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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2014‒12‒29
eleven papers chosen by Laura Ştefănescu Centrul European de Studii Manageriale în Administrarea Afacerilor |
| By: | Marcus Berliant; Masahisa Fujita |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a new framework for modeling the fine microstructure of knowledge creation dynamics. Our focus is on the creation of working nowledge used in innovation, for example, the knowledge used by a researcher in the economics profession. The framework has been developed to address the following questions: What is the appropriate way to model the operational structure of working knowledge? How are specific new ideas, research papers, and patents created by a research worker or a group of them, based on the current stock of knowledge? What roles do dynamics, heterogeneity of ideas, heterogeneity of researchers, and cities or regions play? Using our framework, first we study how a researcher creates a new literature, choosing new assumptions, models, implications, and observations in each step. Next, we examine how two researchers interact in creating new complete literatures together. Finally, we discuss how to extend the analysis to N-person case in multiple cities or regions. In the last NARSA meetings in Atlanta, we presented preliminary results on the same topic. In this paper, we report further advances on modeling the fine microstructure of knowledge creation dynamics. |
| Keywords: | knowledge creation; dynamics; cities; regions |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa14p257&r=knm |
| By: | Petar Veselinović, Borivoje Rosić, Marija Stojanović (University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Economics) |
| Abstract: | In the second half of the twentieth century, there was a strong development of science, as well as the advance and spreading of technology, which have been recognized as key factors in determining the power and competitiveness of the national economy. One of the main reasons of certain countries coming to their wealth is the level of development of technology. The sole development of science and technology is not enough, but the development of a country depends on the socio - economic system, on its size, on the level of economic development, and on its capabilities to include a larger or smaller number of people in the field of scientific research and development process, as well as on the investments in those fields. Knowledge and modern technology are key factors of competitiveness of the economy to international markets and the increase of exports of technology products and services in international trade. Investments in human capital and technology contribute to economic growth and are a significant factor for innovation - driven national economy. |
| Keywords: | Competition, intellectual capital, innovation, education, knowledge management |
| JEL: | I25 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esb:casprv:2014-108&r=knm |
| By: | Hottenrott, Hanna; Lopes Bento, Cindy; Veugelers, Reinhilde |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the effects of an R&D subsidy scheme on participating firms’ net R&D investment. Making use of a specific policy design in Belgium that explicitly distinguishes between research and development grants, we estimate direct and cross-scheme effects on research versus development intensities in recipients firms. We find positive direct effects from research (development) subsidies on net research (development) spending. This direct effect is larger for research grants than for development grants. We also find cross-scheme effects that may arise due to complementarity between research and development activities. Finally, we find that the magnitude of the treatment effects depends on firm size and age and that there is a minimum effective grant size, especially for research projects. The results support the view that public subsidies induce higher additional investment particularly in research where market failures are larger, even when the subsidies are targeting development. |
| Keywords: | complementarity; development subsidies; innovation policy; R&D; research subsidies |
| JEL: | H23 O31 O38 |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10181&r=knm |
| By: | Dirk Assmann; Johannes Stiller |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to develop a spatial model that explicitly incorporates the different types of knowledge spillovers taking place in cities and to show how they affect the migration decision of individuals and the size of cities. We use a static general equilibrium framework with two types of labor (highly and less educated) and two asymmetric locations: The city and the periphery, where only the city provides highly educated workers with the opportunity to exchange knowledge via face-to-face interactions. Our model incorporates two forms of knowledge spillovers happening in these meetings whose intensities are dependent on the similarity of knowledge background of the interacting individuals: First, the individual build-up of skills through the process of learning increases in the similarity of knowledge backgrounds. And second, innovative output generated in a meeting decreases in the similarity of knowledge backgrounds. This reflects the general sentiment that diversity stimulates the emergence of groundbreaking innovations. We see that highly educated workers only focus on the build-up of their personal skills when deciding about the range of individuals in the city they accept to be matched with, whereas innovative output is seen as a by-product of the process of learning. The interplay of agglomeration and dispersion forces determines the allocation of workers in the spatial equilibrium. Moving to the city gives them the chance to increase their personal effectiveness through the process of learning in face-to-face meetings. On the other hand there are two dispersion forces at work: First, the crowding effect in the regional housing and decreasing returns to scale to supplied work. However, the equilibrium allocation of workers across the two regions is socially inefficient. As mentioned above highly educated workers only focus on the build-up of personal skills since the increase in personal effectiveness is directly compensated by firms. A Social Planner however, would recognize that meetings between more diverse individuals in the city would have a positive impact on innovative output. This inefficient decision additionally implicates that agglomeration forces do not reach their optimal extent and create cities that are smaller than socially optimal. The intuition behind this result is simple. People move to the city to maximize their personal outcome, but do not take into account their impact on the emergence of innovations, that are available for everyone. We are the first to explicitly model the impact of different forms of knowledge spillovers on agglomeration forces. We believe that our model's insights on the microfoundations of different types of knowledge spillovers provide a valuable contribution to the understanding of empirical observations like the skill and urban wage premium, because it offers the possibility to look at the forces at work affecting the empirical findings. |
