Assessing Technology Adoption in the European Air Traffic Management: The Cases of Virtual Centre and Flight-Centric Operations

This research focuses on emerging technologies in the European air traffic management (ATM), specifically investigating technology adoption by the main stakeholders. The European ATM consists of a highly fragmented aviation infrastructure, built and managed by actors with diverse interests. Rapid developments in information and communication technologies affect the European ATM, as also the case with other network industries. Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) and the industry, more generally, started experimenting with digital technologies, such as Virtual Centre (VC), and Flight-Centric Operations (FCO), also known as Sector-less ATM, technologies. These technologies have the possibility to disrupt or at least change the current air navigation services (ANS) provision. However, there is lack of research related to the possible adoption of these technologies in the context of the European ATM in general and the Single European Sky (SES) in particular. This PhD thesis investigates the possible adoption of two emerging technologies using two case studies: flight-centric operations and virtual centre on the European ATM. The following two questions will be answered in this thesis. The first research question is: How and to what extent will emerging technologies - in particular flight-centric operations and virtual centre be taken up and ultimately adopted by the relevant actors of the European ATM? The second research question is: What will the consequences of such adoption be on the process of implementing the Single European Sky? In order to analyze, understand and evaluate the technology adoption, this thesis takes a socio-technical approach using stakeholder theory (ST), combined with actor-network theory (ANT) methodology. Different from the traditional technology adoption research approaches, such as innovation diffusion, an interpretive stance is taken to examine how new technologies come into existence and evolve. The processes of ANT, packed into problematisation, interessement, enrolment and mobilisation are used to explain the adoption of flight-centric operations and virtual centre technologies. Coupled with investigating the factors and barriers affecting the technology adoption, the thesis presents a conceptual framework to examine technology adoption in the European ATM. The data is collected qualitatively through participant observation, interviews and document analysis. The interactions between the key actors are analyzed for further recommendation on the adoption of these new technologies.

The link between innovation and finance

Cristiano Zazzara

This thesis comprises three essays on the relationship between innovation and finance. Although previous research has acknowledged the multi-faceted nature of innovation, this thesis unpacks its constituent elements, compares alternative drivers of innovation — focusing on the role of financial variables —, and explores when each of these drivers is important relative to the others. Evidence is based on survey data on Italian manufacturing firms over the years 1995-2003. The main contribution of this dissertation is to show how innovation at the firm level varies across different dimensions, documenting several robust empirical regularities, which must be accounted for. The first essay explores the determinants of various characteristics on the propensity to innovate in the Italian manufacturing sector. First, we concentrate on firms characteristics, and include in the study age of firm, size of firm, export shares of revenues and group membership. Second, we examine industry characteristics, such as type of industry in terms of technology level and market concentration. We also test the impact of characteristics of the firm's geographical area, including an indicator of financial development for the firm region. We finally extend our model including financial variables at the firm level in order to evaluate the association between profitability & risk and innovation. The second essay further examines the determinants of innovation, focusing on why firms develop product innovations rather than process innovation, or product and process innovations simultaneously. Empirical studies have highlighted the different impact of product and process innovation on various factors (such as, for example, international competitiveness, the level of employment and the types of skills used, and on the profit rate of firms). However, little is known from either a theoretical or an empirical point of view about the determinants of these different types of innovation. The third essay examines the question of whether access to credit is empirically more difficult for innovative firms than for those undertaking traditional investment projects. The idea that market financing of innovative projects is likely to encounter severe obstacles is not new. Indeed, it dates back at least to Schumpeter's defence of monopoly power since it not only guarantees that innovative firms can internalise the benefits of their innovations, but also provides funding for future innovative projects. Testing this proposition requires information on the innovative content of a given firm and on the limits to borrowing it encounters. Using the above mentioned survey data, we are able to identify credit constrained firms and use this information to make inferences on bank's lending strategies towards firms whose investment projects differ according to expected return and riskiness.

EPFL2008

The link between innovation and finance

Cristiano Zazzara

EPFL2008