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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2009‒03‒07
ten papers chosen by Laura Stefanescu European Research Centre of Managerial Studies in Business Administration |
| By: | Margarida R. Paulos (IET, FCT-Universidade Nova de Lisboa); António B. Moniz (IET, FCT-Universidade Nova de Lisboa) |
| Abstract: | With the emergence of a global division of labour, the internationalisation of markets and cultures, the growing power of supranational organisations and the spread of new information technologies to every field of life, it starts to appear a different kind of society, different from the industrial society, and called by many as ‘the knowledge-based economy’, emphasizing the importance of information and knowledge in many areas of work and organisation of societies. Despite the common trends of evolution, these transformations do not necessarily produce a convergence of national and regional social and economic structures, but a diversity of realities emerging from the relations between economic and political context on one hand and the companies and their strategies on the other. In this sense, which future can we expect to the knowledge economy? How can we measure it and why is it important? This paper will present some results from the European project WORKS – Work organisation and restructuring in the knowledge society (6th Framework Programme), focusing the future visions and possible future trends in different countries, sectors and industries, given empirical evidences of the case studies applied in several European countries, underling the importance of foresight exercises to design policies, prevent uncontrolled risks and anticipate alternatives, leading to different ‘knowledge economies’ and not to the ‘knowledge economy’. |
| Keywords: | Knowledge-based economy; Future trends; Work |
| JEL: | J24 O14 O33 |
| Date: | 2009–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ieu:wpaper:11&r=knm |
| By: | Jan Bena |
| Abstract: | Using a dynamic model of a step-by-step innovation race between financially constrained firms, I study how financial constraints affect innovation activity. The novel theoretical results derive from an analysis of the interaction between the incentive effect of competition on innovation and the effect competition has on the degree of credit rationing. I find that the negative effect of financial constraints on firm- and aggregate-level R&D investment is most pronounced at both high and low levels of competition. These predictions are supported by empirical evidence: The competition-innovation relationship has an inverted-U shape in less financially developed systems relative to the benchmark pattern observed in countries with highly developed financial systems. Innovation-enhancing policies implemented through competition reforms ought to be complemented by promoting financial development. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, R&D, Competition, Financial constraints, Credit rationing. |
| JEL: | G15 G31 L13 O31 |
| Date: | 2008–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp377&r=knm |
| By: | Lederman, Daniel |
| Abstract: | It is so widely recognized that innovation is a key driver of economic growth that it is cliché to say so. This article studies product innovation by firms with data from 68 countries, covering more than 25,000 firms in eight manufacturing sectors. The author assesses the predictions of inter-disciplinary research on innovation by firms. The econometric evidence suggests that globalization and local knowledge increase the likelihood that firms will introduce new products. By contrast, domestic regulatory impediments to competition are not robustly correlated with product innovation. |
| Keywords: | E-Business,Innovation,Microfinance,Education for Development (superceded),Statistical&Mathematical Sciences |
| Date: | 2009–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4840&r=knm |
| By: | Aghion, Philippe; Van Reenen, John; Zingales, Luigi |
| Abstract: | We find that institutional ownership in publicly traded companies is associated with more innovation (measured by cite-weighted patents). To explore the mechanism through which this link arises, we build a model that nests the lazy-manager hypothesis with career-concerns, where institutional owners increase managerial incentives to innovate by reducing the career risk of risky projects. The data supports the career concerns model. First, whereas the lazy manager hypothesis predicts a substitution effect between institutional ownership and product market competition (and managerial entrenchment generally), the career-concern model allows for complementarity. Empirically, we reject substitution effects. Second, CEOs are less likely to be fired in the face of profit downturns when institutional ownership is higher. Finally, using instrumental variables, policy changes and disaggregating by type of owner we find that the effect of institutions on innovation does not appear to be due to endogenous selection. |
| Keywords: | career concerns; Innovation; Institutional Ownership; productivity; R&D |
| JEL: | G20 G32 O31 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:7195&r=knm |
| By: | Martin Shubik |
| Date: | 2009–02–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cla:levarc:814577000000000151&r=knm |
| By: | NAGAOKA Sadao; John P. WALSH |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes and compares the objective, the nature and the performance of R&D projects in the US and Japan, based on the first large scale systematic survey of inventors, focusing on the R&D projects yielding triadic patents. Major findings are the following. First, the projects for enhancing the existing business line of a firm account for a large share of R&D projects in both countries, confirming the view that the R&D investment is significantly conditioned by the existing complementary asset of a firm. In both countries, the inventions from R&D for existing business have the highest in-house utilization rate but use least the scientific and technical literature for their conceptions, while the reverse is the case for the inventions from R&D for new technology base (or for cultivating seeds). R&D projects for enhancing the technology base are much more common in the US. This difference can be partly accounted for by US inventors being more likely to have a PhD, but not by the