| Keywords: | Imitation; Innovation; Matching; Knowledge Spillovers; |
| JEL: | R12 J24 |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa14p1101&r=knm |
| By: | Gibbs, Michael; Neckermann, Susanne; Siemroth, Christoph |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of a field experiment designed to motivate employee ideas, at a large technology company. Employees were encouraged to submit ideas on process and product improvements via an online system. In the experiment, the company randomized 19 account teams into treatment and control groups. Employees in treatment teams received rewards if their ideas were approved. Nothing changed for employees in control teams. Our main finding is that rewards substantially increased the quality of ideas submitted. Further, rewards increased participation in the suggestion system, but decreased the number of ideas per participating employee, with zero net effect on the total quantity of ideas. The broader participation base persisted even after the reward was discontinued, suggesting habituation. We find no evidence for motivational crowding out. Our findings suggest that rewards can improve innovation and creativity, and that there may be a tradeoff between the quantity and quality of ideas. |
| JEL: | C93 J24 M52 O32 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:14096&r=knm |
| By: | Valeria Cirillo (Department of Statistical Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome); Mario Pianta (Department of Economics, Society & Politics, Università di Urbino "Carlo Bo"); Leopoldo Nascia (Istituto Nazionale di Statistica) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the role of wages, education and innovation in shaping employment structures in manufacturing and services of five European countries (Germany, France, Spain, Italy and United Kingdom), with specific respect to skills in the long term (1999-2011). Using data on employment by skill level and several measures of industries’ technological efforts provided by four waves of Community Innovation Survey, we study the relationship between micro and macro factors and employment dynamics by skill. As micro factors, we consider the role of education and wages by employee; as macro elements we study the role of technologies and demand shaping job growth by skill group. Relying on a sectoral demand curve deriving from a translong cost function, we empirically estimate the relationship between wages, education, technologies, demand and employment. The results reveal that skills are differently affected by education, wages and technologies and a variety of employment patterns has to be detected. In 1999-2011, manufacturing shows a pattern of relative skill upgrading; conversely a smoothed polarizing trend is detected in services. While a process of relative skill upgrading is detected in manufacturing; conversely a smoothed polarizing trend is detected in services. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; Labor markets, Wages, Education. |
| JEL: | J31 O30 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:urb:wpaper:14_06&r=knm |
| By: | Gandal, Neil; Stettner, Uriel |
| Abstract: | Product development within and across community-based and geographically dispersed virtual organizations is becoming an increasingly important mechanism through which individual knowledge holders create and disseminate knowledge in joint efforts to generate products. Without the benefits of face-to-face communication, such organizations face a particular set of constraints in their exposure to knowledge and know-how. This “liability of dispersion” increases the importance of the architecture of network ties that undergird the distinct development efforts, the embedded social structures, and the particular relationships involved in their product-generating efforts. In this paper, we examine whether particular network structures foster knowledge transfer among distinct open-source projects. We conjecture that Star developers—actors characterized by increasing levels of embeddedness and the associated ability to form ties with several projects within a network—serve boundary-spanning functions that facilitate an organization’s ability to collect, assimilate, and apply external information. We find support for this conjecture in our investigation of a network of open-source software projects and developers compiled from a dataset drawn from Sourceforge.net. We also show that becoming part of a giant network component is associated with relatively large changes in project performance. |
| Keywords: | exploitation; exploration; Knowledge Spillovers; Network Dynamics; Open Source; social capital; Social Network |
| JEL: | L8 |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9980&r=knm |
| By: | Anabela Queirós (Faculdade de Economia do Porto); Aurora A.C. Teixeira (CEF.UP, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto; INESC TEC; OBEGEF) |
| Abstract: | Human capital is identified as one of the main determinants of economic growth and plays an important role in the technological progress of countries. Nevertheless, existing studies have to some extent neglected the importance of human capital on growth via the interaction it can have with a country’s industrial specialization. Additionally, the emphasis is mainly placed on supply-side determinants, being demand-side factors quite neglected, particularly the relevance of the processes of structural change. Thus, using a growth model which integrates variables from both the supply side and demand side, we assess the direct and indirect effects of human capital on economic growth, including in the latter the interaction of human capital with the industrial specialization of countries. Based on econometric panel data estimations involving a set of OCDE countries over 1960-2011, we found that the countries’ productive specialization dynamics is a crucial factor for economic growth. It is also shown that the interaction between human capital and structural change towards high knowledge-intensive industries impacts on the economic growth. However, the sign of this effect depends on the type of country and length of the period of analysis. Specifically, in the long term and in developed countries, where knowledge-intensive industries already account for a great share of the economy, the impact of the interaction between human capital and structural change is positive. In the case of less developed countries, and considering a shorter time period, the effect of human capital via specialization in high-tech and knowledge-intensive activities emerged as negative. |
