Multinational Exposure and the Quality of New Chinese Exports

We exploit information on the geographic, product and trader characteristics of China's 1997–2009 exports to examine how the evolving city‐industry presence of multinational firms influenced the quality, frequency and survival of new export transactions by private Chinese firms. Our results show that own‐industry multinational firm contact was associated with more frequent, higher‐valued, and longer‐lasting new trade transactions. These effects appear to arise from beneficial multinational spillovers, rather than selection effects due to increased multinational competition, as increases in own‐industry or other multinational presence were also associated with an increase in the number of trade transactions introduced by private Chinese firms.     

Explaining Firms’ Export Behaviour: R&D,Spillovers and the Destination Market*

We examine the importance of a firm's own R&D activity and intra‐sectoral spillovers on the decision to export and the export intensity using firm level panel data for Spain for the period 1990–98. Own R&D activity is found to be an important determinant of export activity. There is little evidence to suggest that Spanish firms benefit from spillovers of the exporting activity of others. However, there is evidence that R&D spillovers exert positive effects on firms’ export ratios. We find a larger marginal impact of R&D spillovers on export intensity of firms exporting to other OECD countries than those exporting to non‐OECD nations.     

外资企业生产本地化程度的影响因素研究

提高外资企业生产本地化水平是东道国获取外资企业技术转移与扩散的重要途径,但外资企业生产本地化水平的提高却受到东道国区位优势、政策制度等因素的影响.通过采用我国2001年-2007年规模以上工业企业的数据以及对面板数据模型的分组,实证研究了各种因素对不同地区、不同类型、不同行业的外资企业生产本地化程度的影响及原因.得出的结论是:知识产权保护水平、对外资企业出口的强制性要求等因素对外资企业生产本地化具有正面影响;市场规模因素仅对市场占有型的外资企业生产本地化具有正面影响;市场化水平、贸易体制的对外开放水平、东部地理区位优势等因素对外资企业生产本地化具有负面影响或影响不显著,其原因可能是我国知识产权保护水平不高.     

Determinants of licensing activities of local public technology centers in Japan

Local public technology centers are publicly managed institutions that facilitate technology transfer to small local firms. As well as providing small local firms with various technological services, local public technology centers conduct their own research and patent inventions. This study examines factors facilitating licensing activities and finds that the determinants vary according to the phase of technology transfer. Employing more Ph.D. scientists tends to promote the licensing of patents, while organizational efforts that encourage scientists to better understand the technological needs of small local firms tend to increase royalty revenue. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.     

Technology exploitation in the context of open innovation: Finding the right ‘job’ for your technology

In light of the recent economic crisis, many industrial firms attempt to capture additional value from their technologies by means of open innovation strategies. Besides acquiring external technology, many firms therefore increasingly try to license their own technology to other firms either exclusively or in addition to its application in their own products. This article shows that technology licensing offers important strategic benefits beyond generating licensing revenues, which underscore the need for an integrated management of technology licensing activities. Therefore, this article extends the concept of job-related markets that was recently developed in the managerial literature. A ‘job’ is the fundamental problem that a customer needs to resolve in a particular situation. Managers may transfer this job-related understanding to technology licensing activities because the right ‘job’ for a technology may be outside a firm’s boundaries, and it may help firms to identify additional licensing opportunities. On this basis, the article presents the concept of an integrated technology exploitation roadmap, which allows firms to use the job-related markets to integrate technology licensing in their strategic planning processes. An example of a machinery firm shows how this roadmap may contribute to strengthening a firm’s licensing business.     

Defining and improving technology transfer business and management processes in university innovation centres

The complex and dynamic behaviour associated with technology transfer business processes combined with the technological risk involved in the participating small firms, has led to a lack of business process definition and improvement in this area. Furthermore, the embryonic firms are highly individualistic with differing needs for assistance and development. There may also be a tendency to provide infrastructure and basic services with an avoidance of business process definition and hence, improvement.The aim of this paper is to investigate how potential business and management inputs can be used to define and to suggest improvements for two key technology transfer business processes, namely the technology licensing process and the business building process.A stratified pathway process mapping approach is used. This research approach includes semi-structured interviews with University Innovation Centre small firms, focus groups with Innovation Centre stakeholders and best practice benchmarking.The findings indicate that a modified processual approach can be adopted to define key business processes within technology transfer. Using this approach it is possible to show where business and management interventions can most effectively be deployed in each process.     

