Using a conjoint analysis experiment, Ashok Gupta, Klaus Brockhoff and Ursula Weisenfeld present how R&D, marketing, and manufacturing managers in Germany make trade‐offs among three critical variables in the new product (NPD) process: development schedule, development costs, and product performance. The findings are compared with a similar study of US firms. This comparison underscores the basic problem: US managers do not emphasize product development speed to the same extent as do German managers.

This article brings together two areas of research: studies on risk perception of technologies and studies on vocational/career choice. This is an important link since decisions concerning technologies are influenced by decision makers' risk perceptions and these in turn may be related to educational and career paths.We analyze students of different academic disciplines with regard to their risk perception of four technologies. The aim is to find out whether there is a relationship between area of study (as a precursor of vocational and career choice) and risk perception of technologies regarding health, environment and society. The four technologies under study are renewable energies, genetic engineering, nanotechnology and information and communication technologies (ICT). Key results are: Irrespective of academic discipline risk of genetic engineering on average is rated highest and renewable energies lowest. This holds for all the risks studied (environmental, health, societal risks). On average, students from different academic disciplines differ in their risk perception. Factor analyses show that common dimensions of risk are the technological areas and not the type of risk. Regression analyses show that the variables influencing perceived risks vary between the technological fields.

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Corporate social responsibility (CSR) implies that companies have collective responsibility beyond legal requirements. This ‘beyond’ can be described along the ‘triple bottom line’ of sustainability (social, environmental and economic dimensions). Dealing with these dimensions is under discussion in societies and some propose the stakeholder concept as a framework for companies to identify their responsibilities. However, who counts as a key stakeholder and what is a legitimate stake are difficult to determine. This article discusses reasons, possibilities and difficulties of managing responsibility in innovation, taking two cases of genetically modified organisms as examples. It is argued that the stakeholder approach is necessary to provide different perspectives, but is not enough or even completely unsuitable for defining responsibilities. Moral responsibility involves judgement that differs between stakeholders and might vary over time, owing to emerging insights and changing priorities. Therefore, pursuing or abandoning a particular project does not constitute a responsible organization; rather, it is the preparation of decisions, accountability and the resulting pattern of behaviour that renders an organization responsible. The various notions of responsibility set the scene for discussion but do not provide a clear answer to the questions of right or wrong and good or ill intent. Key conclusions are that companies need to organize for responsibility and that responsibility needs to be complemented with accountability.

In this paper we discuss collaboration in the area of technology management. We propose the concept of collaboration profile to describe various forms of networks along key differentiating characteristics. The collaboration profile is then applied using two examples to illustrate different forms of collaboration in the biotechnology industries, the`virtual company' and the`industrial platform'. Based on interviews with members of a virtual company as well as members of industrial platforms and drawing conclusions from theoretical insights, the advantages and disadvantages of these forms and their suitability for different stages of the technology life cycle will be discussed.Specifically, we address the following questions:* What kind of collaboration profile applies to virtual companies and industrial platforms? * How does the suitability of collaboration forms vary with the stage of technology development?Furthermore, we demonstrate the usefulness of the collaboration profile for analysing features and potential problems of collaborations by describing two examples. Focusing on the key characteristics of a collaboration helps to check the appropriateness of the collaboration form and to identify and manage respective problems.