Vicky Long har en doktorsexamen i industriell ekonomi och organisation från Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan. Hennes forskningsintressen omfattar industriell dynamik, industriell organisation och affärsstrategi, med särskilt fokus på teknikens och teknologisk förändrings roll. För närvarande undersöker hon hur tillgång till och (åter)användning av maskingenererad artificiell intelligens (AI)-data styrs inom industriföretag, samt vilka approprieringsregimer som är kopplade till detta. Hennes senaste bok är Technological Change and Industrial Transformation (Routledge, 2021).
Publiceringsår
2022
Publicerat i
Ekonomisk debatt, 2022(6).
Sammanfattning
Long, V. & Bjuggren, P-O. (2022). Artificiell intelligens data – att dela eller inte dela? Ekonomisk debatt, 2022(6).
Publiceringsår
2022
Publicerat i
Journal of Smart Cities and Society, (Preprint), 1-23.
Sammanfattning
Smart Cities have been around as a concept for quite some time. However, most examples of Smart Cities (SCs) originate from megacities (MCs), despite the fact that most people live in Small and Medium-sized Cities (SMCs). This paper addresses the contextual setting for smart cities from the perspective of such small and medium-sized cities. It starts with an overview of the current trends in the research and development of SCs, highlighting the current bias and the challenges it brings. We follow with a few concrete examples of projects which introduced some form of “smartness” in the small and medium cities context, explaining what influence said context had and what specific effects did it lead to. Building on those experiences, we summarise the current understanding of Smart Cities, with a focus on its multi-faceted (e.g., smart economy, smart people, smart governance, smart mobility, smart environment and smart living) nature; we describe mainstream publications and highlight the bias towards large and very large cities (sometimes even subconscious); give examples of (often implicit) assumptions deriving from this bias; finally, we define the need of contextualising SCs also for small and medium-sized cities. The aim of this paper is to establish and strengthen the discourse on the need for SMCs perspective in Smart Cities literature. We hope to provide an initial formulation of the problem, mainly focusing on the unique needs and the specific requirements. We expect that the three example cases describing the effects of applying new solutions and studying SC on small and medium-sized cities, together with the lessons learnt from these experiences, will encourage more research to consider SMCs perspective. To this end, the current paper aims to justify the need for this under-studied perspective, as well as to propose interesting challenges faced by SMCs that can serve as initial directions of such research.
Publiceringsår
2022
Publicerat i
Bjuggren, P.O. & Long, V.
Sammanfattning
This paper decomposes the factors that govern the access and sharing of machine-generated industrial data in the artificial intelligence era. Through a mapping of the key technological, institutional, and firm-level factors that affect the choice of governance structures, this study provides a synthesised view of AI data-sharing and coordination mechanisms. The question to be asked here is whether the hitherto de facto control—bilateral contracts and technical solution-dominating industrial practices in data sharing—can handle the long-run exchange needs or not.
Publiceringsår
2021
Publicerat i
Sammanfattning
The industrial utilization of machine learning (ML) technology is still in its infancy. This chapter provides empirical insights on how ML has been deployed in three firms and which forces are at work in this transformation. It is clear that two complementary advancements are needed to make ML generally useful: while ML technology thrives on access to big and varied datasets, the first advance is a reduction in the laborious work of manually cleaning, sorting and labelling the data, which defines how knowledge creation, technology and organization are interrelated. The second advance is to find sensible collaborative modes of data access and sharing, which challenges the very boundaries and interdependence of firms since the value of data for training ML algorithms depends on access to others’ data.
Long, V., & Grafström, J. (2021). What prevents machine learning from transforming industries?. In Technological Change and Industrial Transformation (pp. 125-140). Routledge.