| Keywords: | Economic Growth; Human Capital; Structural Change; Panel Data |
| JEL: | J24 O3 O4 O47 |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:fepwps:549&r=knm |
| By: | Reinhold Kosfeld; Mirko Titze |
| Abstract: | Strong regional clusters are increasingly seen as a response to economic globalization by policy makers and regional development agencies. The reasoning of competitive advantages of countries and regions with enterprises organized in clusters has mainly been popularized by Porter (1990, 1998, 2000). As well-working clusters are associated with high productivity growth and innovation potential, the cluster approach has become appealing in different fields of economic policy. In particular cluster-based instruments are in integral part of EU regional policy (Christensen et al., 2011). In most EU countries cluster-oriented policy plays an important role at the national and regional level (Oxford Research, 2008). This also holds for Germany where diverse national and regional programmes were set up to promote cluster development (Török, 2012). Although the cluster approach is based on the agglomeration theory, a variety of definitions of a cluster exists (Martin/Sunley, 2003). The present paper aims at improving the strategy of regional cluster identification. First, at the national level, the dominant related sectors of R&D intensive industries are basically discovered by qualitative input-output analysis (QIOA). Yet it has to be allowed for the fact that usually not all enterprises of these sectors belong to the respective value added chains. Thus, QIOA has to be supplemented by quantitative input-output analysis in order to avoid distortion effects that arise from defining too heterogeneous clusters. Here downstream and upstream sectors are considered according to their involvement in the production activities of the key industry. Secondly, at the local level, it has to be settled whether and how spatial externalities and spillovers should be allowed for in locating regional clusters. Most applied cluster studies ignore the presence of spatial interaction between interrelated geographical units. If geographical units are considered to be spatially independent in the presence of spillover, however, spatial clustering tends to be underestimated (Guillain/Le Gallo, 2007). Feser/Koo/Renski/Sweeney (2001) and Feser/Sweeney (2002) were the first to explicitly accounting for spatial interaction between regions in an applied cluster study for the US state of Kentucky. In a follow-up study, Feser/Sweeney/Renski (2005) extended spatial analysis to the United States as a whole. Both studies make use of the Getis-Ord statistic to measure and test for local spatial clustering (Ord/Getis, 1995). Recently, Pires et al. (2013) utilize the local Moran test for localizing industrial clusters in Brazil. A major drawbacks of both local methods is the necessity of fixing the environments of the regions in advance. reach of the geographical extent of potential spillover effects in advance. To allow for varying reaches of the geographical extent of regional interaction, here the flexible approach of spatial scanning is adopted (Kulldorff, 1997). On the basis of Kulldorff's scan test, the variable extent of potential regional clusters is accurately captured. |
| Keywords: | National cluster templates; regional clusters; Qualitative Input-Output Analysis (QIOA); spatial scanning |
| JEL: | R12 R15 |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa14p1396&r=knm |
| By: | Hervas Oliver,Jose Luis; Gonzalez,Gregorio; Caja,Pedro |
| Abstract: | The industrial district and cluster literature has generated an extraordinary quantity of articles, debates, and topics for discussion, and encompasses one of the most vibrant lines of research in the field of economics, geography, management and related disciplines. The literature, however, is fairly fragmented. In this paper, bibliometric methods are used to analyze cluster literature published between 1957 and 2014 in order to explore prospective research priorities through the method of bibliographic coupling. Beyond focusing on foundational works in the past, this approach shifts the focus away from the practice of analyzing co-citations and seminal contributions to one of looking at current and emerging trends in the literature. Using the ISI-Web of Knowledge (Web of Science) as a database, examination of two samples of 3,955 and 2,419 articles is made. Results reveal the existence of sub-fields of inquiry that are following their own particular research agendas, which remain distinct yet interconnected to one another. |
| Keywords: | cluster, industrial district, bibliometric analysis, Web of Science, bibliographic coupling |
| JEL: | R1 |
| Date: | 2014–11–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ing:wpaper:201409&r=knm |
| By: | Oscarina Conceição (DINÂMIA-CET, University Institute of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal & Polytechnic Institute of Cavado and Ave); Ana Paula Faria (Universidade do Minho - NIPE); Margarida Fontes (LNEG – National Laboratory of Energy and Geology. Lisbon, Portugal & DINÂMIA-CET, University Institute of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal) |
| Abstract: | Using a unique self-collected dataset that comprehends the population of research-based spin-offs created in Portugal from 1995 until to 2007, we investigate the location choices of these firms. In order to do so we control for both university- and region-related mechanisms. Our results suggest that the latter play a lesser role than university-related mechanisms. Although the availability of qualified human capital and urbanization economies seem to exert some effect on the location choices of research-based spin-offs, our results suggest that the quality and prestige of the universities located in a region, as well as the presence of university-affiliated incubators and/or university research parks have a stronger impact on the intensity of RBSO location across regions. |
| Keywords: | academic spin-offs; firm creation; location decision; count data analysis |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nip:nipewp:20/2014&r=knm |