Emerging technology assessment
Modeling effective integration of the internet and the mobile phones in China
The Authors
Hongyi Chen, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, Minnesota, USA
Tugrul U. Daim, Department of Engineering and Technology Management, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess effective integration of two emerging technologies, new emerging opportunities for them and their diffusion in China.
Design/methodology/approach – A multi-perspective analysis and causal models were developed to assess the emerging technologies as a result of the integration. In addition, an initial system dynamics model is developed to explore their diffusion.
Findings – Based on multi-perspective analysis and causal models in both global and national environments, problems such as security and reliability are identified. System dynamics modeling is used in this paper to assist such foresight process. Different scenarios are proposed by the modeling to offer possible solutions facilitating the development of voice and video over wireless area network (VVoWLAN) in China.
Research limitations/implications – While, the purpose of system dynamics modeling is to demonstrate the application of the methodology, simplifying assumptions are made. To deliver an accurate foresight model, additional data and modeling details will be required. This will lead to future works as an improvement of the model.
Practical implications – A multi-perspective analysis and causal models were developed to assess the emerging technologies as a result of the integration. These models can easily be used by decision makers evaluating such technologies. The framework suggests that the diffusion of such emerging technologies like VVoWLAN needs to be planned strategically in order to fully realize the value of the integration opportunities identified in the first step.
Originality/value – The paper provides a framework for assessing emerging technologies in China.
Article Type:
Research paper
Keyword(s):
China; Telecommunication services; Systems analysis; Emerging markets; Mobile communication systems; Internet.
Journal:
Journal of Technology Management in China
Volume:
3
Number:
2
Year:
2008
pp:
194-210
Copyright ©
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN:
1746-8779
1 Introduction
Year 2002 was a critical turning point of the internet industry in China. Major Chinese web sites such as Netease.com and Sina.com became profitable as the first time in 2002, and increased their profit margins more than seven-fold the next year. Similarly, the net income of Sohu.com increased from negative $1 million in 2002 to positive 26.4 million by the end of 2003 (Chen, 2004). Among the driving factors of this turning, the effective integration of mobile phone service with the internet applications has played a vital role.
In the first place, the first online payment in China was enabled by the innovation of payment through mobile phone in 2002, in the absence of credit card systems. After that, mobile phones have served as a major payment methods for all the web-based services and part of the e-business goods. In addition, the innovative idea of sending all kinds of information in short messages from the web sites to the mobile phones has stimulated the popularity of the internet in China since 2002.
Another effective integration of mobile phone and the internet is the IP telephone system in wireless environment. The use of internet to transmit voice packages greatly decreased the cost of making long distance calls by mobile phones. Currently, the IP telephone system used in China is still “Network IP” system where IP network is used inside the telephone system to transport user traffic and control signal (Yang and Kriaras, 1999). A transmission machine is depended to transfer calls from the traditional mobile phone network to the IP network. However, with the rapid development of wireless area network (WLAN) technology in China, “End-user IP” system in which calls go directly from users' terminal through the IP network to the receivers' terminal (Yang and Kriaras, 1999) can be used to further reduce the cost of long distance calls for both customers and service providers. In addition, new applications of the integration between the internet and the mobile industries are also seen in developing mobile internet and mobile business.
As a result of the future integration applications of the internet and the mobile industries, new technologies will be emerging. On corporate levels, emerging technologies represent either opportunities or threats to companies. Strategic planning of emerging technologies is an important part of every business plan. On the national level, to ensure the successful diffusion of the emerging technologies, carrying out a careful technology foresight is vital. In fact, most countries have realized the importance of technology foresight, and countries like the USA, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Korea and many European countries have been conducting technology foresight activities mostly under the organization of their central governments (Blind et al., 1999; Heraud and Cuhls, 1999). Technology foresight, as a strategic planning at national level, looks into the long-term future of technology with the aim of identifying the areas of strategic research and the emerging generic technologies likely to yield the greatest economic and social benefits (Martin, 1995).
In the next two sections, successful examples and new opportunities of effective integration of mobile phone services with the internet to support each other's development in China are presented and discussed. Multi-perspective approach and causal models are applied to assess the new technologies as a result of the integration of two industries. National level strategic planning of critical technologies such as voice and video over wireless area network (VVoWLAN) is demonstrated by system dynamics modeling in Section 4. Then the assessment results and model findings conclude the paper.
