tilburg research
research magazine
Making innovation work
Adapting technology • Smart networks
in global competition • Sharing tricks
of the trade • Towards a more effective
labour market • Defending our freedom •
Competition and innovation
Understanding Society
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Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
Preface
Attempts in recent years to boost innovation in the
Netherlands have failed: the Dutch knowledge economy
is increasingly losing global competitive strength. This
was the conclusion drawn by the Dutch newspaper NRC
Handelsblad after the publication of the last report by
the Innovation Platform set up in 2003 by Prime Minister
Jan Peter Balkenende. There are too few innovative
startup companies, too few breakthroughs by innovative companies into the world market, and businesses
are too little involved in innovation. Tilburg University’s
Professor of Innovation Policy Bart Nooteboom then
drew attention in an opinion article to an important
reason for the failing policy: through their established
practices, mentality and working methods, investments,
interests and political lobbying, big companies obstruct
sustainable innovations by small companies.
FEATURES
port for it in the community, good market research and
marketing techniques, or collaboration with the right
partners. It is precisely these social, financial, microeconomic and legal prerequisites for innovation, and how
innovation can really serve society that are the subjects
of research at Tilburg University. This issue of Tilburg
Research presents a cross-section of this research, with
both analyses of the problems and possible solutions.
We hope they will contribute to making innovation really
work.
Prof. dr. Philip Eijlander
Rector Tilburg University
2 Making innovation work
6Innovation networks provide
the best chances
10 Medical innovations may strike fear
into patients’ hearts
14 Do we adapt to technology,
or technology to us?
18 Innovate or rejuvenate
20Experimenting with social
networking and privacy
23 Sharing the tricks of the trade
27Smartest networks will survive in
global competition
31The new language of the labour market
The policy will have to change – that seems obvious. But
solutions may come from various directions. Innovation
is about how knowledge is applied, the degree of sup-
News
5 Connected customers
12 Grasping Europe's innovation policy
25Technology is an increasingly
important regulatory tool
Tilburg Research
33 Competing through temporary
organizations
Tilburg Research is a magazine for special-interest groups about research at Tilburg University
in the Netherlands. Tilburg University specializes in the social sciences and humanities.
Research portraits
9 Technology no longer for the
happy few
Colophon
Publisher Marketing & Communications, Tilburg
University
Editor in chief Corine Schouten
Editing board Tineke Bennema, Lenie van de
Brug, Clemens van Diek, Leon Heuts, Reggy
Peters, Corine Schouten, Diahann van van de
Vijver, René Voogt
Contributing editors Tineke Bennema, Marion
de Boo, Clemens van Diek, Leon Heuts, Renée
Kneppers, Rik Oerlemans, Corine Schouten,
Enith Vlooswijk, Marga van Zundert
Photo editor Stans van Dongen
Layout and graphic design
Beelenkamp Ontwerpers, Tilburg
Printer Drukkerij Groels, Tilburg
13Defending privacy and with it our
freedom
17Competition affects innovation,
and vice versa
Read more about Tilburg University’s innovation research at www.tilburguniversity.nl/
innovation. You can use this QR-code to access
the website by taking a picture or scanning it
with your mobile phone if it is equipped with
QR-code reading or scanning software.
22Fast forward through history
26 Why companies decide to innovate
30Everything that is not renewed
eventually dies
photography
Cover
The Dutch Aibo Team is dedicated to designing a
team that can beat human beings. It involves challenges in several areas, such as image processing,
game representation, real time information processing and coordination of different team members.
Photo Patrick Post/ Hollandse Hoogte
IN THIS ISSUE
Robots have always embodied human imagination
about future merits as well as dangers of innovative
technology. Ultimately technology is about what
people need and want. The photo series in this issue
of Tilburg Research illustrates innovation as a collaborative means to an end in society, which is also
the starting point of Tilburg University’s innovation
research.
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Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
cedures and organizations meet
social needs in a broad sense, also
in relation to the design and use of
technological innovations.
Making innovation work
Innovation is often seen as a panacea for the
big problems of our time. Climate change, global competition, rising health care costs, the
ageing population – clever, often technological
solutions are supposed to help us guarantee our
socioeconomic security and to keep our quality
of life at least at the same level. In the West
we have high-quality knowledge to help us, but
nevertheless politicians, the government and
industry struggle every day to find solutions.
This should not really surprise
us. In itself, innovation is not
sufficient to solve complex social
problems. Take climate change:
companies are still not stimulated
enough to invest and experiment.
That requires not only money, but
also support from the community.
In addition, well trained employees must be available on the labour
market. Innovative solutions also
have to be really dovetailed to what
people or society needs. They have
to be accepted, legitimized by law
– or not – and put on the market.
To generate more
innovation the
labour market should
be organized more
effectively
For all those processes associated
with innovation, from the definition of the real problems to the
implementation of the solutions,
contributions from people and
society are needed.
At Tilburg University researchers
in the social and behavioural sciences are examining the social,
financial, micro-economic, legal
and organizational parameters
which make innovation possible
and how innovations can really
be made to serve society. The
Tilburg researchers do not invent
new hardware technologies, but
they do study them and provide
social interfaces for them. Their
knowledge of new organizational
forms and methods which can
improve decision-making and
implementation processes in
companies and social institutions makes it possible to work
on innovation in a more focused
way. Sociologists, economists,
psychologists, researchers in cultural and communication studies,
philosophers and legal scholars
who are occupied with today’s
complex problems look beyond
the boundaries of their own disciplines. Often they also collaborate
with companies, public or semipublic bodies and technologically
trained researchers. All of this has
to do with social innovation: new
concepts, ideas, strategies, pro-
Generating innovation
Much of the innovation research at
Tilburg has to do with the organizational prerequisites for effective
innovation of a kind considered
desirable. For example, the Center
It is no longer the
case that innovation
sells itself
for Innovation Research (CIR) is
examining the effectiveness of
networks of organizations in relation to innovation. Joining forces
is commonly thought to stimulate
innovation, but is that really the
case? How can companies derive
the most benefit from collaboration? Not only the management
of innovation, but also the innovation of management itself are
still issues for which there is no
substantial theoretical or empirical knowledge base. In order to
fill this gap, CIR is combining
theoretical research with surveys,
experiments and other empirical
studies.
Another way to generate more
innovation would be to organize
the labour market more effectively.
Research into innovation of the
labour market as a system is carried out at ReflecT, the Research
Institute for Flexicurity, Labour
Market Dynamics and Social
Cohesion at Tilburg University.
This kind of social innovation is
needed to help the disadvantaged
of our time, but also to enhance
business potential – and preferably both at once. Attempts are
already being made within the
European Union to create a labour
market which is flexible, but at
the same time provides security
for employees – Tilburg Professor
of Labour Market Studies Ton
Wilthagen’s ‘flexicurity’ concept. A
related research theme at ReflecT
is innovation of the education and
training system so that job seekers’
skills will be better matched to the
labour market.
The Tilburg Law and Economics
Center (TILEC) studies the
enhancement of innovation by
means of market mechanisms.
As experts on market operation
and market governance, TILEC
researchers have observed that
the interplay of innovation and
market operation is still ignored in
government policy. Current competition law within the European
Union is supposed to contribute to
the enhancement of competition,
but it is not that simple, according
to Professor of Competition Law
Pierre Larouche. Companies also
need to have money for research or
be stimulated to do research. The
worlds of innovation policy and
competitive practice are still too
far out of step.
TILEC is also examining how
much competition is conducive to
innovation. If there is too much
competition, products become
too cheap in relation to the
3
required investment in Research &
Development. If there is too little
competition, a monopoly arises.
Competition in the new digital
economy is another research topic.
Technological innovation plays an
important role here, but competition law has not yet been brought
into line.
Improving innovation
New technologies start with a
good idea, but often it is only when
they are used that it becomes
apparent whether they really work.
Psychologists from the Center of
Research on Psychology in Somatic
diseases (CoRPS) are examining
the impact of medical technology
on patients. Professor of Medical
Psychology Johan Denollet thinks
that better treatment of chronic
diseases is the major challenge
of the future. Technology is an
important aid in doing this. But
the effectiveness of technological
remedies depends on the individual patient. CoRPS’s research focuses on the psychological impact and
effectiveness of techniques such
as the implantation of automatic
defibrillators in heart patients
or the treatment and monitoring
of patients via the internet or by
satellite. Research both during the
development of such techniques
and afterwards is needed to optimize their effect.
As is well known, all kinds of
things can also go wrong with big
IT projects as well, such as the
introduction of SAP systems in
businesses or institutions. “We
need to look more carefully at
the human side of technology”,
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Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
says Professor of Artificial
Intelligence Eric Postma. ‘People
and rigid systems just don’t go
together. The “soft” human side
is at least as important as “hard”
technology’. Postma works at the
Tilburg Centre for Cognition and
Communication (TiCC), where
information technology is applied
in relatively new areas for IT –
areas which centre around people
and culture, such as archaeology,
art and cartography. The researchers are working on finding clever
ways to search in large quantities
of information on the basis of
words, patterns or images; or on
‘serious gaming’: computer games
used for educational purposes. The
focus is always on the human user.
The implementation of innovative
digital services is the subject of
research at the European Research
Institute in Service Science
(ERISS). The researchers are examining the improvement of services
through IT, mainly via the internet.
Cloud computing and service-oriented architecture are examples.
Introducing and
selling innovation
Marketing researchers at Tilburg
University are developing methods to find out what consumers’
needs are and how to convert them
into new products which create
value for customers. Or how and
when those products should be
put on the market. “It’s no longer
the case that innovation sells
itself; people have only a limited
number of needs”, says Professor
of Marketing Bart Bronnenberg.
“Often the market is a good judge
of what is truly an improvement.”
Researchers both at the Marketing
Department and the CIR are investigating better ways of converting
innovations into cash. Are user
panels helpful? Is it advantageous
to be the first to put a new product
on the market or not?
Consequences of
innovation
New technology has many consequences for people and society. In information technology
drastic changes are around the
meets national and international
regulations and a company’s own
management policy? How can you
make new technology more applicable? At ERISS, researchers are
looking for answers to these questions on the basis of expertise in
accountancy, information systems,
laws and regulations, and technology.
The Center for Innovation Research
(CIR) is examining the consequences for people in organizations.
