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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2009‒01‒10
six papers chosen by Laura Stefanescu European Research Centre of Managerial Studies in Business Administration |
| By: | Wolfgang Keller; Stephen R. Yeaple |
| Abstract: | This paper presents and tests a new model of multinational firms to explain a rich array of multinational behavior. In contrast to most approaches, here the multinational faces costs to transferring its know-how that are increasing in technological complexity. Costly technology transfer gives rise to increasing marginal costs of serving foreign markets, which explains why multinational firms are often much more successful in their home market compared to foreign markets. The model has several key predictions. First, as transport costs between multinational parent and affiliate increase, firms with complex production technologies find it relatively difficult to substitute local production for imports from the parent, because complex technologies are relatively costly to transfer. Second, the activity of affiliates with complex technologies declines relatively strongly as transport costs from the home market increase, both at the intensive and the extensive margin. We also show that as transport costs from the home market increase, affiliates concentrate their imports from the parent on intermediates that are technologically more complex. We test these hypotheses by employing information on the activities of individual multinational firms, on the nature of intra-firm trade at the product level, and on the skills required for occupations with different complexity. The empirical analysis finds strong evidence in support of the model by confirming all four hypotheses. The analysis shows that accounting for costly technology transfer within multinational firms is important for explaining the structure of trade and multinational production. |
| JEL: | F1 F15 F23 |
| Date: | 2008–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14626&r=knm |
| By: | Gay, Brigitte |
| Abstract: | Today a plethora of inter-company alliances exists. Firms have networked value chains, disclosing consequently their strategy, which assets are internalized or externalized, and their ability to cope with fast change. The picture of all interfirm alliances in high tech sectors is that of an unstable complex network, or macrostructure, that evolves quickly and into which firms are differently entwined. Structural metrics borrowed from network research in sociology such as centrality and constraint (or lack of “structural holes”) can be used to assess dynamically a firm’s position in the macro structure and therefore the market: does the firm occupy a dominant or dominated position in an industry? How do its partners and competitors perform? Drawing also from recent theories on complex networks developed by statistical physicists, we show that firms are embedded in dynamic complex networks that have a ‘scale-free’ format, with only a few firms or “hubs” controlling the system, as well as a cohesive or ‘small-world’ structure. This small-world structure, which allows rapid diffusion of innovation along very short paths, also constrains firms continuously and can lead to a fast reversal of their position on the market. Taking as an example a major sector of the biopharmaceutical industry, this study offers insights for managers to assess effectively their environment and navigate under constant pressure within these ever-changing networks. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; alliances; structural holes; centrality; complex networks; small world |
| JEL: | L65 L14 L24 O3 |
| Date: | 2008–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:12525&r=knm |
| By: | Alessandro Innocenti; Francesco Molinari |
| Abstract: | This paper provides evidence of the positive correlation between participation in the European ICT-RTD Programmes, the innovation capacity of the EU regions and the growth of regional added value adjusted by worked hours, We also offer additional support to the findings of previous studies concerning the raionale of the geographical concentration of innovation activities in some core areas of Europe. This evidence calls for a further integration of EU ICT-RTD policies at regional rather than national level, particularly encouraging the participation of regional organizations in multiple and related instruments. |
| Keywords: | regional innovation systems, regional growth, European policies, ICT RTD programmes. |
| JEL: | C23 E62 O38 R58 |
| Date: | 2008–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:depfid:1208&r=knm |
| By: | William D. Nordhaus (Dept. of Economics, Yale University) |
| Abstract: | Learning or experience curves are widely used to estimate cost functions in manufacturing modeling. They have recently been introduced in policy models of energy and global warming economics to make the process of technological change endogenous. It is not widely appreciated that this is a dangerous modeling strategy. The present note has three points. First, it shows that there is a fundamental statistical identification problem in trying to separate learning from exogenous technological change and that the estimated learning coefficient will generally be biased upwards. Second, we present two empirical tests that illustrate the potential bias in practice and show that learning parameters are not robust to alternative specifications. Finally, we show that an overestimate of the learning coefficient will provide incorrect estimates of the total marginal cost of output and will therefore bias optimization models to tilt toward technologies that are incorrectly specified as having high learning coefficients. |
| Keywords: | Learning by doing, Experience curves, Energy models, Technological change |
| JEL: | O3 O13 D83 |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1685&r=knm |
| By: | Matuschke, Ira |
| Abstract: | "In light of an increasing focus on new demand-driven extension approaches that aim at accelerating the adoption of innovative technologies by smallholder farmers in developing countries, greater analysis is needed of the role of rural social networks and their impact on technology adoption. This paper contributes to this topic by reviewing selected studies on rural social networks and by outlining a research approach that combines social network analysis with econometric estimation techniques in one coherent framework to strengthen the study of technology adoption by smallholders. If applied, such a framework could help establish which network characteristics have the greatest impact on technology uptake, thereby lending support to and improving the design of new extension approaches." from authors' abstract |
| Keywords: | Social network analysis, econometric modeling, adoption of innovations, farmer-to-farmer knowledge transfer, |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:816&r=knm |
| By: | Brita Bye, Taran Fæhn, and Leo A. Grünfeld (Statistics Norway) |
| Abstract: | Research and development (R&D) play a pivotal role for innovation and productivity growth, and knowledge spillovers can make the case for public support to private R&D. In small and open economies, absorption of foreign knowledge through exports and imports can be even more decisive for economic growth than domestic innovation. This macro economic analysis investigates how policies should be formed in order to reap the largest productivity effects, when both these sources of growth interplay. In particular, the firms’ capacity to absorb knowledge from abroad depends on domestic R&D, and this reinforces the efficiency arguments for stimulating R&D. We find that from a welfare perspective, export promotion of R&D-based technologies proves slightly more efficient than R&D support. |
| Keywords: | Absorptive capacity; Computable general equilibrium model; Endogenous growth; Research and Development; Spillovers; Two faces of R&D. |
| Date: | 2008–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:572&r=knm |