Liquidity constrained exporters

I propose a model of international trade with liquidity constraints. If firms must pay a fixed entry cost in order to access foreign markets, and if they face liquidity constraints to finance these costs, only those firms that have sufficient liquidity are able to export. A set of firms could profitably export, but are prevented from doing so because they lack sufficient liquidity. More productive firms that generate large liquidity from their domestic sales, and wealthier firms that inherit a large amount of liquidity, are more likely to export. This model offers a potential explanation for the apparent lack of sensitivity of exports to exchange rate fluctuations. When the exchange rate appreciates, existing exporters lose competitiveness abroad, and are forced to reduce their exports. At the same time, the value of domestic assets owned by potential exporters increases. Some liquidity constrained exporters start exporting. This dampens the anti-competitiveness impact of a currency appreciation. Under some conditions, it may reverse it altogether and increase aggregate exports. In this sense, the model is able to rationalize the co-existence of competitive devaluations and competitive revaluations.     

The Role of Export Market Participation in the Choice of Organizational Form of Production Technology*

This paper shows that the reason for a higher capital–labour ratio, observed for exporting firms, is a higher capital intensity of their production technology. Exporters choose to use different organizational forms of their production process, in which the share of capital and intermediate inputs in the final output is higher than that of non‐exporters. The organization of the production process is part of the firm's organizational strategy, which generates within‐industry heterogeneity in factor intensities and production technologies. The results of this study indicate that the decision to export is preceded by a process of restructuring production technology, which then has the effect of increasing a firms’ productivity and in so doing prepares them for competition in the global market.     

Learning and technological capability building in emerging economies: The case of the biomass power equipment industry in Malaysia

There is increasing recognition that the transfer of foreign technology to developing countries should be considered in light of broader processes of learning, technological capability, formation and industrial development. Previous studies that have looked at this in the context of cleantech industries in emerging economies tend to overlook firm-level specifics. This paper contributes to filling this gap by utilising in-depth qualitative firm-level data to analyse the extent to which the use of different learning mechanisms can explain differences in the accumulation of technological capabilities. This is explored via an examination of eight firms in the biomass power equipment industry in Malaysia during the period 1970–2011. The paper finds that firms relying on a combination of learning from foreign technology partners and internal learning by planned experimentation make most progress in terms of technological capability. Nevertheless, local spill-over effects were found to be important for some firms who learned principally from imitation of local competitors, although significantly, firms learning from local spillovers failed to advance beyond extra basic operating technological capabilities. Those firms who proactively pursued learning from foreign partners, on the other hand, advanced further, reaching basic innovative levels of technological capabilities. These findings are relevant for a wider range of industrial sectors in emerging economies.     

知识联盟与企业知识转移

知识联盟是现代企业战略联盟的一种重要形式。企业在组建知识联盟的过程中,可促使企业之间隐含性知识的转移,并且还能学习和创造新的交叉知识。企业隐含性知识能否在知识联盟的过程中实行有效转移,组织学习具有非常重要的意义,企业需要有明确的学习目标和较强的学习能力。     

企业股权结构与股权转让效率——以中国大陆A股上市公司为例

通过对中国大陆A股上市公司股权转让数据的分析表明,企业股权转让更容易发生在股权较为分散的公司中,但是股权转让后的企业效率并没有明显的改善,公司控制权的转移往往对企业绩效产生负面的影响。由此可见,通过鼓励企业股权结构分散化并对控制权私人收益加以必要的管制,对提高股权转让的效率将起到非常重要的作用。     

Mergers to Monopoly

Horizontal mergers between firms that have different costs are examined. Owners can transfer technology to an acquired firm and decide whether to consolidate or operate their firms as separate entities in the product market. Thus mergers can exhibit both efficiencies and a market-power effect. The prices of target firms are determined via a bargaining game. An equilibrium sequence of mergers entails the largest firm targeting the next largest rival firm. Initially, this sequence of mergers with technology transfers involves no consolidations and improves welfare. Ultimately, the acquisitions lead to consolidation and may decrease total welfare.     

Measurement Issues in Financial Reporting

Research on management control has emphasised the relevance of controls for knowledge integration on a project-by-project basis. This work contributes to this field by proposing a framework to explain how management control systems foster knowledge transfer between organisational units in knowledge-intensive firms. By combining network theory and knowledge network research, this study suggests that the design of management control systems should consider various forms of relationships between individuals (strong/weak, direct/indirect) that these systems activate and that are necessary to transfer various forms of knowledge (process, outcome, technology or opportunities) characterised by different levels of causal ambiguity and relatedness. An in-depth empirical analysis of a software firm and three of its projects shows that management controls may act as important mechanisms of knowledge circulation and that some principles reinforce this function. In particular, to achieve organisational knowledge transfer, enforceability of manuals and procedures, scalability of reviews and decisions, mobility induction of individuals, and multiplicity of roles and accountabilities are indicated as desirable design properties of control systems in knowledge-intensive firms.     