The organizations themselves will
have to change, for instance to
Our understanding of the fundamental laws and
principles of services in the global, experiencebased economy is still in its infancy
corner: the internet is spreading
like wildfire, cloud computing is
on the rise, and as a result many
processes are making even more
rapid strides. “We are increasingly
connected through mobile phones,
live links, web films, etc., but a lot
more is going to change as well”,
says Eric Postma. What exactly is
hard to predict. “Our understanding of the fundamental laws and
principles of services in the global,
experience-based economy is still
in its infancy”, says Professor of
Information Systems Willem-Jan
van den Heuvel. The global digital
economy is changing not only the
way we do business, but also our
everyday lives and our society.
The new possibilities raise new
questions and problems. How can
you ensure that shared software
adapt to new production processes.
New business models have to be
developed in which a group of companies can see to the integration of
processes, says Professor Marius
Meeus. CIR researchers are investigating the best way to do this.
The philosophy of the Tilburg
Institute for Law, Technology and
Society (TILT) is that unintended
problems caused by new technologies can be solved in three ways
– by adapting the technology itself,
by regulating technology, and by
raising people’s awareness of the
problems. Professor of Regulation
by Technology Ronald Leenes: “It’s
only by involving all these factors
in your solution that you can solve
problems.”
Corine Schouten
Innovation to learn
In the Dutch Science museum NEMO in Amsterdam, children
learn by experimenting with technology. Photo Joost van den Broek/
Hollandse Hoogte
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
5
BOOK PUBLICATION
Today’s customers are guided by emotion,
reason and other factors
Consumers today are no longer alone in their
decision-making. Information technology,
communication technology and globalization
grant us access to information from other
consumers with experience from around the
world as well as businesses and institutions
in the know. As consumers, we are developing an increasingly stronger connection
with brands, companies and fellow consumers. But how do we use all this information
to make choices? According to new findings
detailed in The Connected Customer by marketing researchers from Tilburg University,
the information process is guided by emotion, reason and social factors.
Innovation to perform
South African athlete Oscar Pistorius celebrates his world record on the 400 metres
at the Dutch Open Paralympics (2008). Photo Jiri Buller/Hollandse Hoogte
Today’s consumers no longer decide on a purchase
by themselves but are increasingly influenced by other
consumers, companies and brands. Customers communicate with one another using social networking
sites, video clips on YouTube, brand community sites
or anti-brand websites. Contacts between companies
have also grown. All these modern forms of connectivity call for new analyses and strategies. In The
Connected Customer, four marketing researchers
from Tilburg University present a broad spectrum of
new insights from leading international marketing
scientists.
Selective
The experts in The Connected Customer provide
examples of how customers deal with large volumes
of information. This sometimes results in a more
rational, active and personal relationship to a product,
comparable say to the relationship between patient
and doctor. However, in other situations, emotions or
religiosity appear to play an important role. Emotions
guide customers in their selective processing of
information, which can result in greater brand loyalty,
whereas a strong religious belief leads to a greater
sense of security. The study found that customers with
a strong belief display greater brand loyalty for everyday products such as mobile phones and watches.
More and more, consumers are influencing each other
in their decision-making. As one of the chapters illustrates, fundamental mechanisms such as social comparison and socialization play a role in this process.
Popular phenomena such as word-of-mouth and viral
marketing are also discussed in detail: which consumers exert the greatest influence, how do you deal with
negative word-of-mouth?
The Connected Customer: The changing nature of consumer and business markets by Stefan Wuyts, Marnik
G. Dekimpe, Els Gijsbrechts and Rik Pieters of Tilburg
University not only a source of inspiration for marketing
academics but also for students and marketers. Published
by Routledge (2010), ISBN 978-1-84872-837-0. [CS]
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Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
Innovation networks
provide the best chances
Innovation is of crucial importance to many small and medium-sized businesses, but it often also entails substantial
risks. Innovators who fail to protect their intellectual property
rights adequately may go under. Networking however, especially with suppliers and customers, gives small and mediumsized businesses the best chances for successful innovation.
This was shown by a study carried out by organizational
researchers Leon Oerlemans and Joris Knoben, who work at
Tilburg University’s Center for Innovation Research.
For organizational researchers
The right partners
small and medium-sized enterpris- The Tilburg researchers found
es (SMEs) are an interesting field
that networking can contribute to
of study, because the vast majorinnovation. Small business ownity of businesses in many econoers usually have less raw materials,
mies belong to this group and it
knowledge and other resources at
includes many different kinds of
their disposal and therefore run
businesses. “Often it is riskier for
up against their limitations sooner.
smaller businesses to change and
“One solution is to find compleinnovate”, says Leon Oerlemans,
mentary partners”, says Knoben.
Professor of Organizational
“Various studies have shown that
Dynamics. Moreover, not all SMEs
collaboration between competitors
are involved in innovation and they is less successful than between
don’t have to be. “For the bakery
partners who complement each
around the corner, the butcher
other. A competitor is more likely
and many other retail businesses
to make off with your knowledge.
innovation is often of very little sig- And that will have even more
nificance”, adds Dr Joris Knoben.
impact than if a non-competitor
“In contrast, in companies which
were to do the same.”
have emerged as spin-offs from
the universities innovation plays a
Oerlemans remembers a small
major role.”
business owner who had devel-
oped a clever mobile banking
application. “To expand his market
he joined forces with a big foreign
bank, who then made off with the
invention themselves. The inventor didn’t have enough resources
to protect his intellectual property
rights properly or to prosecute for
abuse. This is a serious risk for
small businesses. It’s always very
hard for a small business owner to
protect intellectual property rights
effectively against a malicious big
company – they can’t maintain an
expensive court case long enough.”
Risks
According to Knoben the concept of
innovation has a positive ring to it
which is not always justified. “The
source of the credit crisis was a
whole range of financial products
and services regarded as innovative such as the repackaging and
reselling of mortgage debt, but
no-one could properly assess the
risks involved. Investment schemes
were offered that looked so appealing that consumers began to feel
they were losers if they did not
participate – but in actual fact these
schemes were anything but rewarding.”
But lack of innovation can also
have unfavourable consequences.
Oerlemans: “A classic example is
the computer manufacturer IBM,
which relied heavily on the success
of its big mainframe computers.
IBM failed to foresee the rapid rise
of the personal computer. They
invested too late and too little in
it and therefore lost the market to
China and Taiwan.”
Co-development
What the Tilburg organizational
researchers found was that the
success of an innovation network
depends to a large extent on its
composition. Knoben: “Small and
medium businesses which collaborate with suppliers and customers are often more innovative
than businesses that collaborate
with like-minded businesses in
the same field. Contrary to what
one might think, cooperation
with universities may have negative consequences for small businesses.” Oerlemans: “There is a lot
of debate about the need for more
collaboration between universities
and SMEs, but it turns out that in
practice the two worlds often are
too different. The small business
owner often turns to the wrong
university, or asks the wrong question, or his question is misunderstood.”
Many small suppliers work for bigger companies such as car manufacturers. Oerlemans: “Increasingly
you see co-development, with part-
The success of an
innovation network
depends to a large
extent on its composition
ners developing a new invention
together. Innovation is also stimulated if the manufacturer only indicates what features are expected for
a particular module and leaves it
to the supplier to work out the best
way to address that.” According to
Knoben it is always a good idea to
collaborate with end users: “They
can indicate whether they would
like the product to be lighter or
smaller for instance, or improved
in some other way. This is called
demand pull. Collaboration with
end users stimulates innovation.”
Power differences
Cooperation is usually most successful when the partners have
an equal position of power. “Very
often you see that a small business
gets off to a flying start if it gets
to collaborate with a big manufacturer – it can suddenly supply a lot
and have a large turnover. But in
the long run it nearly always turns
7
out to be disadvantageous, because
when it comes to reaping the
rewards the big company suddenly
bares its teeth.” Knoben nods. “It
would be an interesting research
question to find out what a small
business needs to do to protect its
position and what a big company
should not do in order to achieve
synergy in the collaboration.”
Oerlemans thinks a good example
of synergistic collaboration is what
happened when a producer of loudspeakers met a small plastics manufacturer more or less by chance
during a training programme.
“Together they came up with the
idea of selling the loudspeakers
with plastic brackets which absorb
vibrations, so that when the speakers are used in apartments they
would not bother the neighbours
downstairs.”
Commissioned by the agribusiness
sector, the researchers analysed the
feasibility of certain business models in which major players in agribusiness invest in small innovative
enterprises in this region, but do
not take them over. In the Dutch
province of Brabant many entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector
are under considerable pressure
and innovation is badly needed.
Oerlemans had previously studied
possibilities in the Eindhoven and
Tilburg regions for strengthening
the ‘industrial fabric’, or in other
words cooperation between businesses. Oerlemans: “We like to
feature in international journals,
but we also like the research we do
to be relevant to society.”
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Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
Geographical distance
The results of one of their surveys
show for example that the optimal
number of partners in an innovation network varies. The organizational researchers calculated that
when existing products are being
improved, a network of six to seven
participants works best. “If there
are more, the collaboration will
be less productive”, says Knoben.
Contrary to what you might think,
in the case of a very innovative
product it is better to have fewer
partners – about three. “If too many
people are involved and they all put
Another interesting question is
whether geographical distance
affects collaboration. Knoben:
“Lots and lots of people say it does.
Silicon Valley is thought to be the
most innovative region in the world
because the same kinds of businesses are all clustered there. The
idea is that face-to-face contact
stimulates collaboration. We believe
forward contradictory ideas without
that at the very most proximity is
sufficient knowledge of the facts,
that is counterproductive. Moreover, important in the early stages of the
innovation process, when businessa new product requires very intenes have to learn to trust each other.”
sive collaboration and you simply
can’t manage that many intensive
relationships.”
Marion de Boo
When existing products are being improved, a network of six
to seven participants
works best
Understanding innovation in organizations:
The CIR way
By Andrew van de Ven, Vernon
H. Heath Chair of Organizational
Innovation and Change, Carlson
School of Management, University
of Minnesota
During its short existence the
Center for Innovation Research
has established an impressive
program of leading-edge research
and important contributions that
advance knowledge of managing
innovation. CIR research focuses
on innovative activities of organizations and networks. This focus
distinguishes CIR from most other
research centers with a similar profile across Europe, as these tend to
focus on policy-related aspects of
innovativeness.
More specifically, CIR's ambition
is to generate new ideas, princi-
ples and theories to understand
and explain what drives and what
hinders innovativeness of organizations. CIR's research is thus
fundamental in nature, as it seeks
to identify and understand the
basic mechanisms underlying the
innovative processes of organizations. While such research might
not immediately help practitioners
with their everyday concerns, it
does stimulate new ways of thinking that can revolutionize and dramatically improve how practitioners
deal with their innovation-related
problems.