2 Literature search
When we look at the early development of the internet industry in China, we will find that the year 2002 is a critical turning point: it is the end of the “free internet-based services era” in China ( News in Chinese, 2002a), Chinese web site companies began to break even and make profits in late 2002, and the monthly increasing rate of internet users in China reached the highest point in 2002. This turning is driven by the combination of several influencing factors, and among these factors, the effective integration of mobile phone services with the internet-based services is a critical one.
Online payment is a vital part for web site companies to charge for web-based services and sell goods online. However, it had been a difficult problem for China's web site companies due to the lack of a credit card system. No bank offered credit cards in China in the real sense until February 2004 (News, 2004). Before this point, the so-called “credit cards” used in China were actually debit cards with a certain overdraft limit. For the debit cardholders of some major banks, it was until the end of 2003 that they were given the convenience to use their debit cards to make payment online on a limited number of major web sites. This triggered another problem – online payment using debit cards required higher internet security because fraudulent payment from a debit card or a bank account could not be traced easily. However, security issue has been among the most concerned problems for China's internet users.
In dealing with the problems, an innovative idea of making online payment by mobile phones was introduced by a web site company 263.net, when it began to charge for its e-mail services in April 2002. The company announced that customers would have two payment options: one option would be sending the payment through the post office. The second would be by mobile phone. Subscribers who chose to pay by mobile phones had to register with their mobile phone number online. A password was sent to that mobile phone, and the subscribers activated their e-mail accounts by using that password. Every month, the charge for the e-mail service was drawn from the mobile phone account, which meant that the subscribers paid their monthly e-mail charges conveniently as part of their phone bills. Since the monthly charge is not a large amount (usually 60 cents to $2.40 per month), it proved to be no problem even to the subscribers who did not sign contracts with wireless companies but used prepaid cell phone cards ranging from $6 to $12. Because of the high percentage of mobile usage in China, this innovation became popular and started to expand immediately. Mobile phone payment is no longer limited to e-mail service. Registration fees to web sites, downloadable cell phone ringing music, web space for picture uploading, and many other web-based services are paid by mobile phones.
Payment by mobile phone made online payment possible in the absence of credit card system in China. It is a successful example of the integration of mobile phone industry with the internet-based services. This critical “component innovation” (Betz, 2003) in Chinese IT industry is now widely used as a major online payment method. It also created new business opportunities because new businesses emerged as “middle-men” between web sites and wireless companies to deal with the mobile phone payment transactions.
After years of losses since their founding, the Chinese web site companies that survived the burst of dot.com bubble began to realize the importance of making profits instead of only worrying about the market growth (Betz, 2003). Among them, three major web sites sina.com, netease.com and sohu.com aimed at breaking even and starting to make profits in year 2002 ( News in Chinese, 2002b). Different strategies and development models were followed by them. Although, the web site advertisement was still a major part of their revenue source, a variety of new services were put forward to create profits. Among these new services, short messaging service (SMS) is the most attractive one and has the most potential given the huge customer base in China and the revenue sharing contract between China Mobile and the web site companies.
The mobile phone industry is a fast growing industry in China. User number of China Mobile, a state-owned company and one of the operators in the duopoly Chinese mobile communication market (Yan, 2003), increased at 60 per cent per year from late 1990s to the beginning of 2000s (Ministry of Information Industry, 2002). In addition, with the fast development of SMS functions, more and more mobile phone customers began to use the SMSs. The program “Monternet” introduced by China Mobile that integrated the mobile phone SMS with the internet industry got popularity (Yan, 2003). The contract of this program specified that China Mobile would only take 15 per cent of the total revenues generated by this program and would take the whole responsibility of losses from unpaid subscription bills ( News in Chinese, 2002a). Seeing the huge customer base and the high percentage of revenue share, most of the web site companies were more than happy to participate in such program. To apportion its limited network capacity, China Mobile had to limit the access to the most valuable information providers, and the three major web sites were among them (Yan, 2003).
Using the Monternet program, Sina.com developed more than 60 new services that can be accessed through mobile phones by SMS. Sohu.com provided its customers with services such as sending e-mail notice, daily news digest, stock information, and many personalized services in the form of SMS. Netease.com founded a special department exclusively dealing with the mobile phone short message services. New services such as online game through mobile phone access with a $120 daily price for the winner, customer participated picture message design, and wireless stock market were put forward by Netease.com to attract customers.
