State Science and Technology Planning in West Virginia: Challenges Facing Practitioners

Abstract

Many states that are involved in science and technology planning are selecting particular focus areas for state investment. In states with strong science and technology capacity, focus areas can relate to existing strengths. In predominantly rural states, there may not be a strong science and technology foundation, so new areas that do not reflect existing strengths may be selected. This article describes West Virginia’s first effort in statewide science and technology planning. The article shows that the existing research and development capability is dominated by the chemicals industry but that the recently formed Science and Technology Advisory Council looked to new areas (information technologies and identification technologies) for investment and development. The rationale for the selection of these areas is explained.

Government policy of technology selection for advanced traveler information systems

“…In the envir-onmental perspective, firms may not urgently develop a specific technology unless the market and political prospects of the technology become clear. Some issues including user needs (Mackett and Edwards, 1998;Mohanty and Deshmukh, 1998;Lowe et al, 2000), stakeholders' opinion (Jiang and Klein, 1999), infrastructure (Calzonetti, 2000), supporting organization (Zysman et al, 2000), local economic development (Avineri et al, 2000), and local capital source (Lowe et al, 2000) were identified as the critical determinants influencing the decision-making of technology selection. Secondly, besides outside environmental factors, organizational characteristics play a major role in affecting the selection of a specific technology.…”

“…According to previous studies (Calzonetti, 2000; Hsu et al, 2003; Barreto and Kypreos, 2004), evaluation criteria for technology selection can be divided into three main categories including environmental conditions, organizational characteristics, and technology attributes. In the environmental perspective, firms may not urgently develop a specific technology unless the market and political prospects of the technology become clear.…”

“…Secondly, besides outside environmental factors, organizational characteristics play a major role in affecting the selection of a specific technology. Some studies suggested that dense networks of firms (Calzonetti, 2000; Akmanligil and Palvia, 2004), trained workforce (Lowe et al, 2000; Mohanty and Deshmukh, 1998), setting costs (Lowe et al, 2000), existing technology capability (Calzonetti, 2000), and human resource training (Mohanty and Deshmukh, 1998) are the key organizational factors that may affect decision makers' technology selection behavior. Thirdly, prior literature proposed that the technology attributes should be considered when decision makers need to make choice among several technology alternatives.…”

Geo-Spatial Technologies in Urban Environments

“…This is all the more important as it is increasingly clear that livability concerns are especially of interest to new high tech firms engaged in the 'new economy'-as well as the broader service sector (Malecki 1991;Calzonetti and Gatrell 2000;Kotkin 2000). This is all the more important as it is increasingly clear that livability concerns are especially of interest to new high tech firms engaged in the 'new economy'-as well as the broader service sector (Malecki 1991;Calzonetti and Gatrell 2000;Kotkin 2000).…”