016; Zook, 2001). My theoretical contribution is the introduction of these emerging online gaps; the online usage gap, the online entrepreneurship gap, and the online internationalization gap.

Firstly, the online usage gap, which could be exemplified as differences between geographies in terms of Internet penetration, as well as use of online services, has not been closing in as expected between regions in the last decade. On the contrary, it has even increased between certain regions, notably between low-income countries in Africa and the rest of the world. Secondly, the online entrepreneurship gap, which I define as the difference in entrepreneurial activity within the sector of online services, is complicated to measure. But by looking at the world’s eco-system of OSPs in combination with for example top-level domain production, it becomes clear that this geography is spiky and strongly concentrated to 189Global South cities in which we find entrepreneur elite networks. Lastly, I introduce the online internationalization gap, i.e., difference in internationalization, or online service export, or the difference in amount of international users of the OSPs from different countries. Here, I point to the trade path dependence into which still many Global South countries are locked, weak innovation capabilities due to lack of expertise, and domestic lock-in as causes for this existing and potentially growing gap between the Global South and the Global North.

The online service gaps above should be seen as theoretical extensions of the discourse of the core-periphery and the digital divide and as a contingency of economic inequality. It is the economic strength and the access to offline resources that best can explain the gaps between different regions. In sum, the Internet geography of today is heterogeneous. Research has so far mainly concentrated on supply side parameters and proclaimed the digital divide. But the heterogeneity appears to be even more flagrant higher up in the value chain.

Fortunately, the online gaps are not static, and could be bridged by implementing policy measures. Ideally, a policy framework should be designed in a way that it stimulates a development towards more inclusivity and diversity, both on the usage side and the production side. One conventional policy measure would be to impose tax incentives both to stimulate online usage and to stimulate local online service production. As shown in Wentrup, Xu, Nakamura, and Ström (2016), lowered tax on import of computer equipment is positively related to Internet penetration in Sub-Saharan Africa; hence, by lowering such tax one could expect to spur more online usage and, eventually, online production on emerging markets. Furthermore, a fair tax regime for international OSPs in local markets is an urgent policy to put in place (OECD, 2015). Currently, OSPs such as Facebook and Google are generating large revenues in Global South markets without paying any tax. One could imagine that such “lost” tax revenues could instead be invested to develop local Internet infrastructure and online entrepreneurship incentives. Local governments should therefore put pressure on international OSPs to let them balance their online usage presence with local investments in either the Internet infrastructure or entrepreneurship initiatives, such as incubators. This is not only good for the local market but also for the OSPs themselves since it will increase their engagement in the local market.

I argue that online presence of large OSPs in international markets should be balanced with either financial compensation or offline presence in order to foster a more regionally diversified OSP economy. Wentrup, Xu, Nakamura, and Ström (2016) found that the universal service policy and its fund are efficient measures to stimulate online usage in Sub-Saharan Africa. Such measures directly address the inequalities of online usage between regions or social groups and are a good example of how to drive towards a more inclusive online economy.

References

Brynjolfsson E. and McAfee A. (2014), The Second Machine Age: Work Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies, New York, WW Norton Company Inc.

Graham M., De Sabbata S., and Zook M. (2015), “Towards a study of information geographies: (im)mutable augmentations and a mapping of the geographies of information”, Geo – Geography and Environment, 2 (1), p. 88-105.

OECD (2015), Addressing the Tax Challenges of the Digital Economy, Action 1 – 2015 Final Report, OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project, Paris, OECD Publishing.

Peck J. and Sarkar A. (2015), The Global Digital Divides – Explaining the change, Available at: http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783662466018, Accessed: 10 July 2016.

van Dijk J.A.G.M. (2006), “Digital divide research, achievements and shortcomings”, Poetics, 34 (4-5) p. 221–235.

Wentrup R., Xu X., Nakamura H. R., and Ström, P. (2016), “Crossing the Digital Deserts in Sub-Saharan Africa – Does Policy Matter?”, Policy & Internet. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/poi3.123/abstract, Accessed: 6 August 2016.

Zook M.A. (2001), “Old hierarchies or new networks of centrality? The global geography of the Internet content market”, American Behavioral Scientist, 44 (10), p. 1679-1696.