CDM 20 years after

ABSTRACT

In year 1998, the seminal paper Research Innovation and Productivity: An Econometric Analysis at the Firm Level was published in this journal. The empirical framework, following on ideas in the research of Zvi Griliches at the NBER and commonly labeled CDM (the acronym of the three authors’ names, Crépon, Duguet and Mairesse) is one of the most influential contributions in recent literature on economics of innovation. The original CDM paper and papers inspired by its framework have received hundreds of citations in the empirical innovation literature. Whether directly linked or not to the CDM framework, the flow of studies improving on and enlarging the scope and methods of the empirical literature on R&D, innovation and productivity is continuing. Some of them, for example, focus on financing innovation, innovation and employment, innovation and trade, competition, or intellectual property; some adopt a managerial perspective, while others prefer an innovation system approach in a Schumpeterian tradition, etc. This introduction to the special issue of EINT surveys a collection of 12 papers on the CDM model by 25 authors from eight countries. The papers take stock of the evolution of research based on the original CDM model launched 20 years ago, linking it to the previous literature, and proposing developments and generalizations of it in various dimensions.     

The impact of adoptive management innovations on medium-sized enterprises from a dynamic capability perspective

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the nature of adaptive managerial innovation and its effects on organisational dynamic capabilities. Using an original model based on 16 items and PLS – SEM instrument on a sample of 261 Romanian companies, we conclusively demonstrated that dynamic capabilities are an important determinant for management of innovation. Our study further reveals the positive effects of sensing, absorptive and integrative capabilities upon the innovation process. We consider that our study contributes to the development of pragmatic approaches on organisational dynamic capabilities and management of innovation literature.     

Identifying and ranking novel indicators of MSMEs innovation potential

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to present the research on the identification and ranking of innovation potential indicators of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The main innovation management challenge is to recognise and measure factors that enable innovations. In that sense, the key 6 criteria and 41 indicators that describe innovation potential of MSMEs have been identified, based on expert judgment and the selected literature review in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship. Next, the rank of every indicator based on an expert’s assessment was determined by using Fuzzy AHP approach. A case study was conducted for Serbian MSMEs. The holistic approach, applied in this research for the identification of the innovation potential criteria and indicators, represents novelty and contribution to the literature. The presented procedure of the innovation potential indicators selection and ranking could be used as a bench-marking tool, to help managers to improve innovation capacity of the company.     

Induced Institutional Innovation and Transaction Costs: The Case of the Australian National Native Title Tribunal

The theory of induced innovation says that technological innovations which economize on relatively scarce inputs will be invented and adopted. Hayami and Ruttan have hypothesized that this model also holds for institutional innovations. Coase and Williamson suggest that economic organization, such as vertical integration, is the result of transaction cost minimization. Coase discusses the transaction costs of negotiation versus other alternatives for solving externality problems. This paper brings these previously unconnected threads of the literature together and incorporates transaction costs in an induced institutional innovation model.

This conceptual model is brought to bear on the issue of institutional innovations over time in relation to the National Native Title Tribunal. In addition to the reductions in transaction costs from a negotiated settlement rather than litigation, there are other advantages of negotiation. These may include improved “quality” of settlements, improved relations between the negotiating parties, and more timely resolution.     

Putting Austerity to Bed: Technical Progress,Aggregate Demand and the Supermultiplier

ABSTRACT

The paper investigates the determinants of private investment and economic growth from a theoretical perspective. We start with a critical analysis of the crowding-out effect and we present a new version of the Sraffian Supermultiplier: a model that accounts for both the multiplier and accelerator effects. We focus on different types of fiscal policies: generic ones and ‘mission-oriented’ ones that set a new direction for the economy. We show that mission-oriented policies have the potential to generate the largest positive effect on investments and output growth as well as on innovation processes and labour productivity growth.     