To be able to advance the understanding of the fundamental principles underlying the innovativeness
of organizations, CIR relies on data
from real organizations. These
organizations are in fact the labo-
ratories in which CIR researchers
carry out their work. This approach
is not only important for assuring
on-going access to in-company
data but also to maximize the societal relevance of CIRs research.
Another unique feature of CIR
is that its fellows originate from
two different schools of Tilburg
University: the School of Economics
and Management and the School of
Social and Behavioural Sciences. As
a consequence, the research conducted at CIR is multidisciplinary in
character. By bringing together the
strategic, sociological, microeconomic, behavioural, and a number
of other perspectives, CIR research
offers a much richer and complete
picture of actual innovative activities of firms than it would otherwise
have been the case.
Innovation
to regulate
The chip card for public transport was introduced in Rotterdam
in January 2010; the rest of the Netherlands will follow soon.
Assistance is needed to introduce the new technology. Photo:
David Rozing/Hollandse Hoogte
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
9
research portrait
The use of technology is no
longer for the happy few
Name: Lonneke van de Poll
Position: Associate Professor
Department: Center of Research on Psychology in Somatic Diseases (CoRPS)
Research: Patient-Reported Outcomes Following Initial treatment and Longterm Survivorship (Profiles)
“
Doing a survey online instead of on paper makes
our study of cancer survivors more flexible, more reliable and affordable. In the past we used to approach
800 people; now we can easily reach 8,000. About
70% of cancer patients were already online in 2005,
10% of these through a family member. Relatively
speaking the Netherlands has the highest number of
internet users in the world, so that with our internet
application we can be world leaders. Worldwide a lot
of research takes place online, but most of it is ad
hoc. Ten hospitals in the region are participating in
our project, which means that our sample reflects the
population well.
After my PhD project I discovered that at the
Comprehensive Cancer Centre South, where I also
work, we don’t really know how people who have
survived cancer are doing as time goes by. When
we started asking them, it turned out that they were
very pleased with the attention. Many people still had
complaints as a result of their illness. You only obtain
this kind of information if you ask the patients themselves.
Innovation to replace
The SAYA humanoid acts a secretary at Tokyo University of Science.
The humanoid can talk and has unlimited facial expressions. It is being
introduced as a teacher for primary school children. Photo Richard Jones/
Hollandse Hoogte
We copied our digital survey system from the Tilburg
research institute CentERdata and in May the first
surveys went out. The Comprehensive Cancer Centre
South selects patients from the participating hospitals
and then doctors write letters to the patients inviting
them to take part. Participants will be able to see the
results of the survey online. In the future we want to
send the results to the individual patients as feedback
as well, because they increasingly prefer that. It fits in
with the trend towards patient empowerment.
Of course we make sure our research data are stored
anonymously and that we treat the information confidentially. In the United States the fear of inadequate
privacy protection is so enormous that it is getting
increasingly difficult to conduct this kind of research.
But we need information from patients if we are to
move forward. We have to take care we are not paralysed by that fear. Technology can support us in all
kinds of ways. Using it is no longer just for the happy
few.
The advantage of online surveys is that it’s easy to
adapt the questions to match the latest insights. And
new questions can be added at once. A few years ago
we discovered that when women with breast cancer
had lymph nodes removed, this still caused them
pain even after a long time had passed. These observations stimulated the introduction of a new surgical
technique in our region. It also emerged that there
was a great deal of uncertainty as to the long-term
impact of cancer. We can provide that information
more effectively online. These practical effects of our
research give me a lot of satisfaction. Because of what
we do, progress is made in health care. [CS]
”
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Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
Medical innovations
can strike fear into
patients’ hearts
Life-saving heart devices may have a paradoxical dark side:
after a device has been implanted, anxiety about its functioning may have a demonstrably adverse effect on heart patients’
physical recovery. This is why Tilburg professors Susanne
Pedersen and Johan Denollet advocate that more attention be
paid to these patients’ psychological well-being.
‘Where is the patient?’, Professor
of Cardiac Psychology Susanne
Pedersen asked several times
during her inaugural address in
spring 2010. In her opinion this
question is just as relevant as questions about heart patients’ blood
pressure and cholesterol levels.
“Based on these data, we determine
whether medical intervention
is necessary, so the patient can
be treated and have a better and
longer life. It is time that we also
take the patient’s perspective into
account with respect to health care
for patients with heart disease.”
This is not only a matter of cour-
Stress management
needs to be tailored
towards a patient’s
individual needs
tesy to the patient, but also a medical necessity; research has shown
that a patient’s personality has a
demonstrable impact on recovery
after a medical intervention.
Johan Denollet, Professor of
Medical Psychology and initiator
of research in this field, discovered this twenty years ago. At
that time, he was counselling
heart patients at the university
hospital in Antwerp. “I started
there with the naive idea that I
didn’t have much more to offer
to heart patients than a bit of
consolation and support. But over
the years, I found out there were
big differences in the way people
reacted to their cardiac condition
and invasive treatment. While
some people recovered from
serious heart attacks relatively
smoothly, other people with less
severe cardiac disorder took much
more time to recover and reported
more feelings of being disabled.”
It turned out that the patient’s personality was a significant explanatory factor. In particular, patients
with a “distressed” or “Type D”
personality may experience a relatively large number of problems
during recovery. These are people
who are prone to worrying and
catastrophic thinking and at the
same time inclined to bottle up
their anxiety and other negative
feelings.
“Stress makes our hearts beat
faster, our blood pressure rise, and
our breathing shallower”, says
Denollet. “Sometimes this mechanism enables us to perform better
than usual, for instance when
someone has to give a lecture. But
people who suppress their reactions to these stressful situations
may fail to convert that physiological energy into adaptive action.
Also, there is no cooling down
period. In the end, this can lead to
excessive strain on the cardiovascular system.”
Mind – body interface
The aim of the new research centre CoRPS - Center of Research
on Psychology in Somatic diseases – at Tilburg University is
to address these issues at the
interface between mind and body.
Pedersen’s research focuses mainly on patients with cardiac devices
such as an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD). The ICD
corrects any cardiac arrhythmia by
delivering a sharp jolt of electricity. It is a life-saving device, but
a quarter to a third of all patients
experience psychological problems.
Questions such as: ‘Is this device
11
Managing the complex relationship
between heart and mind
By Jens Brock Johansen, MD, PhD; Cardiologist,
Odense University Hospital, Denmark
Since 2007 we have conducted a
series of studies in Danish ICD
patients in close collaboration
with Professor Susanne Pedersen
of Tilburg University. We found
that the degree of underlying
heart disease and the ‘distressed’
(Type D) personality were the
main determinants of anxiety,
depression and reduced quality of life. This was a surprise,
as cardiologists tend to believe
that the ICD and in particular the
ICD shock is the ‘evil villain’. In
fact, we found that ICD therapy
was generally well tolerated
and accepted by patients. Our
findings indicate that potential
psychological side effects may be
over-estimated and should perhaps be less emphasized when
ICD implantation is discussed
with patients. Furthermore, we
will be able to direct psychological counselling to those patients
working? When will I get a shock?’
trouble patients. “This anxiety is
only partly caused by the sharp jolt
of electricity delivered by the ICD”,
says Pedersen. “Patients with a
Type D personality have a higher
chance of remaining anxious and
experiencing poor quality of life
following the implantation of an
with the greatest need.
Together with Professor
Pedersen we have also done a
national survey in Danish health
care professionals involved in
the treatment of ICD patients on
their attitudes towards ICD therapy. In another study, we examined the psychological impact in
patients who have been notified
about a potential malfunction
in their ICD system. Ultimately,
these findings have led to the
launch of a national prospective
study, spearheaded by Professor
Pedersen, on clinical and psychological outcomes in ICD
therapy with a focus on women.
This will hopefully enhance our
understanding of ICD patients
further. It will help us to better
manage the complex relationship between heart and mind in
patients with an ICD.
ICD.” In fact, their mortality rate
is twice as high as that of patients
with a more positive attitude. In
other words, a life-saving device
can strain the cardiovascular system because of the stress it causes.
Anxiety can also hamper the
patient’s physical recovery indirectly. Patients have difficulty fol-
12
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
lowing all the medical instructions
after implantation: take medication, stop smoking, engage in
more exercise, eat more healthily,
etc. “Anxious and depressed people in particular find this difficult”,
says Pedersen.
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
By taking psychological factors into
account we increase
the chance of new
medical technology
being integrated properly into human life
Stress management
All in all, there is sufficient reason
to improve patients’ psychological well-being. This is not easy, as
comparable programmes targetDenollet notes. “You can’t just
ing depression do not improve the
write a recipe for the best way
prognosis of this risk group, but
for someone to cope with stress.
this does not discourage Pedersen.
Strategies to improve stress
“If patients’ anxiety and depression
management need to be tailored
towards patient’s individual needs.” are reduced, they will feel more at
ease, experience better quality of
This is why Pedersen has set up
life, and will also be more likely to
an experimental intervention procomply with the doctor’s advice.
gramme called WEBCARE which
offers ICD patients relaxation exer- I think that’s an end in itself.”
Denollet’s research group is also
cises and feedback via the intercollaborating with manufacturers
net. Studies from the USA and
of heart devices on medication
the Netherlands have shown that
dispensers, which indicate when
it is time for patients to take their
medication. The researchers hope
this strategy will enhance patients’
adherence to their medical treatment. At the same time, they will
investigate whether such a system
also creates any additional stress
itself.
“By taking psychological factors
into account we may increase the
chance of new medical technology being integrated properly into
human life”, says Denollet. “This
is why industry is interested in our
research. The same also applies to
the medical world. Ten to fifteen
years ago this kind of research
was dismissed as folklore, but now
more and more attention is being
paid to the impact of psychological
factors on physical health.”
Enith Vlooswijk
NEWS
Grasping Europe's innovation policy
The European Commission does not have a directorate-general responsible for innovation as such. This is
not surprising as many legal interventions (in addition
to many budgetary interventions) have an impact on
innovation, directly (e.g. intellectual property law, R&D
policy) or indirectly (competition law, state aid regime,
standardization practices). Thus, one wonders: does
Europe have the right innovation policy? does it have
a coherent innovation policy to start with? How do
various policy interventions affect the growth rate of
the economy? Those are the questions that the Tilburg
Law and Economics Center TILEC will be investigating
in the coming four years as part of a larger research
effort undertaken with researchers at CEPR, Université
Libre de Bruxelles, DIW Berlin, Bocconi University
and University of Oslo. The research is funded by the
European Commission under its 7th framework program by the name of GRASP. This project, led by TILEC
director Pierre Larouche, will allow TILEC to increase
the breadth of its already sizable research on innovation as well as further the links between economists
and legal scholars throughout Europe.