As an attractive point, the SMS from the cooperation between the mobile phone industry and the internet industry has severed as one of the key revenue sources for the web site companies. It also stimulated the growth of internet users: according to the statistical report, the monthly increasing number of internet users in China reached the highest point in year 2002, as shown in Table I (CNNIC, 1997-2005). About 8.8 per cent of them use the SMS frequently, and 4.4 per cent of them access the internet mainly for using the SMS. From the perspective of the mobile industry, SMS was one of the value-added services offered from China Mobile to boost revenue from its subscribers (Yan, 2003). It is regarded as an innovative business model to accelerate the diffusion of mobile phones in China (Kshetri and Cheung, 2002).
VoIP stands for voice over internet protocol. As the term says VoIP tries to let go voice through IP packets and, in definitive through internet. VoIP started from making and receiving voice calls using the internet and was extended to multimedia services and inter-working with public switched telephone network (Yang and Kriaras, 1999). The IP telephone market has been officially opened in China since April 1999 (Lovelock, 2001) first for landline phone users and was available to mobile phone users later. Currently, VoIP is the major method used for long distance calls among Chinese people in both wired and wireless environments. Compared to making normal international calls using the mobile phone, making VoIP international calls using the mobile phone cost only one-third of the price. Because of this, by the end of 2004, the total minutes of VoIP international calls are more than three times of the total minutes of normal international calls on the mobile phones (Ministry of Information Industry, 2002). The total minutes of VoIP international calls increased at the speed of 80 million minutes/month.
The IP telephone system currently being used in China is “Network IP” where IP network is used inside the telephone system to transport user traffic and control signal (Yang and Kriaras, 1999). To use VoIP on the mobile phones, customers need to dial a special number first to be connected to the IP network through a transmission system. It has been an effective approach given the early situation in China regarding its limited internet use. However, the increasing popularity of broadband internet access including WLAN among Chinese people has brought new opportunities for the IP telephone companies to achieve more cost efficiency by reducing the transmission system between the two networks.
Successful integrations between the mobile phone industry and the internet industry such as the mobile phone online payment, the web-based SMS, and the VoIP calls on mobile phones have supported the developments of both industries. New opportunities for more effective integrations of these two industries are seen with the development of technologies in both industries. Here are the details.
The mobile internet is defined as wireless access to the digital contents of the internet via mobile devices (Chae and Kim, 2003). Developments in both the user population and the technology of the mobile internet have been advanced in the world. In fact, the number of mobile internet users in Japan has surpassed those using stationary internet, and the number of mobile internet subscribers in South Korea was more than half of the total mobile phone users and 39 per cent of the total population at the end of 2001 (Chae and Kim, 2003).
Technologies behind the mobile internet are wireless application protocol (WAP) and general packet radio service (GPRS). WAP is a specification that allows mobile users use their mobile phones to pick up e-mail and access databases over the internet (Frolick and Chen, 2004). The Chinese nation-wide WAP service was launched in May 2000 by China Mobile. However, the use of WAP service has not been as popular as the basic but easy-to-use technology SMS among Chinese users due to its limitations such as being slow and expensive. GPRS, the technology underlying the “iMode” service offered by NTT DoCoMo in Japan, is an add-on to Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) platform. Comparing to WAP, GPRS is much faster in that it was designed to run on 3G networks. According to a forecast by Schwab Soundview, the Chinese mobile communication market will enter the 3G era in 2005, and the number of 3G mobile phone users in China will reach 80 million by then (Market Report, 2004). Therefore, great opportunities for better integrating the mobile phone industry with the internet industry in offering better mobile internet access is made achievable.
In addition, with the fast development of both the mobile phone technology and the WLAN technology such as Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b), mobile phones that are capable of accessing WLAN will further improve users' mobile internet accessing experience. In fact, the world first GSM/Wi-Fi dual network, GSM 850/900/1800/1900 four frequencies smart phone was developed and put into the market by a Taiwan mobile phone manufacturer in October 2004 (Product information, available at: www.sogi.com.tw/newsogi/sogiindex.asp?pro_no = 1263). The phone set allows people to access the internet in places where Wi-Fi signals are available just as using a personal computer (PC). The only difference is that the size of the phone set is too small in comparison to PC screen. This makes the mobile internet users less patient in internet surfing (Yuan and Zhang, 2003). Therefore, special web sites are suggested to be designed to favor the mobile internet users by including only the relevant personalized information.
