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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2008‒11‒11
ten papers chosen by Laura Stefanescu European Research Centre of Managerial Studies in Business Administration |
| By: | Benoit Dostie (HEC Montreal); Rajshri Jayaraman (ESMT European School of Management and Technology) |
| Abstract: | Using a large longitudinal, nationally representative workplace-level dataset, we explore the productivity gains associated with computer use and organizational redesign. The empirical strategy involves the estimation of a production function, augmented to account for technology use and organizational design, correcting for unobserved heterogeneity. We find large returns associated with computer use. We also find that computer use and organizational redesign may be complements or substitutes in production, and that the productivity gains associated with organizational redesign are industry-specific. |
| Keywords: | organizational capital, IT, computers, workplace productivity, matched employer-employee data |
| JEL: | D20 L20 M54 O33 |
| Date: | 2008–10–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esm:wpaper:esmt-08-007&r=knm |
| By: | Missaka Warusawitharana |
| Abstract: | Is the return to private R&D as high as believed? This study identifies a flaw in the production function approach to estimating the return to R&D. I provide new estimates based on a structural estimation approach that incorporates uncertainty about the outcome from R&D. The results shed light on the rate of innovation, the impact of an innovation on profits, and the market value of the R&D stock. The parameter estimates imply a mean return to R&D of 3.7-5.5%, much lower than previous values. The analysis also demonstrates the unsuitability of using the return to R&D as a basis for policy decisions on tax subsidies to R&D. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2008-52&r=knm |
| By: | YATSENKO, Yuri; BOUCEKKINE, Raouf (Université catholique de Louvain (UCL). Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)); HRITONENKO, Natali |
| Abstract: | Several R&D-based models of endogenous economic growth are investigated under the Solow-like assumption of fixed allocation of resources across activities. We identify model parameters that lead to explosive dynamics and analyze various economic techniques to avoid it. The techniques include adding stricter constraints on model trajectories and limiting factors in technology equation. In particular, we demonstrate that our vintage version of the well known R&D-based model of economic growth (Jones, 1995) exhibits the same balanced dynamics as the original model. |
| Keywords: | vintage capital models, endogenous technological change, R&D investment, explosive dynamics, nonlinear Volterra integral equations. |
| JEL: | E20 O40 C60 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvco:2008052&r=knm |
| By: | Gregory Wegmann (Université de Bourgogne) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we present the Balanced Scorecard, a Strategic Control tool, which is quite famous all around the world and in the European countries. Its principle objective is to articulate planning decisions with control ones thanks to non-financial indicators. The Strategic Control and the Agency Theories constitute the foundation of this tool. But in Northern Europe, some specific Balanced Scorecard have been designed in the framework of the Knowledge Management Theory. To work, the Balanced Scorecard needs a sophisticated information system support.Using two theoretical backgrounds, the Strategic Control approach and the Knowledge Management Theory, we analyse the relevance of the Balanced Scorecard. More particularly, we present the French situation. First, we show that the French managers believe that the Balanced Scorecard is a relevant management instrument to drive the firm’s objectives. Second, we describe the Balanced Scorecard of a semi-public French insurance company. |
| Keywords: | Balanced Scorecard;Strategic Control;Non-financial Indicators;Knowledge Management;French Experience |
| JEL: | M40 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dij:wpfarg:1080902&r=knm |
| By: | Olivier Bruno (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - CNRS : UMR6227 - Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis); Cuong Le Van (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - Paris I, EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris); Benoit Masquin (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - CNRS : UMR6227 - Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis) |
| Abstract: | We develop a model of optimal pattern of economic development that is first rooted in physical capital accumulation and then in technical progress. We study an economy where capital accumulation and innovative activity take place within a two sector model. The first sector produces a consumption good using physical capital and non skilled labor. Technological progress in the consumption sector is driven by the research activity that takes place in the second sector. Research activity which produces new technologies requires technological capital and skilled labor. New technologies induce an endogenous increase of the Total Factor Productivity of the consumption sector. Physical and technological capital are not substitutable while skilled and non skilled labor may be substitutable. We show that under conditions of the adoption process of new technologies, the optimal strategy for a developing country consists in accumulating physical capital first; postponing the importation of technological capital to the second stage of development. This result is due to a threshold effect from which new technologies begin to have an impact on the productivity of the consumption sector. However, we show that once a certain level of wealth is reached, it becomes optimal for the economy to import technological capital toproduce new technologies. |
| Keywords: | economic development, technical progress, skilled labor, non skilled labor, total factor productivity , new technology, developing countries |
| Date: | 2008–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00101361_v2&r=knm |
