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In recent years, there has been a steady expansion in the literature that relates the internationalization of production to the development and transfer of technology by multinational enterprises (MNEs). The first section of this chapter discusses this, and notes the current shift of attention away from technology transfer per se, and the parallel shift in the terms in which technology is now defined and conceptualized. The latter is further addressed in the second section, which considers technology in relation to MNEs in its broadest sense of international technology creation and innovation. The third section examines the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and the construction of corporate technological capabilities in the MNE, and the fourth examines intra‐ and inter‐firm international networks for technological development. The fifth section extends the discussion to the role of information and communications technology (ICT) within such international MNE networks.

The editors in this chapter introduce the topic of innovation in energy technology and energy law. They highlight some of the pathbreaking changes that have occurred during recent years in both realms, which the chapter authors will address in detail. No factor stimulating energy innovation is more prominent than the need to address climate change around the world. Climate change is joined by other environmental concerns, sustainability, economic efficiency, energy security, energy justice, and geopolitical concerns in shaping the development of energy innovation. The authors also explore the academic topic of innovation and identify its relevance to legal innovation in the energy field.

This chapter explains how SGCC engaged in learning and innovation and how, in so doing, it changed the rules of the game. It focuses on how SGCC ‘innovated’ around its UHV projects. Government policies on science and technology development provided an incentive structure within which firms operated, but often quite differently. The research strategy adopted by SGCC was project-driven, inclusive, and supportive in collaboration, built on a technology innovation chain of education, research, application, and production. It centralised resources allocation and management of standard applications for patents and intellectual property rights. In so doing, it reshaped the rules of game in technology innovation with universities and manufacturing industries.

Chapter Four investigates Hong Kong’s adaptation of the Silicon Valley VC policy anchor. It finds that Hong Kong’s Innovation and Technology Commission institutionalized their learning of the Silicon Valley model by hiring managers experienced in Silicon Valley to design and oversee their VC policies. Knowing the importance of the right legal environment for its VC industry, attention was given to ensuring that Hong Kong’s legal fund structure was made available for VC managers to use. Initially, the Nightwatch-man State policymakers offered a low, horizontal capital gains tax rate in a manner consistent with the Silicon Valley anchor. But, feeling the “limits of laissez-faire” in competing against Singapore as a hub for VC activity, Hong Kong policymakers hired private VC managers to invest public money earmarked for VC investments. Also going beyond what they learned from the Silicon Valley model, policymakers offered tax exemptions for Hong Kong-based, offshore domiciled VC managers.

This chapter discusses how innovations in 360 Feedback are enabling significant improvements in performance management. This information resulted from asking the question: What are the most effective ways to use performance management technology to positively influence employee performance and development and improve talent decisions? Performance management methods used by hundreds of companies around the world were examined. One of the most important findings is that there is no single best way to conduct performance management. Methods that are effective in one company can fail in another. Common characteristics associated with successful performance management processes are identified. The chapter is divided into four sections: (a) a discussion of the work on which this chapter is based; (b) the definitions of 360 Feedback and performance management and key relationships between the two; (c) a discussion of how technology is transforming 360 Feedback used in performance management; (d) an exploration of the technological, process design, and environmental factors related to the use of 360 Feedback to support performance management.

This chapter examines the extensive adoption of open source software (OSS) in high schools and public offices in the Extremadura region of Spain. It discusses the establishment of the Fundación para el Desarrollo de la Ciencia y Tecnología en Extremadura (FUNDECYT) to promote technology and innovation in the Extremadura region, and describes projects aimed to increase information technology (IT) culture. The chapter also provides a summary of the different aspects of OSS adoption in Extremadura.

This chapter turns to linguistic matters. It explores how, despite their focus on commercial labour intermediation, platforms were originally cast in a different light, operating under the mantle of a ‘sharing economy’. Superficial as this may seem, language matters—not least as a driver of regulatory approaches. To understand the gig economy, it is crucial that we look behind the language of innovation and technology, of sharing and collaborative consumption, and of ‘gigs’ and ‘tasks’. This chapter first focuses on arguments that the gig economy should not be regulated at all, discerning multiple iterations of this approach, with varying degrees of sophistication. At its crudest, this is the story that the law stands in the way of innovation and should leave ‘disruptive’ businesses well alone. At a more sophisticated level, we then encounter different proposals for new forms of regulation.

SGCC is a new type of state-owned ‘profit-driven’ corporation: once it was given the mandate to construct and operate the national transmission and distribution (T&D) system, it used its new autonomy to expand in a manner that was contentious for many domestic and international players. Similar to the emergence of modern corporations at the turn of the twentieth century in the United States and some European countries, the transformation of SGCC and other elite SOEs in the first decade of the twenty-first century changed the economic, social and political life in China. They tend to be managed by a group of political and economic entrepreneurs, whose Communist Party membership seldom dampened their enthusiasm to pursue corporate and individual interests that might not always align with those of the party-state (even assuming the latter did know what it wanted). As an embodiment of economic and political power, SGCC was willing and able to exercise such power. Its importance in the economy, its size, and its accumulated wealth and political influence present new challenges to the party-state.

Ongoing negotiations of bilateral investment treaties between China and the United States and European Union serve as the primary means for both sides to engage in economic policy discussions. Many believe that US firms are investing a lot in China, although the amounts have been modest in comparison with the flows between China and the European Union. This is largely due to the composition of their respective trade with each other and not just political sensitivities. Both the United States and the European Union are confronting China with concerns about its restrictive investment practices, pressures for technology transfer, and intellectual property theft at a time when China seeks to become more innovative by moving up the technology ladder. China complains about being subjected to excessive scrutiny by agencies such as the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States. Views differ significantly, making it difficult to reach agreement on policy options.