The rapid growth of the mobile internet has significant implications for e-commerce. m-Commerce is usually regarded as an extension of e-commerce or the “wireless e-commerce” because it often leverages the existing internet technology and infrastructure. m-Commerce was first introduced by a Finland telecom operator, Sonera, to provide customers with the wireless technology to conduct commerce in a wireless fashion (Frolick and Chen, 2004). A statistic analysis predicted that many of the initial applications of m-commerce would be likely to emerge in Europe and Asia because of the high-mobile phone adoption (Dholakia and Dholakia, 2004). The popularity of NTT DoCoMo in Japan is a case in point.
While, people were talking about proliferating wireless devices like the mobile phones as new tools to support mobile payment (Frolick and Chen, 2004) and charging m-commerce balances from the telecommunication bill (Chou et al., 2004) mobile phones have already been taking care of most online payment transactions in China. Therefore, the infrastructure for m-commerce payment system has been established in China. However, mobile phone payment method is currently limited to small transactions. To move all the e- and m-commerce payments to the mobile phones, higher security system needs to be established.
Besides, the payment issue, many rules of the stationary e-commerce should not be simply transferred to the mobile environment. Instead, m-commerce should emphasize on different features that e-commerce does not have, such as personal touch and time critical services (Yuan and Zhang, 2003). As a supplement to e-commerce, m-commerce targets at users, who are on the move and are more time-sensitive to transactions (Frolick and Chen, 2004; Yuan and Zhang, 2003). For example, a new service called wireless rebidding offered jointly by eBay and InPhonic sends SMS alert to a mobile phone any time a subscriber's bid is outbid (Martin, 2001). A successful m-commerce model should be an effective integration of the advantages of the internet-based e-commerce and the mobile handheld devices.
In the global wireless communication industry, the fast development of WLAN technology has popularized the topic of VoIP through WLAN. Besides, the Taiwan dual-network phone manufacturer, Texas Instruments and the US VoIP pioneer, Vonage, also announced their work on an integrated platform for the development of a high-performance WLAN IP phone in the Broadband World Forum (2004) in September and Senia (2004).
It is expected that the combination of voice over wireless area network (VoWLAN) with mobile phones will start to enter the market of home users in 2006, and by 2009 mobile phones with VoWLAN function will account for 30 per cent of all the mobile phones and 18 per cent will be used to actually use the VoWLAN function (Betz, 2003). Figure 1 shows the increasing trend of VoWLAN mobile phones forecasted by In-Stat/MDR in June 2004 ( News in Chinese, 2002b).
As it is mentioned before, the IP telephone system currently being used in China is “Network IP” in which a transmission system is depended to transfer voice packets from the telephone network to the IP network. In contrast to network IP, end-user IP calls go directly from users' terminals through the IP network to the receivers' terminals (Yang and Kriaras, 1999). It further decreases the operation and maintenance costs for long distance calls by eliminating the transmission system. As the WLAN technology, especially the WiMax technology, gets popular in China, end-user IP can be achieved more effectively. WiMax (IEEE 802.16) is a new wireless technology standard that provides wireless broadband internet connections over a distance of up to 50 kilometers from a central tower (Roush, 2004). Compared to Wi-Fi, the currently wide used wireless standard, WiMax not only has more coverage, but also has higher speed, which is 70 Mbit per second. To help expand the internet access in China, Intel Corporation landed WiMax agreements with Chinese two cities, Chengdu and Dalian, in June ( Electronic News, 2004). A mobile phone capable of accessing both 3G and WiMax VoIP after the WiMax blanket the major cities in China will bring seamless roaming and low-cost calls to benefit Chinese customers.
3 Methodology
Linstone (1999) proposed the multiple perspectives approach in technology assessment, in which organizational, personal, and technological perspectives are being considered while evaluating a technology. Each perspective yields insights about the system not obtainable with the others; this realization motivates our entire effort. Using only one perspective is analogous to seeing a 1D representation of a 3D object. Integration of the three perspectives reflects the fact that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. A balance of attention to all three perspectives is clearly desirable; we seek to avoid gross imbalances so often evident when technologists grapple with issues that are not purely technological.
Linstone explains the multiple perspectives through how we would see an organization from multiple perspectives. From a technical perspective we see it as a hierarchical structure. The organization perspective would see it as a weak or powerful unit with a strong or weak leader with different types of social networks. The personal perspective would see the same organization as an opportunity to gain prestige or as job security (Linstone, 1999).