The sources and aims of innovation in services: Variety between and within sectors

Services dominate economic activity, but remain under-researched by analysts of innovation and technological change. The early 'one size fits all' theories of innovation in services have in recent years given way to an appreciation that services are diverse, not least in their innovation activities. This paper draws on recent empirical evidence from large-scale surveys undertaken in 13 western European countries, to investigate the extent and the sources of innovation in five services sectors. The analysis includes the extent to which services innovate, and amongst innovators the extent to which they engage in R&D and collaborative arrangements for innovation. The analysis supports the recent literature which emphasises significant differences between sectors in their pattern of innovation behaviour, but also highlights significant intra-sectoral differences in innovation behaviour. This intra-sectoral variation deserves much fuller investigation in the future.     

Information technology innovation and its impact on job creation by SMEs in developing countries: an analysis of the literature review

ABSTRACT

This study reviews the literature on the role of technology innovation in job creation through small businesses in developing countries. A seven-step approach to the literature review is used for synthesising relevant data. The results show that technology innovations influence employment creation in small businesses positively and act as a driving force for economic development. The effective use of information technology in small businesses has a major impact on their competitiveness and access to international markets. Thus, the need for the government to develop technology innovative strategies for small businesses to actualise their firm performance and enhance job creation is recommended. The findings and proposed theoretical model of the study enrich existing theories and would help policymakers understand the role of information technology innovation in job creation and economic development.     

The evolutionary process of disruptive green innovation in China: evidence from the electric bicycle sector

ABSTRACT

To achieve market-oriented green innovation, this paper explores the evolutionary path and driving factors of disruptive green innovation using an exploratory case study in which data are collected from the Luyuan electric bicycle company in China. The results reveal that disruptive green innovation is a dynamic and cumulative process. Entrepreneurship drives to open new markets. Competition within the industry drives to expand the new markets. Competition among industries and the subsidy policy drive to encroach on mainstream low-end markets. Technology and marketing drive to encroach on mainstream high-end markets. To scholars, our research contributes to the literature on green innovation by uncovering the application of disruptive innovation theory in the field of green innovation. To practitioners in firms, this evolutionary process can function as a frame of reference, enabling the tailoring of a market-oriented strategy for green innovation.     

Conditional factors Pushing catch-up across developed and emerging countries in the nanotechnology sector, 2000–2010

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to test national and sectorial technological and innovation capability factors, as well as social capability indicators, which could explain a possible conditional convergence across countries in nanotechnology within the context of a model of innovative technological knowledge β convergence. Based on growth convergence models, our proposal also takes into account the Schumpeterian theory, the National System Innovation –NSI– approach, and particularly the sectorial system of innovation and the technological catch-up hypothesis, as well as theoretical and empirical literature on conditional convergence. The findings allow us to confirm that new nanotechnology knowledge convergence is conditioned by a higher growth rate of technological capabilities in nanotechnology: growth from the initial level of patents granted, cumulative knowledge, and links to technological and scientific activities. Finally, as regards social capabilities, only the institutional weakness variable (corruption index) associates negatively with β convergence. As an emergent paradigm, we realize that convergence and catch-up are starting processes, which could allow less technologically developed countries to benefit from higher growth of some of the factors identified.     

Embracing invention similarity for the measurement of vertically overlapping claims

ABSTRACT

Clear and well-defined patent rights can incentivize innovation by granting monopoly rights to the inventor for a limited period of time in exchange for public disclosure of the invention. However, with cumulative innovation, when a product draws from intellectual property held across multiple firms (including fragmented intellectual property or patent thickets), contracting failures may lead to suboptimal economic outcomes. However, an alternative theory, developed by a variety of scholars, contends that patent thickets have a more ambiguous effect. Researchers have developed several measures to gauge the extent and impact of cumulative innovation and the various channels of patent thickets. This paper contends that mis-measurement may contribute to the incoherence and overall lack of consensus within the patent thickets literature. Specifically, the literature is missing a precise measure of vertically overlapping claims. We propose a new measure of vertically overlapping claims that incorporates invention similarity to more precisely identify inventive overlap. The measure defined in this paper will enable more accurate measurement, and allow for novel economic research on cumulative innovation, fragmentation in intellectual property, and patent thickets within and across all patent jurisdictions.     