13
research portrait
‘We must defend our privacy
and with it our freedom’
Name: Martin Pekárek
Position: PhD candidate
Department: Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT)
Research: Privacy-enhanced e-ticketing solutions using location-based services
“
It seems convenient to sell tickets electronically
through mobile phones, for example in public transport. After all, your mobile phone is always linked to
where you are, by GPS information, so that it is possible to calculate exactly how far you have travelled.
But is this really a good idea? The Dutch Railways
or other parties would always know where you were.
With this information they would be able to analyse
what kind of consumer you are – what is known as
social sorting. Then these companies could start
spamming you, for instance.
My research is about how we might be able to use
e-ticketing in public transport without the privacy
drawbacks. I am looking at the technological aspects
of various solutions and exploring the market for
them. But I am also investigating to what extent such
solutions are legally possible and what the procedural
and organizational consequences would be. For example, what personal data would a telecom company like
KPN have to pass on to the Dutch Railways to enable
a payment to be made? How great is the risk that this
information would be distributed further? Would it
be possible, for instance, to place some kind of intermediary agent in between to safeguard the data?
With this research I hope to develop a blueprint for
electronic payments based on location information.
This could also be used in road pricing, for instance,
or ticket sales for concerts. It would always apply to
situations in which authentication and identification
have to be differentiated – in other words, showing
entitlement to a particular service as opposed to
establishing the identity of the customer in question.
Often authentication is enough, whereas identification is what happens.
The broad applicability of this research is something
very special, as is the collaboration with businesses.
Trans Link Systems (TLS), the company which
developed the Dutch public transport chip card, is
sponsoring the research. In conjunction with several
universities TLS has set up an expertise forum to
stimulate collaboration between the parties involved.
This independent forum is now funding research into
the applicability of new technologies in the field of
transport.
l don’t know if we will manage to find a satisfactory
solution for location-based e-ticketing. If we don’t,
at least we will have mapped out the basic principles
clearly. Moreover, this research is urgent. Increasing
quantities of personal data are being collected and
stored, and nobody knows what the consequences
may be. Take the introduction of the Electronic
Patient Record and the digital fingerprints in passports. If we do nothing, within five or ten years we
will have a transparent society. We must defend our
privacy, and with it our freedom. But we have to have
the tools to do that. [CS]
”
14
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
Krahmer adds: “You can make
a clever voice recognition programme that can understand what
you mean if you want to go by
train from Tilburg to Amsterdam,
and you provide the right travel
details. But it’s almost inevitable
that a programme like this will
occasionally not understand you
and will have to ask you to repeat
your destination. Often people
then get annoyed and start to articulate very clearly. But the computer programme is not designed to
understand clearly or loudly spoken words and will only function
even worse. The next step in intel-
Do we adapt to
technology or
technology to us?
“It is very understandable that people often yell
at their computers. Let’s face it, computers are
terribly rigid machines. Our aim is to make computers friendlier. Computers should adapt to us,
not the other way round.” This is the opinion of
Eric Postma, Professor of Artificial Intelligence,
who works at TiCC – the Tilburg Centre for
Cognition and Communication.
Postma has been working at
Tilburg University for two years,
after a rather remarkable transfer.
Along with fellow professor Jaap
van den Herik and with several
researchers following in their
wake, he left Maastricht University
for Tilburg. A ‘major loss’, according to the Maastricht University
paper Observant, because the
research conducted by Postma
and his colleagues is undeniably
state of the art. It is really the
next step in the development of
Computers will
become better and
better at responding
to our wishes and
needs
artificial intelligence – research
that is shaping the near future,
when IT and computers will play
an increasingly prominent role
in everyday life. A small example:
our personal avatars – intelligent,
computer-generated faces – will
‘know’ when to tell us the milk
has run out. Postma: “Computers
will become better and better at
responding to our wishes and
needs, detecting what we want
and how we feel. Since the fifties the development of artificial
intelligence has fulfilled many
promises. But it’s mainly related
to intelligence based on cognition.
Chess programmes are a good
example. They are able to calculate
with incredible quantities of data
very quickly. And since computers’
computing capacity has increased
over the decades, it was only a
matter of time before chess programmes started to beat top players like Kasparov. But intelligence
is not only about cognition; it also
has to do with perception, recognition and observation. Recognition
of facial expressions or a raised
voice for instance, or of intentions
or patterns in behaviour.”
Postma’s fellow professor Emiel
example, we are investigating children’s nonverbal behaviour. The
results can be used to design programmes to help children learn,
such as a maths programme that
‘sees’ that children are having trouble – or no trouble at all – with a
sum and automatically adapts the
level. Facial expressions play a role,
but so do other signals, such as
the length of the pauses between
question and answer, and the intonation of the answer.”
“Another good example is a recent
study of the eyebrow and head
movements of news readers, by
which they communicate prop-
It’s up to people to think carefully about how
and where they want to use these tools
ligence is for computers to ‘hear’
from the pitch or volume of your
voice that you are annoyed and
adapt their behaviour. Research
from the United States has shown
that voice recognition computers
which ‘know’ when to apologize,
so that people calm down, are very
much more effective.”
Facial expressions
Krahmer: “In this form of intelligence the important thing is
how someone says something, not
just what they say. That doesn’t
mean the content is irrelevant, but
the form often emphasizes what
we mean. With new computer
techniques we can now study that
form very precisely. We are focusing on nonverbal communication,
such as facial expressions. For
erties of their news reports, for
instance to emphasize important
words or to indicate whether they
are talking about a light-hearted
or serious topic. This information
can be used to make better and
more true-to-life avatars. Of course
we know intuitively that eyebrows
are used to reinforce words, but
not when exactly, or how high the
chance is with certain words. If
an avatar constantly moves its eyebrows, it looks unnatural or even
neurotic, so the timing is very
important.”
Postma: “With recognition as a
new step in the development of
artificial intelligence, just checking as much data as possible as
quickly as possible is often not
enough. The computer has to
learn which data are important
15
and which are not; they have to
learn to recognize patterns and
situations. This is called machine
learning and it is another area
on which TiCC research focuses.
Serious gaming is a good example;
take the simulation programmes
used to train police officers. A
drawback of these simulation programmes is that the weak points
are relatively easy to discover. We
are therefore also investigating
intelligent games that detect and
improve their own weaknesses
and improve and adapt to the
player. Another example is recognizing paintings. We are teaching
a computer to distinguish real Van
Goghs from fakes. On the basis
of examples of real and fake Van
Goghs, the computer is trained
to ‘recognize’ visual texture, for
instance brushstrokes. In this way
it ‘discovers’ Van Gogh’s personal
fingerprint. This can be compared
with the way our brains work; we
use biological findings about how
the brain processes information.”
Sensitive aspects
Postma: “With recognition software
like this you can also recognize the
faces of real people. That would
be a handy app on your iPhone, in
case you meet someone whose face
you can’t quite place. But obviously
there are also many other applications, such as in airport security
systems. The research we are doing
here has sensitive aspects; for
instance, it may raise many privacy
issues. What if a programme that
recognizes faces on the basis of biometrics is used by the judiciary and
then makes an error?”
16
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
Weave maps and colour schemes
By Ella Hendriks, Head of Conservation Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Some of the most exciting advances
in the field of art history and conservation are being made through
collaboration between art specialists and computer scientists. Such
interdisciplinary studies have demonstrated how digital image analysis
tools can help to classify features
specific to a particular painter, studio, or period of production. For
example, in a pilot project, fine and
coarse scale features of brushwork
were measured in high resolution
scanned images of paintings by
Van Gogh and his contemporaries. Based on a statistical analysis
of these measured features, it was
possible to distinguish paintings by
Van Gogh from those by other artists with a success rate of around
85%, not bad for a first attempt.
Computer image analysis tools
are also proving very useful for
the study of paintings on canvas.
Exploiting digitized images of x-rays
of paintings that reveal the structure
of the canvas weave, the computer
is able to map subtle weave variations across a picture support. The
so-called weave maps produced
provide a specific fingerprint for the
particular piece of cloth used. In
retrospect, the computer then successfully matches up canvases used
for different paintings that were
originally cut from the same sheet
of canvas woven on the same loom.
Another useful application of
computer imaging technologies
has been to explore the visual
consequence of colour change in
paintings. Regrettably the colours
used by Van Gogh have often
deteriorated over time due to the
poor quality of the tube paints he
used. Though this effect cannot
be reversed in reality, some idea
of how the paintings looked when
they left the painter’s easel can be
given by rejuvenating their colour
schemes in digital images. Together
these computer-aided studies of the
canvases, brushwork and colours
found in Van Gogh’s paintings have
increased our understanding of
the artist’s working practice, helping to date and correctly attribute
paintings by his hand. The Van
Gogh Museum looks forward to
continued exploration in collaboration with the Tilburg Institute for
Cognition and Communication in
the years ahead.
Krahmer: “I can understand why
people question how far this should
go. Isn’t it dangerous to let IT
intrude too far into our everyday
lives? A good book about this is
HAL’s Legacy by David Stork, published in 1997. Of course HAL is
the intelligent computer in '2001:
A Space Odyssey', which loses the
plot and threatens astronaut Dave
Bowman’s life. But I don’t think
it will come to that. Technology is
more likely to remain a tool. It’s up
to people to think carefully about
Intelligence is not
only about cognition
enables a pathologist or doctor to
discover a tumour quicker. That
doesn’t mean I don’t realize that
this research may involve moral
issues, but it also leads to good
things. For example, it removes barriers for people who would otherwise never dare to use computers. If
compu-ters are made more friendly,
it will be easier for those people to
overcome their fear, and then they
will be less excluded from society.”
how and where they want to use
these tools.”
Postma: “Exactly. A programme
that can distinguish fake Van
Goghs from real ones is not going
to replace art experts. It’s a tool
that enables them to do their work
better, just as a recognition programme can also be used to develop new medical technology which
Leon Heuts
Innovation to enjoy
Two girl friends on a raft, designed with the materials available to
them. Photo Marcel van den Bergh/Hollandse Hoogte
Innovation to charm
A Star Wars robot tries to tempt girls into a technical training
at an education fair in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Photo Joost
van den Broek/de Volkskrant/HH
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
17
research portrait
Competition affects innovation, but also vice versa
Name: Jan Boone
Position: Professor of Industrial Economics
Department: Economics & Management / TILEC / CentER
Research: Market structure, innovation and productivity: an empirical approach
“
Innovation
to research
MIT's humanoid robot's management, used as research
platform for human-robot interactions Photo Jean Claude
Moschetti/REA/HH
How competition affects innovation is an old question in economics. If a product is faced with more
competition, the price will go down. That's good for
customers who want to buy the product, but less profit also means less money for innovation within the
company; which in turn leads to lower profits. And
in the long term growth is always more important,
not only for a company but for the whole economy.
