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on Economics of Strategic Management |
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Issue of 2010‒03‒28
eleven papers chosen by Joao Jose de Matos Ferreira University of the Beira Interior |
| By: | VAN BEVEREN, Ilke (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, LICOS and Lessuis, Antwerpen, Belgium); VANDENBUSSCHE, Hylke (UniversitŽ catholique de Louvain, CORE, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium and KULeuven, LICOS, B- 3000 Leuven, Belgium) |
| Abstract: | Using data from the Community Innovation Survey for Belgium in two consecutive periods, this paper explores the relationship between firm-level innovation activities and the propensity to start exporting. To measure innovation, we include indicators of both innovative effort (R&D activities) as well as innovative output (product and process innovation). Our results suggest that the combination of product and process innovation, rather than either of the two in isolation, increases a firmÕs probability to enter the export market. After controlling for potential endogeneity of the innovation activities, only firms with a sufficiently high probability to start exporting engage in product and process innovation prior to their entry on the export market, pointing to the importance of self-selection into innovation |
| Keywords: | exports, product innovation, process innovation, self-selection, firm heterogeneity |
| JEL: | D24 F14 L25 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2009–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cor:louvco:2009086&r=cse |
| By: | Pablo D'Este; Surya Mahdi; Andy Neely |
| Abstract: | This paper aims at improving our understanding of the attributes of academic researchers that influence the capacity to identify and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities. We investigate a number of factors highlighted in the literature as influencing the entrepreneurial activities undertaken by academics. Our results show that identification and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities are shaped by different factors. While identification of commercial opportunities is driven by prior entrepreneurial experience and the excellence of the academic work, exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities is driven by the extent of previous collaboration with industry partners, cognitive integration and prior entrepreneurial experience. |
| Keywords: | Academic entrepreneurship; Opportunity identification; Opportunity exploitation; Spin-offs; Patenting; University-business collaboration |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:10-05&r=cse |
| By: | Okamuro, Hiroyuki; Kato, Masatoshi; Honjo, Yuji |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the determinants of R&D cooperation in Japanese hightech start-ups. Using a sample from an original survey conducted in 2008, we examine the effects of founder-, firm-, and industry-specific characteristics on R&D cooperation by the type of partners. Our findings indicate that founder-specific characteristics, such as educational background, academic affiliation, and prior innovation output, are fairly important in determining R&D cooperation with universities and public research institutes. We also provide evidence that founders' work experience and prior innovation output have positive and significant effects on R&D cooperation with business partners. With respect to firm-specific characteristics, it is found that firms investing more in R&D tend to engage in R&D cooperation, regardless of the type of partners. Furthermore, it is found that independent firms are less likely to cooperate on R&D with universities and public research institutes, than subsidiaries and affiliated firms. |
| Keywords: | Start-up, R&D cooperation, Founder, University, Business partner |
| JEL: | L14 M13 O32 |
| Date: | 2009–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hitcei:2009-07&r=cse |
| By: | José García-Quevedo (University of Barcelona & IEB); Francisco Mas-Verdú (Universidad Politécnica de Valencia & IEB); Jose Polo-Otero (University of Barcelona & CYD Foundation & IEB) |
| Abstract: | PhD graduates hold the highest education degree, are trained to conduct research and can be considered a key element in the creation, commercialization and diffusion of innovations. The impact of PhDs on innovation and economic development takes place through several channels such as the accumulation of scientific capital stock, the enhancement of technology transfers and the promotion of cooperation relationships in innovation processes. Although the placement of PhDs in industry provides a very important mechanism for transmitting knowledge from universities to firms, information about the characteristics of the firms that employ PhDs is very scarce. The goal of this paper is to improve understanding of the determinants of the demand for PhDs in the private sector. Three main potential determinants of the demand for PhDs are considered: cooperation between firms and universities, R&D activities of firms and several characteristics of firms, size, sector, productivity and age. The results from the econometric analysis show that cooperation between firms and universities encourages firms to recruit PhDs and point to the existence of accumulative effects in the hiring of PhD graduates. |
| Keywords: | PhD, university, R&D, technology transfer |
| JEL: | O32 J24 I23 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ieb:wpaper:2010/3/doc2010-13&r=cse |
| By: | Junichi Nishimura; Hiroyuki Okamuro |
| Abstract: | Industrial clusters have attracted increasing attention as important locations of innovation. Therefore, several countries have started promotion policies for industrial clusters. However, there are few empirical studies on cluster policies. This paper examines the effects of the “Industrial Cluster Project” (ICP) in Japan on the R&D productivity of participants, using a unique dataset of 229 small firms, and discusses the conditions necessary for the effective organization of cluster policies. Different from former policy approaches, the ICP aims at building collaborative networks between universities and industries and supports the autonomous development of existing regional industries without direct intervention in the clustering process. Thus far, the ICP is similar to indirect support systems adopted by successful European clusters. Our estimation results suggest that participation in the cluster project alone does not affect R&D productivity. Moreover, research collaboration with a partner in the same cluster region decreases R&D productivity both in terms of the quantity and quality of patents. Therefore, in order to improve the R&D efficiency of local firms, it is also important to construct wide-range collaborative networks within and beyond the clusters, although most clusters focus on the network at a narrowly defined local level. However, cluster participants apply for more patents than others without reducing patent quality when they collaborate with national universities in the same cluster region. |