Knowledge sharing and firm performance: the role of social networking site and innovation capability

This study developed a framework to explore SNSs' capability as a strategic platform from which firms can overcome environmental turbulence and develop higher level knowledge sharing and firm performance output. The moderating effects of two types of innovation capability, product development capability and operational capability, were taken into consideration. We propose that SNSs' capability paired with strong product development capability is the key to improving knowledge sharing performance. SNSs' capability paired with strong operational capability can improve firm performance by advancing incremental innovation processes. Drawing upon the literature regarding information systems, knowledge management, and firm innovation, we propose a conceptual model adopted from the environment-strategy-performance framework to explore how these key factors interact to determine the fate of a firm.     

Innovation and coordination: A schutzian perspective

This paper discusses the nature of innovation, the innovation process and its associated coordination problems in the subjectivist perspective. It argues that innovation, when viewed in the first person perspective, is not a homogeneous concept. Instead, the degree of newness of an innovation is determined subjectively by adopters. The stages of the innovation process described in the management literature are re-interpreted in light of Schutz' phenomenology. Innovation creates coordination problems. Schumpeterian innovation disrupts plans of market participants and threatens people's sense of reality. The stocks of knowledge of market participants are no longer able to solve new problems brought about by pioneering entrepreneurs. Knowledge taken for granted becomes problematic. As a result, coordination fails. In attempting to remove uncertainty arising from radical innovation, human agents create knowledge surrogates and project acts in the future perfect tense. Through a process of typification, successful actions are crystallised into firm routines and institutions that once again help to serve for coordination. The arguments developed in this paper throw new light on three aspects of business strategies, namely, management of innovation, vertical integration and advertising.     

Innovation and productivity in agricultural firms: evidence from a country-wide farm-level innovation survey

ABSTRACT

The literature on the links between innovation and productivity at the firm level in agriculture is almost nonexistent. In this paper, we analyze the factors behind the innovation effort of farms and the impact that innovation effort has on farm’s productivity, exploiting a unique farm-level agricultural innovation survey carried out in Uruguay. The results indicate that farm size, cooperation with other agents to perform R&D, the education of the owner of the farm, the participation of foreign capital and the existence of links with other organizations, in particular scientific, horizontal and vertical ones, are positively correlated with innovation effort. Public and private financial support are not clearly linked with innovation effort. The innovation effort has a positive effect on farm’s productivity. Some heterogeneities across industries in agriculture are found.     

Networks,Knowledge and Power: Decision Making,Politics and the Process of Innovation

This paper examines the highly political nature of innovation appropriation processes. The central focus is on the role of networks, networking, and knowledge in these processes. The data presented is drawn from two case study companies, both of which were implementing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. While formal, hierarchical authority was found to be an important contextual factor, shaping the appropriation processes examined, it was found that such authority was not automatically translatable into actual power. In terms of knowledge and networks, the paper concludes that they were inextricably inter-related, largely because the typically tacit nature of much relevant knowledge required the development of networks to access and utilize it. The paper further concluded that the use of both networks, and knowledge in the innovation appropriation processes examined had a dual character. They could not only provide access to relevant knowledge and artefacts, but could also be used as political tools in support of particular interests.     

The dynamics of regional learning paradigms and trajectories

While the literature is rich with studies on the identification of alternative types of learning processes that might exist in the real world, the identification of the determinants of the structural changes in regional learning processes is still an underexplored research field in regional innovation theories. This paper proposes the concept of regional learning paradigms and trajectories to study how alternative and more advanced learning processes arise in a region, and highlights the evolutionary path-creation strategies enabling a paradigmatic jump. By taking into consideration also learning modes typical of peripheral or declining industrial areas, generally left aside in previous theories, this new conceptual approach allows us to understand how more complex learning and innovation processes can emerge in all types of regions. From these reflections, spontaneous processes or policy recommendations to catch-up in the innovation ladder are highlighted for each type of region.     

R&D organization,monitoring intensity,and innovation performance in chinese industry

This paper examines the relationship between organizational design and technological innovation in Chinese industry. In a principal-agent model, monitoring intensity is an endogenously determined input to innovation production. A recursive system of an innovation production function and a monitoring intensity equation, where the latent monitoring intensity is indicated by the existence of an R&D organization, is estimated with a nonlinear two-stage estimator for a sample of large- and medium-sized Chinese state-owned enterprises. It is the first knowledge production function estimate for China's enterprises. I find that R&D organization affects innovation performance positively and significantly.     