The reason you invent a faster road bike is that there
is a demand for it. You need to organize the economy
in such a way that companies can respond to that
quickly.
How companies can become more innovative – that’s
what interests me. And what competition is and how
you can measure it properly. One of the questions in
the research project I did with my Tilburg University
colleague Professor Jan van Ours and PhD student
Henry van der Wiel was how competition can be
measured. Usually people look at the price-cost margin (how prices relate to costs). A high margin gives
you more market power. But the price-cost margin is
not really a good variable to measure how competitive
a market is, because you don’t know whether you are
measuring market power – the price is higher than
the costs – or whether it’s just that the production
costs in a company are low. If that is the case, then
the main factor is efficiency. That margin is not the
way to measure how competitive a sector is.
If that isn’t the right way, what is? We studied efficiency in businesses by looking at labour productivity,
for example. Then we measured what increased efficiency yields. How rapidly did profits rise? In a highly
competitive sector profits rise very rapidly. Apparently
improving efficiency is extremely rewarding.
We also showed that not only does competition affect
innovation, but innovation affects competition as
well. Companies innovate in order to reduce competition. If they put a new product on the market, that
creates market power for them. So companies innovate to obtain more market power.
The government also exerts influence. Firstly, by
subsidizing research. They already do that through
the Promotion of Research and Development Act,
a subsidy scheme which promotes research and
development through tax breaks, but according to
our research findings this has not had much effect.
It is much better to let competition be stimulated by
the Netherlands Competition Authority, which keeps
an eye on competition within a sector to make sure
it doesn’t level off due to price fixing or similar practices. That seems to work. [RK]
”
18
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” (Peter Drucker)
Innovate or rejuvenate
In the year 1992, Motorola introduced the first
handheld cell phone on the Dutch market. If
you wanted one, you had to pay the almost
incredible sum of 4,000 Dutch guilders – plus
VAT and a quite expensive subscription. Some
people wanted one; just because it existed.
Most of the time the network proved insufficient
and conversations were abruptly ended. But
people wanted one still the same, because the
leap into the future was tremendous. It made
them feel like James Bond entering a Star Wars
movie. Which was well worth their four grand.
Innovation at its best!
Other producers were soon to
follow. The network improved,
along with the battery capacity
of the phones, which at the same
time became smaller, cheaper and
sexier. Four years later one could
see people calling from supermarkets, restaurants and public
toilets. In 2004, Nokia had sold
one billion appliances. The market
became clogged and remained
slow for four more years. Suddenly
an Apple-shaped lightning bolt
struck the world of mobile phones:
the iPhone. Apple had reinvented
both the phone and the market
completely.
Entry time is crucial
Professor of Marketing Bart
Bronnenberg specializes in new
products, market strategy, and
entry timing; what is the best
moment to bring your product
to the market? According to
Bronnenberg, the best cards for
success within any market are in
the hands of those who are among
the first to enter it. The other
option is to come with a redevelopment of a product that is so revolutionary that consumers see it as
a new product, and the producer
effectively resets the entry clock to
zero, thus creating its own future.
Marketing and the science that
studies it can do a lot to improve
the results of innovation: “First of
all, we develop methods that help
firms figure out what consumers want. The study of consumer
behaviour has provided science
and marketing people with extensive information. Secondly, we
want to know how we can help
entrepreneurs to develop their
innovation strategy, by finding
answers to questions like: what is
the best time to put a product on
the market and what is the best
initial price for a new product?
In our ongoing research, we aim
to measure the benefits from an
early entry strategy. Consumers
seem to develop a preference for
brands that entered the market
early and that they knew from the
start. Those early brands also profit from the fact that they had the
opportunity to build their position
on the market through investment in distribution channels and
contracts with retailers. The position they have achieved changes
the playing field for late movers,
who will have an expensive job
trying to catch up. For example,
through years of investment in
name recognition and presence in
the distribution channel by giants
like Pepsi and Coca Cola, it has
become prohibitively expensive for
a me-too brand to find a place next
to them.
Preferences for
regional products
Besides early entry-brands,
consumers also tend to be loyal
to brands that are in some way
connected to the region they
live in. Heinz ketchup originates in Pittsburgh and has thus
far remained in favour there.
Hunt’s ketchup has a more dominant position in its home state
California. A good brand becomes
a habit to the consumer. Whereas
in many consumer goods, early
entry seems to have persistent
effects, in product categories with
more turbulent innovation the
first entry-phenomenon seems
to have eroded, perhaps due to
repeated reinvention and rejuvenation of the product category.
For instance, in the market for
personal computers, brands have
difficulty keeping their number
one position. IBM, Dell, Compaq
were all once the market leader
in personal computers, but not
persistently so. Especially within
this market, the lifecycle of a product and the brand popularity are
shorter, due to the fact that innovations happen quicker.
You cannot sell a
person something
he doesn’t want
During the eighties, Ingvar
Kamprad turned his national
business Ikea into a worldwide
empire. Today it is hard to find
any household without Ikea
furniture or kitchen tools. The
presence of Ikea in the market
for cheap furniture has become
so predominant that consumers can’t imagine an Ikea-less
life. How is that possible?
“Probably there was a preference for products like that to
which Ikea responded,” says
Bart Bronnenberg. “You cannot sell a person something he
doesn’t want. It is difficult and
expensive to create a preference
where there is none. Preferences
can be influenced for sure, but
no company can build a business attracting customers with
products they don’t want. Ikea
researched the existing preferences regarding furniture and
household commodities thoroughly before they took off with
their business plan.”
The spinning wheel
of innovation
The best drive for innovation
is competition and profit; if a
company can improve its results
by innovating and trying harder
than the rest, both that company
and its consumers will benefit.
The pioneer of modern management Peter Drucker saw innovation as the specific instrument
of entrepreneurship; the act that
endows resources with a new
19
capacity to create wealth. He also
considered it a company's primary
responsibility to serve its customers. Profit is not the primary goal,
but rather an essential condition
for the company's continued existence, Drucker stated. When you
add these two considerations, you
can only conclude that the free
market is the spinning wheel of
innovation. “Universities have a
lot to offer to entrepreneurs who
want to study the market,” says
Bronnenberg. “Our scientific work
develops methods to better gauge
the sentiment of consumers and
help define innovative projects. It
helps entrepreneurs study their
markets.”
Creating methods for
studying the market and
developing new products
Some businesses are strongly
interwoven with science. “A good
example is Sawtooth Software,
who build their online software for
interviewing and conjoint analysis
strongly on the knowledge they
gather in the academic world.
Apart from that, business and science share their visions on various
platforms, such as the Marketing
Science Institute in Boston. Here
in Tilburg we have Econtrack
(www.uvt.nl/econtrack), which
serves as an outlet for scientific
research. Overall, one of our goals
is to develop marketing research
methods, which help businesses to
innovate in an effective manner.”
Rik Oerlemans
20
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
Experimenting with social
networking and privacy
Social networking sites like Facebook and Hyves have become
hugely popular in recent years. However, many reports appear in the
media about privacy problems with these sites. Academic researchers have also identified these problems and are investigating
them. At the Faculty of Law, philosopher of technology Bibi van den
Berg is conducting research in this area in the framework of the
European research project Prime Life, which examines privacy and
identity issues on the internet. She and her research team have set
up a completely new privacy-friendly social networking site: Clique.
In the information society individuals can interact and share
information online. But personal
data may also become public in the
Many users don’t
look at the privacy
settings at all
process. Many users do not realize what consequences this may
have. For example, most employers
already check job applicants’ data
on the internet. Cyber criminals
can commit fraud or steal money
using stolen identities. The wealth
of personal data users share on
social networking sites can also be
used for other purposes. The question is how those data can best be
protected by privacy-friendly or
privacy-supportive technologies
without users being hampered.
This requires both technological
and social innovation. The ultimate goal is also to strengthen
European industry by enabling
consumer data to be handled in a
way that inspires confidence.
The Tilburg Institute for Law,
Technology and Society (TILT)
is conducting a research project
relating to privacy and identity
in online social environments.
Fifteen partners are participating in this research project called
Prime Life, including other
European universities, Microsoft
and IBM. Most of the funding comes from the European
Commission. For the Tilburg
researchers, the goal is to analyse
privacy problems on existing social
networking sites.
Within this framework Bibi van
den Berg focuses on privacy issues
which may arise in connection
with social networking sites such
as Hyves, Facebook and MySpace.
She is also trying to find out if
alternative designs could be developed for social networking sites, so
that user privacy would be better
safeguarded, and whether the way
users form or maintain relationships on those sites could be more
in line with the way they do that in
the real world.
The intention was that the research
findings would ultimately be
shown in a series of screenshots
of an alternative, privacy-friendly
social networking site. Van den
Berg thought that was not very
convincing. She asked a Master’s
student to set up a completely new
social networking site. After over
one and a half years of research on
privacy and identity problems in
existing social networking sites,
the innovative social networking
site Clique went online
(www.clique.primelife.eu).
No warnings
One problem that occurs with existing social networking sites is that
once users have defined their privacy settings on joining the site, they
share all their information with the
same privacy preferences. Many
users are not aware of this and
don’t look at the privacy settings at
all. As a result, they may unknowingly share all the information they
put on the social networking site
with the entire world. There are no
warnings or reminders about the
size or composition of the public.
Van den Berg: “In Clique we have
solved this problem by raising
users’ awareness of privacy. Every
time users put information online,
for example by uploading photos,
but also when they modify their
profile, perhaps adding a phone
number, they are asked who they
want to show that information to.”
Another problem with existing
sites is that users have only one
identity, which they show everyone: colleagues, friends, (former)
classmates, acquaintances and
sometimes even strangers. “This
does not reflect the way people
relate to other people in their
daily lives”, says Van den Berg.
“At work we show different sides
of ourselves than at home on
the couch or in the supermarket
checkout line. In short, we show
different ‘identities’ (‘faces’) in all
these everyday contexts.” If users
cannot do that on social networking sites, then privacy risks are
also involved. Users need to
think very carefully about what
they share with their ‘public’.
