IEEE Technical Management Council

The PCS is a founding Member Society (one of 14) of the TMC, and has a voting representative, Brenda Huettner, on its Board of Governers. The TMC provides a critical opportunity to network with leaders from the other Member Societies in their common pursuit of the mission and goals of the TMC, and to explore additional ways for the Member Societies to interact with each other.

The Field of Interest for PCS is well-suited to provide value to societal and council conferences, for example. In the same manner, the mission and goals of the TMC can enhance the experiences, knowledge, and skillsets of PCS members who now also are, by virtue of PCS being a TMC Member Society, members of their local TMC Chapter.

Opportunities to network will exist at societal conferences, as well. Anyone with interest in the management of technology, management principles in general, or who is a technical professional reponsible for technology management, or is striving to become a manager, should have interest in what the TMC has to offer.

PCS members may want to consider, when rejoining IEEE for 2010, getting a subscription to the TMC publications (individuals cannot 'join' a Council, but can certainly subscribe to its publications). The Transactions on Engineering Management is more research-oriented, and the very popular Engineering Management Review (EMR) is a compilation of papers reprinted from the most respected Engineering and Technology Management journals in the world, as selected by its editorial board. The EMR is targeted more for the practicing professional. If you have any questions about the TMC, please contact Luke at luke.mak@ieee.org

More information about the TMC can be found at http://www.ieeetmc.org/.

Luke Maki, Immediate Past President of PCS, is currently President-Elect of the IEEE Technology Management Council (TMC). His two-year term as President commences in January 2010.

CALL FOR PAPERS
IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management
Special issue on: “Hybrid Innovation Management and Global Corporations”

Guest editors: Yuosre Badir (Asian Institute of Technology, AIT), Christopher Tucci (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL), Chihiro Watanabe (Tokyo Institute of Technology).
Email: badir@ait.ac.th


Innovation is a complex phenomenon that involves all areas of technological, economic, and social activity. It can come from anyone within or outside a company and occur anywhere along the value chain. Nowadays, due to globalization and liberalization of economies, in addition to emerging “big” players, market competition has intensified and the rate of technological change has increased. Companies are reviewing their innovation systems and seeking new methods for innovation generation and new ways of managing the entire innovation process so they can compete on a global level.

In such a competitive market, global corporations operate within different regions, countries, and continents, and are more exposed to different innovation management systems / techniques / practices, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. To compete anywhere, be that in the West or East, in developed or developing economies, global corporations may wish to adopt an appropriate hybrid innovation management style in which they retain their own values and strengths of the practices that have made their innovation system effective, while changing what has to be changed. Hybrid innovation management incorporates different, and sometimes opposing, innovation management systems / techniques / practices from other countries/firms and fuses them into one homogeneous system. Examples of different/opposing management systems include, but are not limited to: open vs. closed innovation, internal vs. external R&D, hierarchy vs. market transaction, exploration vs. exploitation, flexible vs. rigid organization, performance-based vs. seniority-based HR promotions/compensation systems, shareholder- vs. stakeholder-focused approaches, strong vs. weak social ties, etc.

Transfer of innovation management systems / techniques, or some of its elements, from one country / firm to another always involves uprooting original constructs and introducing them into different institutional systems (for example, culture, national strategy and policy, socio-economic systems, entrepreneurial infrastructure, and education). Effective corporations must consider the characteristics of the original and new institutional systems. The appropriate hybrid innovation management system depends on how well it fits the surrounding institutional systems as well as the company’s culture and business.

This special issue offers a prime opportunity to understand the development and implementation (or practice) of hybrid innovation management in global corporations and its relation with institutional systems. Some interesting questions may include: In the hybrid innovation management context, what should be retained and what changed? How do institutional systems influence innovation management practices? Which differences in innovation management practices are of particular importance? Where do they come from? What facilitates the fusion of different innovation management practices? What are the barriers to fuse innovation management practices? Should global corporations try to fuse or let coexist different innovation management practices? How does the existence of different innovation management practices in global corporations influence their innovation performance? And how is hybrid innovation management implemented at local/global levels?

Both research and practice papers are welcome, as are papers that advance theory development, use large-sample methods, or that explore one or a few global corporations in-depth. We are interested in articles discussing hybrid management of global corporations related, but not limited, to: Innovation management; corporate strategy; strategic alliances; organization design; organizational behavior; human resources; organization culture; and institutional systems.

Submission Deadline: November 30, 2009. Papers should be submitted electronically to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tem-ieee. The cover letter should indicate that the paper is being submitted to the special issue on hybrid innovation. Initial editorial decisions will be reached in 2010.

Conference Overview

The IEEE Technology Management Council (TMC) sponsors several conferences that bring together engineering and management professionals and academics from around the world for the benefit of IEEE members. They include those for which the Council is a financial sponsor or a technical co-sponsor. These conferences create a forum for the exchange of ideas, experience, theories, and knowledge between all those involved in engineering management and economic development of technologically-focused communities: engineers, managers, business and management consultants, academics and researchers, and community business leaders. In addition, they provide reduced IEEE member rates and contribute conference papers into the IEEE Xplore platform.

The IEEE Technology Management Council is the heir to the IEEE Engineering Management Society's legacy of twenty years of presenting the flagship IEEE International Engineering Management Conference (IEMC) - a world renowned conference with technical and professional activities spanning the entire range of hot topics in engineering and technology management.

Beginning in 2011 the TMC flagship conference will bear the ITMC brand (e.g., IEEE 2011 International Technology Management Conference: ITMC2011) for a full annual conference normally two and a half days in length typically beginning with pre-conference tutorials and an opening reception on a Sunday and ending at noon on Wednesday. The TMC brand (e.g., IEEE Technology Management Conference-China 2009: TMC-China 2009) will be further developed as either a major track in another conference or a stand alone conference, typically of less than two and a half days duration.

Although we are planning to create a Council-level organizing committee for our annual ITMC conferences in 2011 and beyond, we are always looking for appropriate conference venues and organizing committees for our smaller conferences. Please contact your TMC Vice President Conferences for further information.