| By: | Elisabetta, LODIGIANI (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to highlight the positive and important role that skilled migration can have on TFP growth in the sendind countries, when diaspora effects in technology diffusion are introduced. To investigate our issue, we start from a previous paper by Vandenbussche, Aghion and Costa Methir (2006), in which they examine the contribution of human capital to economic growth, where technological improvements are a result of a combination between innovation and imitation. Considering the impact of a positive externality on growth due to skilled migration, we show that a marginal increase in the stock of skilled human capital contributes more to productivity growth if a state is closer to the technological frontier and migration should raise growth in area from the frontier. Also, we provide evidence in favour of this prediction by using a panel dataset covering 92 countries between 1980 and 2000. Even if our empirical study has a lot of shortcomings, given the small number of countries and of time periods due to the current availability of data in the existing cross-country datasets, this works is the first one that attempt to investigate the relationship between growth and networks externalities, underlying the importance of the skilled diaspora in the transfer of ideas. |
| Keywords: | Economic growth, Imitation, Innovation, Migration, Brain drain, Diaspora |
| JEL: | F22 O15 O30 Z13 |
| Date: | 2008–02–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvec:2008008&r=knm |
| By: | Nadja Wirz (University of St. Gallen, Switzerland) |
| Abstract: | China has experienced a period of tremendous economic growth in recent years. In an attempt to explain this development, several existing growth-accounting studies reveal that impressively high rates of productivity growth have been at the heart of China's performance. This study investigates to what extent these productivity increases can be explained by technology-adoption theory. In less developed countries, the key element behind technological progress is technology adoption, the process of copying technological knowledge invented throughout the world. To uncover a measure of China's technological advances, the paper constructs a hybrid of some prominent technology-adoption models and calibrates it to reasonable parameter values. The calibrated version of the model is then combined with Chinese economic data. For the period 1978-2005, the analysis finds that the Chinese performance can be explained to a surprisingly large extent by the suggested technology-adoption framework. It can account for roughly 80% of China's productivity gains. |
| Keywords: | technological progress; technology adoption; TFP; China |
| JEL: | O11 O30 O40 O52 |
| Date: | 2008–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:epruwp:08-06&r=knm |
| By: | Concetta Castiglione (Department of Economics, Trinity College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | From the Seventies the importance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has been a much debated question. A lot of studies are made in order to understand if the ICTs are able to increase economic growth, firm productivity and firm efficiency. In this study both the translog and the Cobb-Douglas production function are used in order to estimate the impact of information and communication technology on technical efficiency (TE) in the Italian manufacturing firms over the period 1995-2003. Results show that ICT investments positively and significantly affect firm technical efficiency. Moreover, group, size and geographical position are able to influence positively TE. Finally, results show that older firms are in average more efficient than younger ones. |
| Keywords: | ICT investment, Productivity Paradox, Stochastic Frontier, Italian manufacturing firms |
| JEL: | D21 L63 O33 |
| Date: | 2008–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcd:tcduee:tep0408&r=knm |
| By: | Jérôme Vicente; Pierre-Alexandre Balland; Olivier Brossard |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to contribute to the empirical identification of clusters by proposing methodological issues based on network analysis. We start with the detection of a composite knowledge process rather than a territorial one stricto sensu. Such a consideration allows us to avoid the overestimation of the role played by geographical proximity between agents, and grasp its ambivalence in knowledge relations. Networks and clusters correspond to the complex aggregation process of bi or n-lateral relations in which agents can play heterogeneous structural roles. Their empirical reconstitution requires thus to gather located relational data, whereas their structural properties analysis requires to compute a set of indexes developed in the field of the social network analysis. Our theoretical considerations are tested in the technological field of GNSS (Global Satellite Navigation Systems). We propose a sample of knowledge relations based on collaborative R&D projects and discuss how this sample is shaped and why we can assume its representativeness. The network we obtain allows us to show how the composite knowledge process gives rise to a structure with a peculiar combination of local and distant relations. Descriptive statistics and structural properties show the influence or the centrality of certain agents in the aggregate structure, and permit to discuss the complementarities between their heterogeneous knowledge profiles. Quantitative results are completed and confirmed by an interpretative discussion based on a run of semi-structured interviews. Concluding remarks provide theoretical feedbacks. |
| Keywords: | Knowledge, Networks, Economic Geography, Cluster, GNSS |
| JEL: | O32 R12 |
| Date: | 2008–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:0815&r=knm |
| By: | Oliver Falck (Ifo Institute for Economic Research, CESifo and Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jna, Germany); Stephan Heblich (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena, Germany) |
| Abstract: | This paper takes a different perspective toward the escape entry incentive of incumbent firms to innovate. New entrants spawned from incumbents are not necessarily a threat; they can complement incumbents' production by commercializing knowledge incumbents are not willing or able to exploit. Accordingly, incumbent innovation determines exploitable knowledge externalities for spinoffs while, at the same time, spinoffs are expected to influence incumbent innovation. To overcome this problem of endogeneity, we apply an IV approach to analyze a rich industry-level dataset (1987–2000) for Germany. We find evidence that entry by spinoffs does, indeed, have a positive impact on incumbent innovation. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, Entry, Spinoff |
| JEL: | O3 L16 M13 |
| Date: | 2008–11–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2008-083&r=knm |