| Keywords: | Industrial cluster; University-industry partnership; Small and medium enterprise; R&D; Patent |
| JEL: | O23 O32 O38 R38 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:10-06&r=cse |
| By: | Mark Freel; Jeroen P.J. de Jong; Tyler Chamberlin |
| Abstract: | This paper takes as its starting point an item of relatively recent academic orthodoxy: the insistence that ‘…interactive learning and collective entrepreneurship are fundamental to the process of innovation’ (Lundvall, 1992, p. 9). From this, academics have frequently taken “interactive” to imply “inter-organisational” and, whilst one might be concerned by this too casual conflation, there is a growing consensus that firms’ embeddedness in collaborative networks matters for their innovative performance (Gilsing et al., 2008). |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:10-08&r=cse |
| By: | Joan Crespo |
| Abstract: | The widely studied concept of clusters has been usually treated as pre-established and successful structures. We argue that clusters are not pre-established but emerge through a double competition process of technological and regional nature. Moreover, faced to a changing environment they are not always successful. Their long-term evolution depends on their viability capacities. We show that viability is dependent on the emergence conditions, because different forms of emergence create clusters with different structures. |
| Keywords: | cluster life cycle, emergence, viability, networks |
| JEL: | R12 O31 D85 |
| Date: | 2010–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1002&r=cse |
| By: | Jinyoung Kim (Korea University); Sangjoon John Lee (Alfred University); Gerald Marschke (University at Albany-SUNY, NBER and IZA) |
| Abstract: | We use U.S. patent records to examine the role of research personnel as a pathway for the diffusion of ideas from university to industry. Appearing on a patent assigned to a university is evidence that an ineventor has been exposed to university research, either directly as a university researcher or through some form of collaboration with university researchers. Having an advanced degree is another indicator of an inventor's exposure to university research. We find a steady increase in industry's use of inventors with university research experience over the period 1985-97, economy wide and in the pharmaceutical and semiconductor industries in particular. We interpret this as evidence of growth in the influence of university research on industrial innovation. Moreover, during this period we find that firms with large research operations in both industries, and young and highly capitalized firms in the pharmaceutical industry, are disproportionately active in the diffusion of ideas from the university sector. Finally, we find that the patents of firms that employ inventors with university research experience are more likely to cite university patents as prior art, suggesting that this experience better enables firms to tap academic research. |
| Keywords: | Patents; Innovation; Technology spillovers; University research |
| JEL: | J62 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iek:wpaper:1006&r=cse |
| By: | Aimilia Protogerou; Yannis Caloghirou; Evangelos Siokas |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on the impact of EU-funded collaborative research networks at a national level using a combined method approach, social network analysis and in-depth case study work. First, it examines the participation intensity and role of the Greek organizations in the research network established through the Information Society Technologies priority of the European Community’s 4th, 5th and 6th Framework Programmes. Furthermore, it attempts to assess the impact of the IST research network on the diffusion and deployment of innovation in Greece. Some interesting results with significant policy implications arise: a) Greece exhibits high participation intensity in the EU-funded IST network, b) there are Greek organizations that have assumed an influential role in the network through time, in addition, they are also critical to the connectivity of the more peripheral Greek actors to the IST network, c) the value of the network, lies for the most part in indirect or ‘behavioural’ effects than in immediate project outputs measured in terms of commercialized products or services, d) however, while the knowledge obtained through the network assists organizations to gain better understanding of the market and identify future deployment opportunities this is not always possible due to the lack of sufficient infrastructure and national policies to support market introduction. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:10-12&r=cse |
| By: | Markus Perkmann; Kathryn Walsh |
| Abstract: | We analyze the impact of university-industry relationships on public research. Our inductive study of university-industry collaboration in engineering suggests that basic projects are more likely to yield academically valuable knowledge than applied projects. However, applied projects show higher degrees of partner interdependence and therefore enable exploratory learning by academics, leading to new ideas and projects. This result holds especially for research-oriented academics working in the ‘sciences of the artificial’ and engaging in multiple relationships with industry. Our learning-centred interpretation qualifies the notion of entrepreneurial science as a driver of applied university-industry collaboration. We conclude with implications for science and technology policy. |
| Keywords: | University industry relations; Collaborative research; Contract research; Academic consulting; Science technology links; Engineering |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:10-03&r=cse |
| By: | Wouter Jacobs; Theo Notteboom |
| Abstract: | How do seaports evolve in relation to each other? Recent studies in port economics and transport geography focused on how supply chain integration has structurally changed the competitive landscape in which individual ports and port actors operate. Port regionalization has been addressed as the corresponding new phase in the spatial and functional evolution of port systems. However, these studies lack theoretical foundations that allow us to empirically assess both the role of the institutional context and of strategic agency in the competitive (spatial and functional) evolution of regional (integrated) port systems. The paper presents a theoretical framework to analyze and understand the co- evolution of seaports in a regional context by making use of the concept of windows of opportunity. The empirical part will unravel the role of seaport-based co-evolution in the processes aimed at positioning market players and ports on the container scene in the Rhine-Scheldt Delta. |
| Keywords: | co-evolution, seaports, regionalization, institutions, economic geography |
| JEL: | O18 O30 R11 R40 |
| Date: | 2010–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1003&r=cse |