differences in the structure of finance. US government financial support is relatively more targeted to projects for existing business and US venture capital provides support mainly projects for creating new business (6% of them), but not for more upstream projects. Only about 20-30% of the projects are for process innovation in both countries, providing direct evidence for the earlier findings that were based on US patent information. Product innovation generates process patents more often in Japan than in the US (25% vs. 10%), while product innovation projects are relatively more numerous in Japan. In both countries a significant share of inventions (more than 20%) were not the result of an R&D project, and a substantial proportion of such inventions are valued among the top 10% of patents, suggesting that R&D expenditure significantly underestimates inventive activities. A US invention is more often an unexpected by-product of an R&D project (11%) than in Japan (3.4%). The two countries have surprisingly similar distributions of R&D projects in man month and the average team size. In both countries, smaller firms tend to have relatively more high-value patents. In the US, inventors from very small firms (with less than 100 employees) and universities jointly account for more than one quarter of the top 10% inventions, even though they account for only 14% of all inventions. Man-months expended for an invention has a significant correlation with the performance of the R&D projects for existing business, less so for new business and not at all for those enhancing the technology base, suggesting substantial heterogeneity by project types in the determinants of the performance and in the uncertainty. A PhD has a significant correlation with R&D project performance especially for new business. |
| Date: | 2009–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:09010&r=knm |
| By: | Luca Zamparelli |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a growth model combining elements of endogenous growth and induced innovation literatures. In a standard induced innovation model firms select at no cost innovations from an innovation possibilities frontier describing the trade-off between increasing capital or labor productivity. The model proposed allows firms to choose not only the direction but also the size of innovation by representing the innovation possibilities through a cost function of capital and labor augmenting innovations. By so doing, it provides a micro-foundation both of the intensity and of the direction of technical change. The policy analysis implies that an increase in subsidies to R&D as opposed to capital accumulation raises per capita steady state growth, employment rate and wage share. |
| Keywords: | Induced innovation, endogenous growth, direction of technical change |
| JEL: | O31 O33 O40 |
| Date: | 2009–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dsc:wpaper:4&r=knm |
| By: | Aneesh Zutshi (IET, FCT-Universidade Nova de Lisboa) |
| Abstract: | Today all kinds of innovations and research work is done by partnerships of competent entities each having some specialized skills. Like the development of the global economy, global innovation partnerships have grown considerably and form the basis of most of the sophisticated innovations today. To further streamline and simplify such cooperation, several innovation networks have been formed, both at local and global levels. This paper discusses the different types of innovations and how cooperation can benefit innovation in terms of pooling of resources and sharing of risks. One example of an open global co-innovation network promoted by Tata Consultancy Services, the TCS COIN is taken as a case. It enables venture capitalists, consultants, research agencies, companies and universities form nodes of the network so that each entity can play a meaningful role in the innovation network. Further, two innovation projects implemented using the COIN are discussed. Innovation Networks like these could form the basis of a unique global innovation network, which is not owned by any company and is used by innovation partners globally to collaborate and conduct research and development. |
| Keywords: | innovation partnerships; co-innovation network |
| JEL: | D85 L14 L22 |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ieu:wpaper:10&r=knm |
| By: | Anna Stepanova |
| Abstract: | In a two-stage R&D game of process innovation, we investigate the effect of exogenously changing R&D spillovers and market concentration on the equilibrium level of effective cost reduction, total output, profits and social welfare. Interpreting spillover as a measure of patent protection, we find that weaker patent protection results in less R&D. We also show that firms prefer weaker patent protection, but social welfare is maximized for higher levels of patent protection. In terms of market concentration we show that firm profits decrease with increasing numbers of firms. Social welfare is typically maximized under oligopoly with the optimal number of firms depending on the level of spillover and efficiency of R&D investment. |
| Keywords: | oligopoly; R&D; competition; spillover process; cost reduction; market concentration |
| JEL: | C72 L13 O31 |
| Date: | 2009–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:0901&r=knm |
| By: | Burcu Türkcan (Department of Economics, Ege University); Erkan Erdil (Department of Economics, Middle East Technical University); Ý. Hakan Yetkiner (Department of Economics, Izmir University of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper tests the impact of ICT on economic growth for underdeveloped and developing countries by using a panel dataset for the period of 1995-2006. We first develop the theory between ICT and economic growth. We show that ICT capital has a positive effect both on long-run and transitional income per capita, if it is considered as a factor of production. Next, we estimate a panel data set with 131 underdeveloped and developing countries under the assumption that ICT is one of the determining factors of economic growth. We find that ICT has positive and significant effect on economic growth even after the use of some control variables. |
| Keywords: | ICT, economic growth, Panel Data, GMM, human capital, developing countries, underdeveloped countries |
| JEL: | C33 O5 O33 |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:izm:wpaper:0901&r=knm |