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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2008‒07‒20
twelve papers chosen by Laura Stefanescu European Research Centre of Managerial Studies in Business Administration |
| By: | Berliant, Marcus; Fujita, Masahisa |
| Abstract: | How is long run economic growth related to the diversity of knowledge? We formulate and study a microeconomic model of knowledge creation, through the interactions among a group of heterogeneous R & D workers, embedded in a growth model to address this question. Income to these workers accrues as patent income, whereas transmission of newly created knowledge to all such workers occurs due to public transmission of patent information. The model features myopic R & D workers in a pure externality model of interaction. Surprisingly, in the general case for a large set of initial conditions we find that the equilibrium process of knowledge creation converges to the most productive state, where the population splits into smaller groups of optimal size; close interaction takes place within each group only. Equilibrium paths are found analytically. Long run economic growth is positively related to both the effectiveness of pairwise R & D worker interaction and to the effectiveness of public knowledge transmission. |
| Keywords: | knowledge creation; knowledge externalities; microfoundations of endogenous growth; knowledge diversity and growth |
| JEL: | D90 D83 O31 |
| Date: | 2008–07–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:9514&r=knm |
| By: | Faria, Pedro; Sofka, Wolfgang |
| Abstract: | International knowledge spillovers, especially through multinational companies (MNCs), have recently been a major topic of discussion among academics and practitioners. Most research in this field focuses on knowledge sharing activities of MNC subsidiaries. Relatively little is known about their capabilities for protecting valuable knowledge from spilling over to host country competitors. We extend this stream of research by investigating MNC appropriability strategies that go beyond formal methods (patents, copyrights, trademarks) to include strategic ones (secrecy, lead time, complex design). We conceptualize the breadth and depth of a firm’s knowledge protection strategies and relate them to the particular situation of MNC subsidiaries. Moreover, we argue that their approaches differ with regard to host country challenges and opportunities. We address these issues empirically, based on a harmonized survey of innovation activities of more than 1,800 firms located in Portugal and Germany. We find that MNCs prefer broader sets of appropriability strategies in host countries with fewer opportunities for knowledge sourcing. However, munificent host country environments require targeted sets of appropriability strategies instead. We deduce that these results are due to a need for reciprocity to benefit fully from promising host country knowledge flows. |
| Keywords: | Appropriability, Multinational Companies, Patenting |
| JEL: | D83 F23 O31 O32 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:7302&r=knm |
| By: | Nobuaki Hamaguchi (Research Institute for Economics and Business Administration, Kobe University); Yoshihiro Kameyama (The International Centre for the Study of East Asian Development (ICSEAD)) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents an analysis of the effects of dense communication of industry-university-government cooperation on enhancing in-house (a company's own) R&D activities in Korean and Chinese knowledge-based industrial clusters: the Seoul Digital Industrial Complex, Daedeok Valley, and the Zhongguancun Science Park. Our unique survey data enable us to examine firms' communication behaviors, i.e., communication frequency, participants, and purposes, related to the choice of communication mode. Results of this study demonstrate that agglomeration might impart least two influences on an individual firm: agglomeration stimulates more in-house R&D through exchange of ideas; and it reduces in-house R&D by promoting its outsourcing. |
| Keywords: | agglomeration, communication externalities, industrial cluster, Seoul Digital Industrial Complex, Daedeok Valley, Zhongguancun Science Park |
| JEL: | O32 R11 O40 |
| Date: | 2007–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kob:dpaper:206&r=knm |
| By: | Maurizio Mistri (University of Padua) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the contributions to political economy of Carlo Cattaneo as an ante litteram institutionalist scholar. Carlo Cattaneo has been an original thinker with a polyhedricity of cultural interests. From a point of view of political economy, we can say that Cattaneo was influenced by the concept of sociality. He studied the human action framed in his social and relational dimensions. Cattaneo was aware that the development of society needed to be seen as the result of complex interactive and often conflicting forces. Carlo Cattaneo has been interested in forces that generate change in social and economic structures. One of these forces is the human intelligence -to day we say knowledge- which is at basis of his value theory. Another important force is the action of the enterpreneurs, who are the engines of economic progress. Cattaneo devoted a particulr attention to links between law and economic activities. In the paper the role of laws on economic trajectories is discussed, with a special attention to the effects of Israeli interdictions. |
| Keywords: | technological change, institutions, knowledge |
| JEL: | D83 K2 |
| Date: | 2008–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pad:wpaper:0079&r=knm |
| By: | Ville, Simon (University of Wollongong); Pol, Eduardo (University of Wollongong) |
| Abstract: | One of the striking features of our society is the incessant urge for the creation, adoption and diffusion of innovations. Innovation takes many forms: technological, organizational, social, artistic, for example. The term ‘social innovation’ has come into common parlance in recent years. Some analysts consider social innovation no more than a buzz word or passing fad that is too vague to be usefully applied to academic scholarship. Some social scientists, however, see significant value in the concept of social innovation because it identifies a critical type of innovation. In this paper we suggest a working definition of social innovation that captures the common denominator of the existing definitions of the term. We show that when its empirical meaning is distilled, the term is of great importance. We distinguish social innovation from business innovation, and identify a subset of social innovations that requires government support. A subsidiary message of the paper –obvious, but often forgotten– is that interdisciplinary communication may be more fruitful if we realize that terminological discipline is a necessary condition in the search for improved knowledge. |
| Keywords: | Business innovation, Social innovation, Quality of life, Pure social innovation, Bifocal innovation, Government support |
| JEL: | I31 I38 O31 O38 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uow:depec1:wp08-09&r=knm |
| By: | T. VANACKER; S. MANIGART; M. MEULEMAN |