Colleagues, friends, relatives and
mere acquaintances all get the
same picture, sometimes with
very personal information.
“In Clique we have given users
the option of creating several
faces (identities)”, explains Van
den Berg. “For example, you can
set up a ‘work’ identity, in which
you only present yourself to col-
Existing sites do not
reflect the way people
relate to other people
in their daily lives
leagues and former colleagues.
You also have a ‘private’ identity,
in which you present yourself
only to close friends and family.
This prevents mixing contexts.”
In addition, Clique has replaced
the socially awkward and very
unfriendly act of ‘defriending’ by
‘fading contacts’, in the same way
as that works in real life: if you
21
don’t share information with an
individual on your contact list for
a long time, this person fades on
your contact list, and if you don’t do
anything the person may eventually even disappear from your list.
Collections
In the past it has often also been
impossible to cluster the contacts in separate categories, such
as ‘neighbours’ or ‘former colleagues’. “This also fails to reflect
the diversity of social relationships
and the wide range of levels of intimacy people experience in their
everyday lives”, says Van den Berg.
In Clique users can create ‘collections’ (within each ‘face’) in which
they place their contacts. “For
example, in my ‘work’ face I have
a ‘TILT colleagues’ collection, a
‘former colleagues’ collection and
a ‘Prime Life’ collection. These are
all work-related people, but they
don’t all have to see everything I
share about my work. With our
system you can make information
available to a small group of people
within a certain identity.”
There has already been a great
deal of interest in Clique. Next
year the researchers will examine
how users behave on this social
networking site and on the basis of
their findings the system will be
further adapted and refined. Van
den Berg now gives master classes
at secondary schools to make
students aware of the dangers of
unprotected use of social networking sites.
Tineke Bennema
22
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
research portrait
Fast forward
through history
Name: Antal van den Bosch
Position: Professor of Memory, Language and Meaning
Department: Faculty of Humanities, Tilburg Institute for Cognition and
Communication
Research: Intelligent access to cultural heritage databases
“
Animal was found in another animal’s stomach.
Recorded in a zoologist's logbook kept during a VOC
ship’s voyage to distant shores. Fascinating, isn’t it?
It’s wonderful to see that centuries-old documents
about the development and distribution of animals
can be accessed, that biologists are being helped to do
this, and that as experts in language technology and
artificial intelligence we can play a role.
This study is part of MITCH, a project subsidized by
the NWO research programme CATCH. Its objective
is to enhance access to cultural heritage. To do this we
use text mining: rapid analysis of texts by a computer
that can detect and show connections which human
beings cannot, for instance because there is too much
material. We are using this technique to make the
natural history museum Naturalis archives digitally
accessible. These archives include thousands of logbooks and registers, some of which are hundreds of
years old. At that time it was an ingenious way of storing information, but for today’s biologists it is a huge
amount of work to retrieve the information they need
from those paper archives. We have helped to develop
a database which makes those archives digitally accessible. You can also ask difficult questions, such as:
How did a certain frog spread over time, and can you
please show us on Google Maps? Obviously this goes
a lot further than typing out those old texts.
What it boils down to is training a computer to
automatically detect which words in a logbook entry
designate a species name, which the biotope, which
the location where the animal was found, etc. Then
– after a few hundred examples – the computer can
learn how to categorize the information from the
context automatically, many times faster than entering the information manually. It took ten years for
human experts to enter approximately sixteen thousand database records; in a short time the MITCH
project was able to add about forty thousand more
records.
After animals we went on to socialism; that is, at
present we are improving the accessibility of the
archives of the International Institute of Social
History in Amsterdam. They include historical texts
about the rise and fall of social movements and trade
unions; correspondence from leading figures such as
Marx, Engels and Troelstra, minutes of labour union
meetings, newspaper reports, eyewitness accounts of
important events. A challenge, because these sources
are much more heterogeneous than the reports about
animals. But we expect a lot of this HiTiME project:
an automatically generated chronological database of
important events. History is usually presented as a
tidy story, revolving around leaders, but history is also
made by unknown people and chance. Perhaps this
intelligent database will help historians discover that
an apparently insignificant figure was the instigator of important event such as strikes or a resistance
campaign. Or take the red flag of socialism: who was
the first to wave it? It was not Marx. We may well find
the answer in those archives, provided we combine
the texts in the right way. [LH]
”
Innovation to collaborate
Tilburg University recently opened its Baby lab to conduct experimental research into
development of the brain of young children and baby’s, even when they are still in te
womb. One of the research topics is the impact of stress and fear in pregnant women on
development after birth. The Baby lab creates new opportunities for collaboration with
other universities in Europe. Photo Ton Toemen
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
Sharing the tricks
of the trade
Intellectual property laws stimulate inventions
and ideas, as they guarantee that inventions
cannot be copied with impunity. But a successful idea in the hands of one company may inhibit further innovation. TILEC is investigating
how tricks of the trade can be shared fairly.
Innovation
to help
Staffs of Cyberdyne Co. Ltd., wearing the Robot Suits
HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb), cross the street during
their demonstration walk in Tokyo. Photo Katsumi
Kasahara/Gamma/HH
‘Which internet browser do you
want to use?’, asks every new computer with a Windows operating
system these days. The buyer is
given a choice from more than five
browsers including Firefox, Safari,
Chrome, Netscape and Explorer.
This range of options is the latest
result of a legal battle between
the European Commission and
Microsoft, the maker of Windows,
which lasted for years. In an earlier case, the Commission imposed
fines on Microsoft amounting to
no less than 1.68 billion euros.
“The Microsoft case is a classic
example in the fields of intellectual property law and competition law”, says Pierre Larouche,
Professor of Competition Law and
director of the Tilburg research
institute TILEC (Tilburg Law and
Economics Center). “Patent law
protects people’s ideas so that they
earn an honest living from them.
Competition law sets limits on
monopoly positions, so that everyone gets a fair chance to put a product on the market. IP (Intellectual
Property) law and competition law
are not adversaries, but tools to
stimulate innovation. They have
the same objective.”
Sharing your best recipe
Nevertheless, the combination of
IP and competition law does raise
problems. Pharmaceutical companies invest heavily to develop
new medicines. Patents help them
to earn these investments back.
“It’s right that there is protection”, Larouche argues. “But a
recurrent question is: how long
should patent protection last? And
how extensive may a patent be? A
too long-lasting or too extensive
protection may stand in the way
of new innovations.” According
23
to Larouche, ultimately the most
important question is: how much
may a company earn from its idea
as a reward for the invention and
a stimulus for further efforts? A
tricky question, which would also
be very difficult to benchmark.
Modern communication technology is an outstanding example
of a sector where patent law and
competition law cross paths. In the
Microsoft case the Commission
found that the IT company was
abusing its dominant market
position in operating systems by
installing its own mediaplayer
by default. The Commission also
ordered Microsoft to release technical information about its operating system, so that others could
develop their products further.
Microsoft protested; the company
thought it was unjust that it had to
help its own competitors. But ultimately the European Court of First
Instance decided in favour of the
Commission.
Larouche: “Innovation in the
ICT sector is often very complex.
Companies develop new applications for other people’s ideas,
while the company in question is
often also working on them and is
not particularly keen to see others’
products appear.” A recent exam-
24
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
People are quick to call for new rules when
problems arise, but it’s a good idea to analyse
and interpret the existing regulations first
ple is the software company Apple.
Apple opens its iPhone to competitors’ applications, but sometimes
only after long hesitation. In case
of the iPad, Apple refuses to support the wide spread video format
Flash. According to some this is
a clever trick to make things as
difficult as possible for competitor
Adobe; according to Steve Jobs of
Apple it is "refusing an outmoded
and inefficient technology".
Licences
Anyone who wants to develop an
application for someone else’s platform may do so provided they pay
the platform’s inventor a reasonable fee: a licence. If the inventor
is unwilling to open the platform,
licences can even be exacted
through competition law. This
may seem unfair; it is as though a
chef is being forced to release his
best recipe. But from a social point
of view it can be a huge waste of
costs and energy if everybody fits
out their own platform. In a world
with twenty different computer
operating systems, for example, it
is almost impossible to put a computer game on the market that everyone can play. Besides, without
a licence a company sometimes
has no chance at all of becoming
a serious player in the market,
because the developer of a successful gadget very quickly gains a
monopoly position.
With its Windows operating
system Microsoft clearly had a
monopoly position. Larouche
analysed the decision of the
European Court of First Instance
(CFI) to force Microsoft to open
its platform to a greater extent.
This study was no mean feat:
the document is over 300 pages
long. Larouche: “It’s unfortunate
that there is no explicit reference
anywhere to the role played by
innovation in the CFI’s considerations, because implicitly choices
are certainly made. I wanted to
reveal those choices, so as to make
it clear what framework innovation offers as a basis for judicial
decision-making.”
For the time being his conclusion
is that the CFI prefers incremental
innovation to ground-breaking
innovation, which means that it
gives priority to competition in
the market above competition for
the market. In other words, the
CFI opts for making a successful invention open to all – and if
necessary enforcing this – so that
the invention can develop further.
This is more important than a
company’s right to exclusivity.
Larouche: “However, the decision
is formulated in such a way that
this conclusion is probably limited
to the Microsoft case, or at any rate
to cases where super-dominance
is involved. That’s a pity, because
now it doesn’t provide any firm
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
legal footing for other cases.”
The professor sees his research as
an academic counterpart to proactive government intervention.
“People are quick to call for new
rules when problems arise in connection with competition. But it’s a
good idea to analyse and interpret
the existing regulations properly
first, before you put a bandaid on
the wrong spot.”
Standard setting
Often the industry itself also
realizes that there are many
advantages to making a successful platform a standard, so that
everyone can elaborate on it. That
has in fact been happening for
years. Some examples are GSM for
mobile telephony, WI-FI for wireless internet and XML to make
old files readable. These standards
have been established jointly by a
number of businesses under the
auspices of special standard setting organizations such as ISO,
ETSI and IEEE. They supervise
the negotiations and supply the
legal expertise required.
"Twenty years ago, standardsetting was the kingdom of
engineers", says TILEC Professor
Damien Geradin. "Engineers from
the various firms came together
and set a standard based on the
best available technology." Times
have now changed. The stakes are
high, as a standard technology in
ICT may mean earning billions of
euros from license royalties. The
engineers have been replaced by
IP lawyers and business manag-
ers. Many of the firms involved
do not produce goods anymore.
They are licensing companies,
companies that profit from their
inventions by selling licenses.
Becoming a standard technology
is the holy grail in this modern
business.