Incorporating innovation subsidies in the CDM framework: empirical evidence from Belgium

ABSTRACT

This paper integrates innovation input and output effects of R&D subsidies into a modified Crépon–Duguet–Mairesse (CDM) model. Our results largely confirm insights of the input additionality literature, i.e. public subsidies complement private R&D investment. In addition, results point to positive output effects of both purely privately funded and subsidy-induced R&D. Furthermore, we do not find evidence of a premium or discount of subsidy-induced R&D in terms of its marginal contribution on new product sales when compared to purely privately financed R&D.     

Low-cost innovation and technology-driven innovation in China’s machinery industry

ABSTRACT

The political concept of indigenous innovation in China sets out a guiding principle for the country’s major transformation towards becoming an innovation nation. However, firms’ innovation strategies and capabilities in middle-income countries are usually heterogeneous, making a uniform response to this concept at the company level highly unlikely. The paper’s empirical contribution is based on analysing survey data on technologically advanced machinery firms in China. It uses a multinomial model approach to establish which drivers of innovation go hand-in-hand with the different innovation strategies. This paper identifies different innovation strategies and forms of innovation that co-emerge as part of this transformation, leading to four firm groups: low-cost producers, technology-oriented producers, user-oriented innovators and technology-oriented innovators. It thus contributes to a more differentiated view of the effects of China’s innovation-focused transformation. We find that R&D investments, governmental R&D support and scientific collaborations are key factors to distinguish between the above-mentioned groups.     

Information systems and information technologies as enablers of innovation and knowledge creation and sharing in professional service firms

ABSTRACT

This paper aims at exploring what are the factors enabling or threatening IT and IS innovation choices and how these factors interact to shape organisational change in accounting firms. Data have been collected through questionnaires concerning strategies related to IT and IS, to understand whether these strategies may enable innovation and knowledge creation and sharing. Insights are provided from the Italian setting, since its particular features of an ever-changing regulation and high competition. Findings show some additional insights to what stated by the literature, contending that some differences do exist relatively to firms’ size and localisation. In doing so, the paper provides interesting implications concerning IS and IT as enablers of innovation and knowledge sharing in PSFs.     

Cost estimate of platelet transfusion in the United States for patients with chronic liver disease and associated thrombocytopenia undergoing elective procedures

Aims: This study aimed to estimate the cost of platelet transfusion in patients with chronic liver disease (CLD)-associated thrombocytopenia undergoing an elective procedure in the United States.

Materials and methods: The study was conducted in two parts: development of a conceptual framework identifying direct, indirect and intangible costs of platelet transfusion, followed by the estimation of the total cost of platelet transfusion in patients with CLD-associated thrombocytopenia before an elective procedure in the United States using the conceptual framework and cost data obtained from a literature search. The cost of the entire care required to raise a patient’s platelet count before the procedure was considered.

Results: The final conceptual framework included the costs of generating the supply of platelets, the platelet transfusion itself, adverse events associated with platelet transfusion and refractoriness to platelet transfusion. When costs were accounted for in all the framework cost categories, the total direct cost of a platelet transfusion in a patient with CLD and associated thrombocytopenia was estimated to be in the range of $5258 to $13,117 (2017?US dollars) in the United States. The largest portion of costs was incurred by the transfusion event itself ($3723 to $4436) and the cost of refractoriness ($874 to $7578), which included the opportunity cost of a delayed procedure and subsequent platelet transfusions with human leukocyte antigen-matched platelets.

Limitations and conclusions: Although we were unable to include all cost components identified in the conceptual framework in our total cost estimate, thus likely underestimating the true total cost, and despite the data gaps and challenges limiting our estimate of the full cost of a platelet transfusion in patients with CLD-associated thrombocytopenia undergoing an elective procedure in the United States, this study outlines a comprehensive conceptual framework for estimating the cost elements of a platelet transfusion in these patients.