| Abstract: | Using multiple longitudinal case studies of young biotechnology firms, we study differences in the financing process between high and low performing firms. Findings suggest that initial differences in the specialization of the investors with whom entrepreneurs affiliate early on, affect the ease with which firms attract (specialized) follow-on financing and firm performance. We demonstrate the role of the social context in shaping initial financing outcomes, as entrepreneurs limit their search for financing to one or a few investors with whom they have pre-existing ties. Additionally, our research provides a dynamic view of the financing process. We identify isolating mechanisms, including entrepreneurial learning and homophily and network considerations in investor syndication, which limit entrepreneurs when trying to adopt successful financing strategies implemented by competitors later on. A core contribution is that we theorize on evolutionary processes in the financing process. This new perspective advances our knowledge on dynamics in the financing process and opens multiple avenues for future research. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship; new venture finance; financing process; venture capital; performance |
| Date: | 2008–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rug:rugwps:08/522&r=knm |
| By: | Lucas Bretschger (CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research at ETH Zurich) |
| Abstract: | The paper develops a model with non-exponential population growth, nonrenewable natural resources, and endogenous knowledge creation to analyse substitution between primary inputs and an essential use of resources in the innovation sectors, which is generally considered as most unfavourable for growth. We show that population growth and poor input substitution are not detrimental but even needed to obtain sustainable consumption. A permanent increase in living standards can be achieved under free market conditions. With a backstop technology, the system converges to a balanced growth path with classical properties. |
| Keywords: | Population growth, non-renewable resources, poor input substitution, technical change, sustainability |
| JEL: | Q32 Q55 Q56 O41 |
| Date: | 2008–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eth:wpswif:08-87&r=knm |
| By: | Pankaj Patel; Rodney D’Souza |
| Abstract: | Studies on venture capital (VC) investment decision using espoused criteria and utility aggregation methods have shown mixed results. Using a latent decision structures approach from psychological scaling literature, we reduce random and systematic biases arising from VC decision environment. In addition, we further address such biases using a combination of parametric and nonparametric techniques and practitioner specified decision criteria on 143 funded and nonfunded business plans. Compared to previous studies that have emphasized the central role of the venture team in obtaining funding, we find that (a) a good venture team is critical for not rejecting a business plan but is less critical for funding a business plan (b) a good venture team has decreasing returns even for funded ventures, but favorable competitive conditions and market potential have increasing returns. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sba:wpaper:08pprd&r=knm |
| By: | Heli Koski |
| Abstract: | ABSTRACT : This study does not find any significant direct relationship between the public R&D funding and the firms` innovation output. The firms obtaining the public R&D support were not performing significantly better, on average, than others. However, we find evidence that the public R&D finance has substantially influenced the innovation output of the firms that have undertaken certain types of innovations activities. Particularly, public funding targeted to the firms focusing on new business areas in their R&D projects seems successful. Certain types of collaboration seem to also generate better entrepreneurial performance in terms of innovation. Those large firms that have more intensively collaborated with the SMS firm partners in their publicly funded R&D projects have filed more patent applications than other companies. |
| Keywords: | innovation, public R&D subsidies, technology policy |
| JEL: | L10 O33 O38 |
| Date: | 2008–07–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rif:dpaper:1142&r=knm |
| By: | Bernadette Biatour; Chantal Kegels |
| Abstract: | Using dynamic panel data on 20 Belgian market sectors over 1987-2005, the paper analyses the link between Multifactor Productivity (MFP) growth and three frequently cited determinants: business R&D, labour skills and ICT use. The theoretical framework of the analysis is given by the Aghion-Howitt model which explains the rate of MFP growth by the distance to the world technology frontier. |
| JEL: | I20 O30 O41 |
| Date: | 2008–06–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpb:wpaper:0811&r=knm |
| By: | Lucinda Trigo Gamarra (University of Rostock) |
| Abstract: | The German insurance market was liberalized in 1994 by the introduction of the ‘single passport’ allowing European insurers to operate throughout the entire European Union. The European directive put also an end to price and insurance contract terms regulation. These measures were meant for removing the obstacles to competition within and between the insurance markets of the member states aiming at an increased efficiency of the European insurance markets. We analyze to which extent this aim has been achieved in the German life insurance market. The development of market performance is measured by changes in technical cost and profit efficiency levels since the liberalization, as well as a measurement of technological change. Technical cost efficiency levels are estimated by applying a stochastic “true” fixed effects distance frontier (Greene, 2005). Non-standard profit efficiency is derived in a second step following Kumbakhar (2006). According to our results, the industry experienced positive total factor productivity (TFP) growth during the observation period, which is mainly driven by substantial positive technological change. Technical cost efficiency and profit efficiency remained stable on average, but significant positive scale efficiency change can be found indicating that market consolidation in the presence of increasing returns to scale led to efficiency gains of the firms. |
| Keywords: | Insurance markets, Total factor productivity growth, Stochastic Frontier Analysis |
| JEL: | D24 G22 G28 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ros:wpaper:93&r=knm |
| By: | BIBU, Nicolae Aurelian; SALA, Diana; PANTEA, Marius; BIZOI, Gabriel |
| Abstract: | There are many ways in which the firm competitiveness can be understood in the related literature. The purpose of this research is to undertake a better understanding of expectations and concerns of small and medium sized enterprises from Romanian Western region, in term of competitiveness. This study presents preliminary results of a finished grant focused on SME’s competitiveness. There are some positive and negative factors in our research which are influencing firms’ competitiveness. This study has confirmed our hypothesis. The external environment influence on the competitiveness of SME’s is strong and contributes decisively to their performance. |
| Keywords: | SME’s; competitiveness; growth; external factors; Romania |
| JEL: | O18 L20 M13 |
| Date: | 2008–05–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:9479&r=knm |