Geradin studies the economics
and business models of the licensing firms. He tries to gain insights
into the market mechanisms and
the underlying incentives. He is
also interested in the roles and
procedures of the standard-setting
organizations (SSOs), including
their legislative history. Geradin:
"Because of the major interests
concerned, standard-setting
processes and standard-setting
organizations have become heavily
disputed. Royalties are said to be
excessive, which is due to patent
holders who fleece those implementing the standard."
On the basis of his legal and
financial analyses, Geradin does
not agree with the criticism levelled at licensing firms. He argues
that reform policies designed
Intellectual property
law and competition
law are tools to stimulate innovation
25
in stimulating innovation, and
the licensing companies operate
on the basis of an economically
healthy, competitive business
model. My research shows that the
frequently mentioned problems
of ’ransom’ and excessive royalties
are more theoretical than real. In
my view, most standard-setting
procedures are quite fair and
result in proper standards."
Marga van Zundert
to weaken the rights of intellectual property rights holders in
standard-setting processes are
not necessary. "Intellectual property rights play an important role
NEWS
Technology is an increasingly important regulatory tool
The programmable tools we use more and more in everyday life, such as iPods or technologies in cars, make
it easier to monitor our lives. CDs and DVDs have copy
protection and internet content is filtered. Many rules
of this kind, also known as techno standards, are not
transparent and have not been specified in law. In his
inaugural speech Professor of Regulation by Technology
Ronald Leenes said that the relationship between legislation and technology as a regulatory tool should be
studied carefully.
The traditional tool to regulate behaviour has been to
draw up legal rules and statutes. But hardware and
software can also determine behaviour, for instance by
making it impossible to copy copyright-protected works.
Techno-regulation – regulation by technology – is about
embedding rules of conduct in technology. Technology
can regulate and enforce behaviour, but also prevent it.
The advantage of regulation by technology is that technology can impose strict enforcement. For instance,
on-board computers can automatically regulate the
maximum speed in vehicles.
Ronald Leenes, research director of the Law Faculty’s
Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society
(TILT), is investigating how traditional legislation or
classical policy rules compare with the rising tide of
techno-regulation. Often it is not clear exactly what the
standards enforced by technology are, or whether this
new form of regulation is legally binding. According
to Leenes, the government will have to concentrate
harder to see whether structuring by policy is needed
because of self-regulation by technology.
26
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
27
research portrait
Why companies decide
to innovate
Name: Gertjan Lucas
Position: PhD candidate
Department: Department of Organization Studies, Center for Innovation Research
Research: Inconsistency in performance feedback and innovation
“
How people deal with inconsistent information
about their performance is a question that intrigues
me. I am faced with that situation myself too. For
instance, if I have written a paper and one reviewer
says the statistics are not correct while another thinks
they are fine, what should I do? The great thing about
my research is that it reveals fundamental human
mechanisms which are broadly applicable.
When deciding whether or not to invest in innovation,
businesses rely on feedback about their performance.
For instance, if the feedback about their profits is not
favourable, they become more willing to innovate. If
the feedback is favourable, then they are less willing,
because it seems obvious that their strategy is working.
But what if the cues relating to their business performance are ambiguous? For example, what if turnover is
growing, but profitability in comparison with the competitor is not? Which information is more important?
One way I examine how people deal with inconsistent
feedback like this is through experiments in which
students – as test subjects – are presented with a
decision-making scenario. The initial results show
that comparison with the competitor outweighs comparison of the business’s performance with its own
aspiration level. It also turns out that what is known as
the ‘self-serving rule’ does not apply: according to this
rule businesses neglect the negative cues and respond
solely to the positive ones when faced with inconsistent feedback by not changing and therefore not innovating. What guidelines businesses actually follow
remains to be revealed in my research.
Understanding the underlying feedback mechanism
can ultimately help companies to make better decisions. In the Netherlands, companies still innovate
relatively little or they are slow to do so. Perhaps this is
because they interpret inconsistent information about
their performance in a particular way. In addition to
experiments with students, I will do experiments with
business managers. I am also analysing data from the
Institute for Labour Studies (OSA) on the extent to
which companies invest in innovation and how that
relates to their aspirations or to competition within the
sector or region.
A special point is that I also do research among design
students, such as graphic or interior design. In their
final year they work on projects commissioned by businesses outside their college. Several students devise
and design competing concepts and teachers provide
feedback at various points. How do the students react?
How do they deal with contradictory feedback? If a
consistent line emerges in all my research projects, I
will have discovered something really fundamental.
I think it’s important for my research to reflect reality.
The explanation I find has to be recognizable to practitioners, otherwise it is not a true explanation of reality.
Ultimately I hope that the results of my fundamental
research will in turn be applicable in everyday practice, for instance in the design of a decision support
system. [CS]
”
Smartest networks will
survive in global competition
Smart service networks will play a crucial role in
global competition, professors Willem-Jan van
den Heuvel and Mike Papazoglou predict. And
the great thing is that anybody can be part of
this. For small businesses in particular, collaboration in digital services offers unprecedented
opportunities.
“We’re almost there”, says
Professor of Computer Science
Mike Papazoglou when the subject
of new services to improve the living standards of elderly people is
raised. Many people are working
on designing new services, for
example to improve living standards and enable elderly people
to live independently for longer.
In the near future ‘smart’ digital
services can be designed that take
care of chronic disease patients or
people with disabilities without
the presence of a healthcare pro-
vider. For instance, patients with
diseases like obesity, diabetes and
cardiovascular diseases, can be
cared for remotely by continually
tracking and automatically communicating important parameters
such as blood sugar, blood pressure, all vital signs, etc. Patients
can wear sensors that monitor vital
signs and automatically report
them to a specialized doctor. As
soon as, for instance, a heart rate
monitor detects an abnormal or
serious condition, emergency help
can be notified. In the future,
patients will be able to travel
equipped with smart cards and
sensors, which make their medical
conditions and records immediately accessible to medical staff anywhere in a nearby location in case
of an emergency. A ‘smart service
network’ will ensure optimal
individualized healthcare. Smart
service networks will be designed
with simplicity in mind, making it
Anyone can join in
easy for people to use and allowing
them to maintain their independence and mobility. “We believe this
emerging concept will completely
transform healthcare as we know
it”, says Papazoglou.
Smart use of digital software networks and signals such as GPS
signals has been made possible
by new technology. This can significantly improve the productivity, efficiency and effectiveness
28
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
of services, explains Professor
of Information Systems WillemJan van den Heuvel. Technology
makes it possible to disseminate
information more rapidly and
more directly, so that the chance of
errors and omissions in communication is reduced to practically nil.
According to Papazoglou this leads
to higher-quality services which
are better tailored to individual
customers, which consequently
leads to more economic value.
Whether it’s in transport, energy,
government or health, services
are provided everywhere and they
can be made smarter everywhere.
Given that the service sector comprises at least 70-80 percent of the
economy, there is a lot of profit to
be made there.
Organizing services
At Tilburg University’s European
Research Institute in Service
Science (ERISS) researchers are
investigating the best way to
develop and use smart networks.
However, these researchers are
not primarily technologists. “We
are trying to understand the problems services currently have”, says
Papazoglou. “There are also social,
commercial and legal implications.” “Smart networks can’t solve
all those problems”, adds Van den
Heuvel. “Ultimately the aim is to
organize services as effectively as
possible. That may be at the global
level, but also regionally or locally.
Eventually the competition will
no longer be between individual
businesses, but between smart
networks.”
That means that businesses will
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
A brand new service network
for service sciences
as well as business partners
Both the European Union and
such as IBM, PWC, Ericsson,
the United States have proTelefonica and KPN. ERISS’s
claimed ‘service sciences’ to
research focuses on five areas:
be one of the major research
fields of the 21st century. The
•Globalisation and service
European Research Institute in
Service Science is also aware of networks
•Evolution of service networks
this. Led by scientific director
• Compliance management
Mike Papazoglou and manag• Health care services
ing director Willem-Jan van
den Heuvel of the University of •Business cases for serviceTilburg, the institute is working oriented applications.
on becoming the most imporIn September 2010 the twotant think tank in this field.
year Master’s programme
ERISS is trying to improve autoInternational Master in Service
mated services by approaching
Engineering (IMSE) will start
questions and problems in an
at Tilburg University. This prointegrated way, drawing on difgramme, the first of its kind, will
ferent disciplines: IT, econombe given by Tilburg University’s
ics, business, marketing and
School of Economics and
organization. Fifteen research
Management in collaboration
institutions from all over the
with the University of Stuttgart
world are affiliated with ERISS,
(Germany) and the University
of Crete (Greece) and with
lecturers from Berkeley (USA),
Tsinghua (China) and New
South Wales (Australia). The
Master’s programme will train
a new generation of service
managers and researchers –
professionals who can work at
the cutting edge of software
services and new worldwide
business processes. Because of
the nature of the programme,
students will also immediately
gain international experience.
The programme is part of the
European Commission’s prestigious Erasmus Mundus grant
programme for top talent from
the European Union and elsewhere. See also
www.tilburguniversity.nl/eriss.
Businesses will have to collaborate much more
with various other parties than they do now
to improvement in the quality
of services, but can also do so in
manufactured products such as
cars and aeroplanes.
have to collaborate much more
with various other parties than
they do now. An example: in
ERISS’s Cockpit project government’s services are being redesigned. Digital services and Web
2.0 technologies (with social
media) will probably play a role
in the new services. “By search-
ing blogs and news groups to
find opinions regarding existing services and also by asking
members of the public directly,
we can create added value for the
public in those services”, explains
Van den Heuvel. “In this way a
large number of players generate
innovation.” This process leads
However, as smart networks
expand across national borders,
they encounter legal problems. Do
business processes in one country comply with legislation in the
international partners’ countries?
How do you find out? Within the
EU-funded project COMPAS,
29
ERISS is developing software for
businesses to ascertain whether
they meet with certain regulatory requirements. The first test
phase has been reached: now the
user communities involved will be
given an opportunity to comment
on the prototype.
companies now have a monopoly,
soon SMEs will be able to compete
in some components of services,
such as service design, execution,
or offering of computing power.
Anyone can join in, including
companies in developing coun-
Cloud computing
Another problem smart networks
are faced with is that there are not
yet enough standards for services
to be connected to each other
efficiently. ERISS is developing
design guidelines to set up digital
services in such a way that they
can fit into various networks as
separate modules. Services which
require specialised or a lot of
processing power can then lease
or rent that power instead of purchasing it, from any operator in
the world, for example, where it is
cheaper. Service developers using
this idea of ‘cloud computing’ no
longer have to physically include
expensive computing machinery
in their own businesses and can
concentrate instead on their own
distinctive expertise and services.