His approach is followed in this paper to assess the integrations of the Internet and the mobile industries in China as discussed in the previous section. Table II summarizes the advantages and the issues worth attention from technical, organizational and personal perspectives (Linstone, 1999).
Among the issues, security is the most important one. To effectively enhance communications and reduce costs for customers without exposing them to risks of financial and data theft, security is the first problem that should be solved. The mobile telecommunication and the internet industries are both growing very fast in China. The effective integration of these two industries has played critical role in the development of both industries, especially during the turning of the Chinese internet industry in 2002. The innovative ideas of mobile phone doing online payment, SMS stimulating the internet use and creating revenues, and IP telephone system in mobile environment saving costs for long distance calls are successful examples of the integration.
With the fast development of technologies and the dramatic increase of the user numbers in both industries, more opportunities are seen for future cooperation between these two industries to stimulate further growth and better serve people in China, and the mobile internet, m-commerce and the VoWLAN are among them. However, although there are big advantages brought by these technologies, problems such as security and reliability need to be solved before the successful application of these technologies. To assess the critical technology as a result of the integration of mobile communication and wireless internet access, causal models evaluating the global environment and Chinese environment are also developed, as shown in Tables III and IV. The trend of adopting emerging technology that combines mobile phone, VoIP and WLAN is obvious. However, the security issue is still among the top ones.
Although, the Chinese IP telephone market has been opened formally since April 1999 (Lovelock, 2001) and is widely used in both wired and wireless environments today, a transmission system has to be dependent on to transfer voice packages from the traditional telephone line (or network) to the IP network. It has been an effective approach given the early situation in China regarding its limited internet use. However, the increasing popularity of broadband internet access including WLAN among Chinese people has brought new opportunities for the IP telephone companies to achieve more cost efficiency.
IP is regarded as the future platform for voice/multimedia services owing to the advantages it brings (Yang and Kriaras, 1999):
- efficient use of network resources;
- one single core network to manage and maintain;
- lower cost of transport and service infrastructure;
- multimedia support; and
- easier and quicker introduction of new services.
VoIP started with making and receiving voice calls using the internet and was extended to multimedia services and inter-working with public switched telephone network. Network IP, in contrast with end-user IP, indicating the system where IP network is used inside the telephone system to transport user traffic and control signal (Yang and Kriaras, 1999), is what has been used in China.
The increasing popularity of WLAN technology has shed light on the transformation from network IP to end-user IP in the world wireless communication industry. In end-user IP, calls go directly from users' terminals through the IP network to the receivers' terminals (Yang and Kriaras, 1999). It is expected that the combination of VoWLAN with cell phones will start to enter the market of home users in 2006, and by 2009 cell phones with VoWLAN function will account for 30 per cent of all the cell phones, and 18 per cent will be used to actually use the VoWLAN function (InStat/MDR, 2004). Figure 1 shows the increasing trend of VoWLAN cell phones forecasted by In-Stat/MDR in June 2004.
In addition, as one of the advantages of using IP network to transfer voice and data, video conversation is enabled. Given the fast popularity of camera phones, camcorder phones, which are already being manufactured, are likely to be involved in the VoWLAN application soon. Thus, VVoWLAN is considered as a special technology for which the development of related system has to be foreseen.
Since, the quality of the video conversation over the IP network depends largely on the available bandwidth, the total output bandwidth of China turns out to be a critical determinant factor in the strategic planning. The system dynamics modeling addresses issues like: in order to satisfy most of the VVoWLAN users, at what annual growth rate should the total output bandwidth of China increase from 2006 to 2010?
To calibrate the system dynamics model and to reduce the complexity, some major assumptions are made, including:
- customers purchase the VVoIP phones depend on the phone price and the relation between phone price and user number follows that of normal cell phones (regression and econometrics);
- about 80 per cent of customers transfer from current mobile international min users, 20 per cent transfer from current landline international min users;
- unsatisfied users will stop using the phone and come back when quality improves;
- about 80 per cent of customers use international min based on cost-based-minute, 20 per cent based on break-even minute;
- customer perceived product life for a wireless VVoIP phone is two years;
- cost-based minute usage increases as per minute cost decreases and the relation follows that of current international minute usage (extrapolation); and
- Wi-Fi usage will reach 95 per cent by 2010.
4 Results
The model built in this study is established for demonstration of the methodology. Additional data will be required to develop a model that will deliver an actual foresight. Figure 2 shows the layout of the basic model.