Publiceringsår
2020
Publicerat i
Sammanfattning
We know that firms use multiple appropriability means: intellectual property rights (IPRs), trade secrecy, market lead-time, and this varies significantly between industry sectors. We, however, do not know how and to what extent the appropriability regime are modified in response to digitalization and open innovation. This study aims to fill in that gap, through a study of the Swedish games industry. Applying a well-established framework — Profiting from Innovation — to the digital context, this study collects primary data from semi-structured (firm) interviews, a survey and combining the statistical data from the branch organization and from EUIPO trademark database. It has been identified that: (a) this is an industry re-entering into a fluid phase of innovation with a rapid growth of products and (small) firms; (b) the value chains are transforming into value networks and the complementary assets are to be reassessed; and (c) trademarks are gaining importance and a Demsetz-ian path of internalization of IPs is pursued. Digitalization re-defines the key pillars of the PFI framework in many respects.
Long, V. (2020). Profiting from innovation in the digital era: Evidence from the Swedish videogames industry. In Managing Digital Open Innovation (pp. 141-175).
Publiceringsår
2021
Publicerat i
Sammanfattning
Industrial transformation is a research and teaching field with a focus on the phenomenon and mechanisms of industrial development and renewal. It concerns changes in economic activities caused by innovation, competition and collaboration, and has a rich heritage of evolutionary economics, institutional economics, industrial dynamics, technology history and innovation studies. It borrows concepts and models from the social sciences (sociology, history, political sciences, business/management, economics, behavioural sciences) and also from technology and engineering studies.
In this book, the authors present the key theories, frameworks and concepts of industrial transformation and use empirical cases to describe and explain the causes, processes and outcomes of transformation in the context of digitalization and sustainability. They stress that industrial transformation consists both of Darwinian “survival of the fittest” selection, and of intentional pursuits of innovation, and of industrial capabilities creation. The work argues that managing the global trends of transformation is not only about new technology and innovation: existing institutional settings and dynamic interactions between technological change, organizational adaptation and economic activities also have a profound impact on future trajectories.
The areas under investigation are of great relevance for strategic management decisions and industrial and technology policies, and understanding the mechanisms underlying transformation and sustainable growth.
Publiceringsår
2020
Publicerat i
Sammanfattning
Publiceringsår
2019
Publicerat i
Ratio Working Paper
Sammanfattning
This study contributes to a meso (industry)-level understanding of the changing complexity of the general appropriability conditions in the digital era on the one hand, and the role of IPRs in that (appropriability) on the other hand, through a study of an industry sector – the Swedish video (computer) games industry – where digital distribution prevails and IPRs are important (copyrights in derivative works; trademarks in game titles).Combining analyses on EPO patent data, EUIPO trademark data, firm-level interviews and survey data, this study firstly identifies a paradoxical development: on the one hand, there is a clear digital take-off of IPRs’ propensity, namely firms tend to be more active in registering trademarks and valuing their copyrights (firm size and technological platform matter though). On the other hand, the digital traits – digitally induced high levels of interactivities (between supply and demand) and the digital division of a product (in provisions) – provide strong protections (to the innovation) from a technical standpoint, which offsets the importance of IPRs. Then what are IPRs for, in a technologically tight appropriability regime? This study further identifies that the increase of the importance of IPRs is not derived from IPRs’ protection function, but from their signalling function. In the digital era, new products easily disappear in the digital crowd, and IPRs can act as an important remedy by signalling the origin and quality of products as well as new innovations. This study provides a snapshot of the digital complexity pertinent to the issue of appropriability.
Publiceringsår
2019
Publicerat i
Ratio Working Paper
Sammanfattning
What role can trademark play in appropriability regime, especially in a digitalized era where many innovations are easy to copy and difficult to protect, and where rapid diffusion is the norm? This study, using the Swedish video games industry as a case, aims to provide some insights and tentative answers to those questions. Combining firm-level interviews, statistical data concerning EUIPO trademarks filed by the Swedish video games industry, we present the quantitative trends of trademarking across this industry sector (i.e. timeline; distribution across technological platforms and firm sizes; correlation with turnover), as well as qualitative explanations for that. This study contributes to a meso-level explanation of the role of trademarks (registrations) in appropriability on the one hand, and to the understanding of the complexity of the general appropriability conditions (and logic) in the Digital Era, on the other.