However, in order for this system
to work it must be clear to everyone exactly what a digital service
or module entails and how it is set
up.
“The development of tools to coordinate services has major consequences for society”, Papazoglou
and Van den Heuvel stress. “Small
and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs) and institutions will have
far more opportunities to offer
services, alone or with partners
‘in the cloud’. In areas where big
Competition will no
longer be between
individual businesses,
but between smart
networks
tries. Together they can create
something new and more sophisticated.”
Papazoglou thinks these practical
and social implications are the
great thing about his research.
“Academic publications are not
enough for me. I’m trying to
make an impact on how society
operates in the future.” Van den
Heuvel adds that collaborating
with business partners such as
IBM, PriceWaterhouseCoopers
or Ericsson, government bodies
and other universities in the
Netherlands and abroad is very
rewarding. “From this point of
view ERISS itself is also a smart
service network.” Judging by the
number of externally funded
projects, it is a network that can
easily win the international think
tank battle.
Corine Schouten
30
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
research portrait
Everything that is not
renewed eventually dies
Name: Victor Gilsing
Position: Associate Professor
Department: Organization Studies
Research: Creation of breakthrough technologies/innovations; network
evolution & strategic technology alliances; corporate entrepreneurship
“
It’s intriguing that there is an inherent contradiction in the innovation process, once referred to by the
famous Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter as
‘creative destruction’. The creation of something new
also leads to the destruction of what existed before. A
good example is DSM. It began as a Dutch state mining company, but is now a listed company and a world
leader in Life Sciences. At the individual level I firmly
believe that you need to renew yourself constantly.
Everything that is not renewed eventually dies. That
is also my philosophy of life.
We know more and more about the process of incremental innovation, but not about the creative process associated with more radical innovations; major
breakthrough innovations such as those we see in
biotechnology or IT. Big companies and existing
companies are quite good at incremental innovation,
but have trouble with radical innovations, whereas
smaller companies and start-up companies are often
very good at those. I am investigating the development of radical innovations and the extent to which
they entail different processes than more incremental
innovations.
At Philips and DSM I examined the success factors
involved in bringing about those more radical innovations. One way to do this is to foster entrepreneurship
by creating small venturing teams which are separated from the company to a certain extent and have
the space to be enterprising. A pivotal success factor
is – quite paradoxically – that while the teams must
not to be too externally focused, they must be very
open. Too much external orientation often goes hand
in hand with a strong marketing orientation and
focusing on the needs of existing customers. But the
problem is that breakthrough innovations often relate
to new customers who are not yet being served or to
markets which hardly even exist yet. Until recently it
was inconceivable that the market for wireless services would develop so rapidly or that you would be able
to download online content anywhere.
This is the first time this paradox has been highlighted so clearly and that it has turned out to be
such a key factor in the success of these teams. The
results are now being applied within the companies
where this research was done. In conjunction with
colleagues from the Center for Innovation Research
(CIR) and the Brabant Center for Entrepreneurship
(BCE) I am going to develop this research further.
We will be examining the role of collaboration with
external parties and how they can contribute to the
development of radical innovations. We call this process open innovation. [CvD]
”
Innovation to explain
Passengers of the first Dutch train with wireless internet receive instructions. More
and more, people are connected 24/7 but technology does not (yet) speak for itself.
Photo Bart Muhl/Hollandse Hoogte
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
The new language
of the labour
market: flexicurity
and e-portfolio
Innovation to improve
The Nuna 5, a Dutch contribution to the World Solar Challenge
being tested by students of Delft University of Technology.
The team came second in the 2009 race from Darwin to
Adelaide, Australia. Photo Berry Stokvis/Hollandse Hoogte
Flexicurity is already a familiar concept among
European Union policy makers. It combines
two ostensibly incompatible quantities: a
flexible labour market and social security for
employees. Professor Ton Wilthagen was
involved in the development of this concept
right from the outset and is now doing everything he can to have it implemented. For
instance, in the experimental setting of
Brainport in Brabant, where businesses,
government bodies and trade unions work
together. He has trying to bring about flexicurity
with innovative tools such as the e-portfolio.
Meet the labour market of the future.
31
If there is one thing the credit
crunch has made clear, it’s the
need for businesses – and therefore also the labour market – to
be flexible. Liquidations led to
mass unemployment. The productivity and competitiveness of
a business depends on the skills
of its employees, who must be
well trained and versatile. If businesses are to survive in times of
rapid technological and ecological
change, they need to make sustainable and targeted investments.
Also in the interests of a futureproof labour market, says Ton
Wilthagen, professor of labour
studies at Reflect, the Research
Institute for Flexicurity, Labour
Market Dynamics and Social
Cohesion at Tilburg University.
“The times when you worked for
one employer your whole life are
over for good. Developments are
so rapid, there is so much competition from Asia for instance,
that we are in danger of missing
the boat if we don’t join in. I don’t
want my children to have to make
keyboards for Chinese employers later. Things like dismissal
law, for example, will have to be
redeveloped and applied more
flexibly. I realize this is a sensitive
issue – that’s why you have to offer
employees security, for instance in
the form of opportunities for permanent training and good unemployment benefits, also for flex
32
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
We should provide
people with more
space for ‘critical life
events’
workers (employees with shortterm contracts) and self-employed
people.”
Complacency
An additional problem in the current labour market is shortage
due to the ageing population. This
has made it imperative for people
to keep working longer, but often
there are factors which make that
impossible, such as care tasks,
illness or divorce. Wilthagen:
“I believe that a solution to this
is to provide people with more
space for ‘critical life events’ like
these. This is what I call the new
‘polder model’, in which current
leave regulations will have to be
made much more flexible. It will
require a new vision and a lot of
adaptability, but it is the only way
we can keep our market position.
We can’t just sit back complacently
any more.”
E-portfolio
One way to make it easier for businesses to find the right employees
at short notice and for people to
find jobs quicker is using the
e-portfolio. Up till now demand
and supply on the labour market
have been ill-matched. Often
people have more skills than
they themselves mention in job
applications, and these may well
be exactly the skills employers are
Tilburg Research - 2010, volume 7, number 1
Meeting of minds at Brainport
By Elies P.J. Lemkes-Straver, Chair of the Board of Brainport Development
N.V., Director of the Brainport Foundation
Tilburg University is a vital
partner in Brainport and a crucial player on the chessboard
of the ‘industries of the future’
at Brainport and therefore
of competitiveness in the
Netherlands.
Along with the transport
hubs of Amsterdam (airport)
and Rotterdam (seaport),
Brainport is one of the three
pillars of the Dutch economy.
Brainport extends across
the South East Netherlands,
with the Eindhoven region as
a hot spot. With about 25%
of national exports, 36% of
private investments in R&D,
and the highest patent density
in Europe, Brainport is one of
the most innovative regions in
Europe.
Brainport owes its strength to
the chain which extends from
fundamental research through
development and design all
the way to manufacture. But
proximity is also a factor.
Seventy per cent of first-line
suppliers to original equipment manufacturers such as
Philips, ASML, DAF and NXP,
but also OCE and DSM are
located within a radius of forty
kilometres from Eindhoven
– from great minds to skilful
hands.
Tilburg University is a vital and
natural partner in the ecosystem
that Brainport is. For example,
we are giving shape to the labour
market of the future, which
entails topics such as flexibility.
Brainport is an ideal testing
ground. Tilburg University is also
involved in the confidential advisory team for entrepreneurs in
times of crisis.
In the open innovation model
the humanities and social sciences will become more and
more important, since thinking
in terms of potential users will
take an increasingly prominent
place. What is the point of ingenious high-tech products if they
do not cater for users’ needs?
Behavioural scientists can make
an important contribution in this
area. Knowledge about business
models and entrepreneurship,
about governance, and about
privacy and patent legislation are
also crucially valuable links in the
high-tech industry chain.
This meeting of minds is inspiring and mutually reinforcing. The
humanities, the exact sciences
and the social sciences working
together is the alliance of and for
the future.
looking for. This is why people
are looking for solutions to make
the market more transparent.
Wilthagen: “Recently I was talking to a manager who only had
lower secondary vocational education, but he had had many years
of experience, had proved himself
to be extremely competent and
by this time was bearing huge
responsibility. Skills like this can
be validated and stored in the APL
(Accreditation of Prior Learning)
system. The employee can obtain
a certificate of prior learning
for them. In addition, private
activities such as chairing a parent council may be included. An
employer who dismisses someone
should have an obligation to add
the skills acquired during employment to that person’s e-portfolio.
And companies should base their
job descriptions on interchangeable skills and talents profiles. But
before that happens the traditional
CV will have to undergo a makeover and a revolution will have to
A revolution will
have to take place
in HR policy
take place in HR policy.”
In education there are already
qualification systems, but they
33
need to become more transparent. On leaving school, students
should also obtain an e-portfolio
which includes not their diploma
but also other competencies they
have acquired. It will be clear that
some of them need additional
training, because society wants
more than just a basic education.
Wilthagen: “Ultimately the aim is
to register the profiles of people,
training programmes and jobs
in a universally comprehensible
way and to put them – properly
secured – on the internet. Only
then will the labour market really
work”.
Tineke Bennema
NEWS
Temporary collaboration strengthens
competitive position of SMEs
More and more often small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) collaborate temporarily in order to improve
their competitive position. One important reason for this
is to stimulate innovation, as was shown by research into
temporary organizational forms by Tilburg University in
conjunction with research agency EIM.
Almost 1 in 5 small and medium-sized Dutch businesses – about 19,000 – collaborate on a temporary
basis with one or more partners. The main reason for
this is that it enables them to focus more effectively
on innovation, as was shown by a large-scale empirical
study. Temporary organizations can be roughly divided
into three groups: those that explore new markets
together (market innovation), those that work together
on technological innovations, and those that carry out
big joint projects (for example in infrastructure).
Temporary organizations are more creative
It also seems that temporary partnerships operate
differently from permanent businesses. Employees
are often more creative because they can detach themselves from ordinary everyday routine. The different
kinds of knowledge contributed by the partners provide fertile ground for innovation. Temporary organizations also relate to time in a different way: for instance,
they focus more strongly on the present, and employees are more likely to achieve an efficient work flow.
Tilburg University’s Department of Organisation
Studies specializes in temporary organizations
and innovation. Recently the book Temporary
Organizations: Prevalence, Logic and Effectiveness,
written and edited by Tilburg researchers, was published by Edgar Elgar.