To test and understand the sensitivity of the model, different scenarios were developed and run. Scenarios are used to outline some aspects of the future world by telling stories to emphasize the important dimensions and incorporate uncertainty. Scenarios are used in areas such as analysis of US energy scenarios (Silberglitt et al., 2003), the future of hydrogen fueling systems Winebrake and Creswick, 2003) and biotechnology (Sager, 2003). Scenarios may be future histories that may cover dynamic time trajectory from present to some point in the future or snapshots that may be structural cross-section at a single time point in future or combinations of both. Scenarios are used in forecasting, policy, and planning processes as well as in business and government applications.
Table V provides a summary of the scenarios considered.
The charts shown in Figure 3 provide the results of both scenarios. A third scenario was adopted after the first group of results (Figure 4).
Key findings of the model can be summarized as: 2.5G + Video and Voice over IP phone will be around $300-$329 by year 2010. If Wi-Fi coverage reach 95 per cent by 2010, service cost for 2.5G + Wi-Fi VVoIP will be $0.02/min (not including internet access).
Customer demand will be between 20 and 22 million by 2010. This covers 10 per cent of broadband users and 1.65 per cent of total population. Monthly, minute usage will be between 3 and 6 billion minutes by 2010. To use 50 per cent of total bandwidth to support at least 70 per cent of customers using VVoIP at the same time, the internet output bandwidth has to choose one of the following options:
- maintain the most likely rate monthly growth rate (scenario 1);
- increase 11 Mbit as every three broadband users increase (scenario 2); and
- use different monthly growth rates in scenario 3.
5 Conclusions
The mobile telecommunication and the internet industries are both growing very fast in China. The effective integration of these two industries has played critical role in the development of both industries, especially during the turning of the Chinese internet industry from running in debt to making profit. The innovative ideas of mobile phone doing online payment, SMS stimulating the internet use and creating revenues, and IP telephone system in mobile environment saving costs for long distance calls are historically successful examples of such integration. With the fast development of technologies and the dramatic increase of the user numbers in both industries, more opportunities were seen for future cooperation between these two industries to stimulate further growth and better serve people in China. The mobile internet, m-commerce and the VVoWLAN are among the new opportunities.
Based on multi-perspective analysis and causal models in both global and national environments, problems such as security and reliability are identified. They need to be solved before the successful application of the technologies as a result of the future integration of two industries. The big advantages brought by such emerging technologies call for a careful strategic planning at national level to ensure the successful diffusion. In order to successfully implement the emerging technologies such as VVoWLAN, a national level strategic planning, which is a technology foresight is vital. System dynamics modeling is used in this paper to assist such foresight process. Different scenarios are proposed by the modeling to offer possible solutions facilitating the development of VVoWLAN in China.
While, the purpose of system dynamics modeling is to demonstrate the application of the methodology, simplifying assumptions are made. To deliver an accurate foresight model, additional data and modeling details will be required. This will lead to future works as an improvement of the model.
Figure 1Global trend of WLAN cell phone manufacturing
Figure 2Screen capture of the basic model
Figure 3Model results for scenarios 1 and 2
Figure 4Adjusted final model – scenario 3
Table IInternet user number 1997-2004
Table IITaxonomy of multi-perspective assessment of the integration of the mobile and the internet industries
Table IIIGlobal causal relationships
Table IVChinese causal relationships
Table VModeling scenarios
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About the authors
Hongyi Chen, PhD, graduated from Department of Engineering and Technology Management at Portland State University. Her research interests include decision analysis in engineering and technology management with a focus on hierarchical decision modeling, systems dynamics modeling, technology assessment, technology forecasting and foresight. She has published articles in several conferences and journals such as European Journal of Operational Research.
Tugrul U. Daim, PhD is an Associate Professor at the Department of Engineering Technology Management, in the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, Portland State University (PSU). He had worked at Intel Corporation for over ten years managing technology and product planning and development before joining PSU as a full time faculty. His research interests are focused in technology assessment, forecasting, transfer and roadmapping. He has published articles in journals such as Engineering Management Journal, Technology Forecasting and Social Change, Technology in Society, Journal of High Technology Management Research and Technovation. He is the program co-chair for Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology and co author of three books of reading. He is on the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Technology Forecasting and Social Change and International, Journal of Innovation and Technology Management. Tugrul U. Daim is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: tugrul@etm.pdx.edu