Arturo Vega Mike Chiasson David Brown HOW MUCH THE ROLE OF THE OTHER? Universities as Policy-Makers in the Enterprise Innovation Arena

DISCRETION IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ENTERPRISE INNOVATION POLICY THEORETICAL BASIS Discretion exists (Lipsky 1980, Long 1999, etc.): Work requires individual responses based on observation and judgement Opinions that do not agree with agency policies or with a management desire to curtail discretion Discretion does not exist (Howe 1991, Langan 2000, etc.): Centralisation of political direction Introduction of competition in public services RESEARCH QUESTIONS Are universities making policy in the implementation of programmes? What are the reasons for the existence of discretion?

CASE STUDIES SME Assisted Public Programme Scope of Action Agreed with the Policy Administrators Services Actually Delivered JVentureCoPP-ELearning Integrated learning via coaching, mentoring, and training in different business subjects, based on e- learning techniques and face-to- face interaction Marketing and web design consultancy LanguagesCoPP-ICTServeHigh level knowledge transfer from the academics of the departments of Computing and Communications to ICT SMEs Traditional IS services to generic SMEs

CASE STUDIES (cont.) SME AssistedE-Business InitiativeMajor Events Further Outcomes RecruConstCoA portal based, self- service application for employers and candidates Poor response time, collapse of the session manager software, and high operation costs Decision to not restart the adoption process given the companys new reduced size There were serious legal problems with the service and product providers SME AssistedReview of the Assistance RecruConstCo Part of the deliverables were not accepted Part of the deliverables were reversed Part of the deliverables seem to be inappropriate Part of the deliverables were already known and used by the SME Part of the deliverables could have been done by the SME itself The services were possibly incomplete The services were for an initiative that was not implemented

CONTEXT FOR DISCRETION DISCRETION Relegation of quality and content aspects Collaboration between auditors and policy- makers/programmes Connection between auditors and policy- makers/programmes Political design of evaluation and auditing activities Political decisions on high targets and low resources Strategy of policy- makers to take distance from difficult decisions Misinterpretation of policies by auditors and programme workers Design of extensive and vague policies Programme managers write broad proposals to access public funds Poorly-defined goals at highest levels of government

CONCLUSIONS Duality of roles at universities in the enterprise innovation policy arena: policy-implementers as policy-makers Discretion is rooted in the political decisions at highest levels of government We suggest to study policy-making for enterprise innovation using the political economy framework, especially for SMEs The effect of discretion was negative for both the public assistance and the SME innovation initiative We suggest to study the entire context that influence programme workers towards objectives that are distant from society goals

Thank you