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This report synthesizes current information and expert opinions pertaining to technological innovation & competitiveness and assesses the technological performance of the Canadian forest products sector. The opening chapter examines the process of technological innovation and technology's role in and impact on society. The next chapter assesses the technological capacity of the forest sector and describes some approaches for evaluating the adequacy of research and development funding. Chapter four identifies and discusses features and characteristics of the Canadian forest products sector and market that affect the industry's technological capacity and rate of innovation. The last chapter examines the changing competitive circumstances of the industry and how these conditions are expected to circumscribe the industry's future technological requirements. It also reviews and summarizes findings from previous chapters and reorganizes them into issues and considerations for positioning the forest sector in a knowledge-based global market. The appendix contains an overview of organizations involved in forestry and forest products research and development in Canada.
The breadth of this work will allow the reader to acquire a comprehensive and panoramic picture of the nature of innovation within a single handbook.
The impact of climate change is becoming increasingly obvious around the world but different levels of the Canadian government are failing to respond cohesively. For example, the Harper government immediately cut several liberal-era environmental research programs and admitted that Canada has been moving away from Kyoto Protocol targets and that the Kyoto Protocol is not central to its idea of either good environmental or good energy policy. Meanwhile, a Quebec liberal government announced that it would introduce a carbon tax to reduce CO2 emissions by 10 million tons by 2012 while Canada's mayors introduced their own climate change initiatives, linking them to local infrastructure development. This second volume in the ISE series examines the reshaping of ISE policy in the context of multi-level governance and policy. Contributors examine climate change policy, innovation in the natural resources sector, the internet pharmacy trade, biotechnology policy and governance, provincial government renewable energy policies, the psychological and human nature connection with sustainable development policies, procurement policy and innovation, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the commercialization of Canada's universities.
The contributors explore four central themes: the locational impacts of the openness of the Canadian economy, Canada's relatively simple economic geography in terms of regional variations in resources and urban development, the problems of keeping pace with rapid advances in technology, and the role of government in maintaining a national market and assisting economic development. They outline the essential elements of Canada's contemporary economic geography, highlight the origins and spatial imprint of change in the Canadian economy, and provide an assessment of Canada's participation in significant international patterns of economic change. Canada and the Global Economy is concerned not only with the economic size and location of consumption and production but also with institutional changes and shifts in employment, the sectoral composition of economic activity, and the organizational structure and locational behaviour of particular industries and firms. Special attention is given to the technological development of both established industries and new service and manufacturing activities. A timely addition to the field, it provides a geographic perspective on significant changes in jobs and types of work that result from the transformation of economic activities. Contributors: Trevor J. Barnes (UBC), John N.H. Britton (Toronto), James B. Cannon (Queen's), William J. Coffey (Montréal), J. Tait Davis (York), Geoffrey Dobilas (Toronto), William C. Found (York), Meric S. Gertler (Toronto), James M. Gilmour (consultant, Ottawa), Roger Hayter (Simon Fraser), John Holmes (Queen's), Anthony C. Lea (Compusearch, Toronto), Ian MacLachlan (Lethbridge), Alan D. MacPherson (SUNY at Buffalo), Glen B. Norcliffe (York), D. Michael Ray (formerly Carleton), Tod Rutherford (Waterloo), R. Keith Semple (Saskatchewan), James W. Simmons (Toronto), William Smith (Auckland), Guy P.F. Steed (formerly Science Council of Canada), Iain Wallace (Carleton), and Nigel Waters (Calgary).
Because there is a lack of innovation research in the forest products industry and innovative activities in the industry are not well documented, this study attempted to fill that void. The objectives of this study were to understand the process and definition of innovation in the forest products industry, identify the constraints on innovative activities, identify resources that would improve innovation in forest products companies, compare the innovation environments in Alaska and Oregon, and provide a benchmark study for innovation in the forest products industry.‍?‍?This study revealed that there are several aspects of innovation in the forest products industry. In addition, the innovation process is a combination of semiformal development stages, trial and error, intuition, and luck. A variety of factors constrained companies from being more innovative, including government regulations, shipping and labor costs, lack of cash flow, raw material characteristics, marketing expertise, and raw material supply. There do not appear to be any resources that would be helpful to forest products companies, at least none that the interviewed companies could recommend. Offering companies the chance to exchange ideas and network is the most valuable resource available.‍?‍?The innovation environments in Alaska and Oregon are somewhat similar yet different in the marketing tactics employed and the techniques used to obtain market information.‍?‍?Furthermore, the type of innovation projects that each region focuses on differs, as does the actual process used to develop innovations. Future research should focus on completing a quantitative component to this study, developing short courses or 1-day seminars, identifying factors that contribute to innovation success and failure, investigating why the forest products industry is not innovative by nature, and exploring the external acquisition of innovation in the forest products industry.