A knowledge-based typology of university spin-offs in the context of regional economic development

Drawing on the literature pertaining to the role universities play in promoting technology transfer, this paper develops an insightful conceptualization of spin-off processes, and applies it to a current regional case study. The suggested typology of university spin-off/start-up firms is based on several variables, including the type of university sponsorship, university involvement in firm formation, the character of knowledge applied, and co-localization of the founders. The empirical case study is used to demonstrate the usefulness of this approach in analyzing spin-off firms, and their dynamics. The study is based on interviews conducted with university spin-offs/start-ups in the information technology (IT) sector located in the Kitchener and Guelph metropolitan areas. This region, which is home to the University of Waterloo – one of Canada’s premier science and technology universities – has experienced an impetus of spin-off processes originating from university research dating back to the 1970s.The results of our analysis expose several trends: Sponsored spin-offs are largely the result of particular university research projects, and apply specific knowledge inputs in the development of their initial core technology. Unsponsored spin-offs, which find their foundation in decentralized idea development outside of the university setting, almost entirely rely on generic broad knowledge bases for the development of innovative products and services, which have enabled the firm-formation process. Overall, it is surprising that even firms that have received some form of university support described the role the University of Waterloo had in their start-up process as marginal. The dynamic research approach applied in this study, which outlines the university’s changing role over time and the regional dynamics associated with spin-off firms, further demonstrates the potential of our typology. As such, our typology of university-related start-up/spin-off firms is designed to support studies concerned with the wider impact of universities on technology transfer and regional development.     

Strategic Technology Management in a Mid-corporate Firm: the Case of Otter Controls

This paper examines strategic technology management in the mid-corporate sector (firms with a turnover between £1 million and £130 million). There is a considerable literature which emphasizes the importance of linking technology and strategy, but this concentrates primarily on the activities of large firms. It is suggested that smaller firms can also benefit from a more strategic approach to technology management and this could help strengthen an area of weakness in the UK economy. The research is based on an in-depth case study of Otter Controls and utilizes a framework developed by Dodgson and Rothwell to analyse the firm's acquisition of new technologies. It is suggested that this model has utility in examining strategic technology management but the addition of a network perspective helps delineate the ways in which external relationships are established and sustained. The data indicate that universities can be useful sources of technology for smaller firms, but successful transfer is dependent on management skill in creating a culture that is open and flexible. Such firms do have considerable problems in assessing the skills and competences of university departments and this adds to the risks of technology alliances. There is also evidence to suggest that even universities with long-standing industrial links lack awareness of the problems associated with management in commercial organizations.     

Which model of technology transfer for nanotechnology? A comparison with biotech and microelectronics

Nanotechnologies are often presented as breakthrough innovations, where technology transfer and knowledge-bridging will play a pivotal role in the industrial dynamics. This article investigates the model of knowledge transfer in the nanotechnologies in depth, by comparing it with the models of two recently emerged technologies: biotech and microelectronics. Our results show that the nanotechnology transfer model is very different from that involved in biotechnology evolution: while small–medium firms play a valuable technology-bringing role, the central function of “translating” new knowledge between public research and industry is carried by the larger firms, just as it was in the early stages of the microelectronics sector. These results suggest that specific policy initiatives to facilitate biotech's transfer are inappropriate to boost the diffusion of nanotechnology.     

Import-led technological capability: a comparative analysis of Indian and Indonesian manufacturing firms

This research investigates the critical elements that affect the ability of firms in developing countries to cultivate their technological capability through imported technology. Based on resource-based theory, we propose both internal and external factors contribute to technological capability of the recipient firms. Technology planning and control, market orientation, training and number of technical manpower were the internal factors considered in this study. Government support and national technology infrastructure are the external factors proposed to affect the technological capability of firm. Data collected from Indian and Indonesian manufacturing firms reveals that R&D investment, and availability of technical personnel; the transfer channels; government’s involvement; and the firm’s learning culture are significant contributors to the technology capability process. Also, the acquisition of mature technology just to boost production capacity or improve product quality contributes very little to the development of technological capability.     

Corporate financial determinants of foreign direct investment

Financial market incompleteness and (partial) segmentation of financial markets internationally may endow some firms with a financial advantage which can be exploited through foreign direct investment. We argue that this advantage appears as a distinct cost-of-capital effect on FDI, and identify possible channels for such an effect. Using a sample of European firms’ cross-border acquisitions, and controlling for traditional firm-level determinants of FDI, we find strong support for a cost-of-equity effect, whereas the effect of debt costs is indeterminate. Moreover, financial FDI determinants are more important for firms with high knowledge intensity and for firms resident in relatively less financially developed countries.     

Adoption of cleaner technology for climate proactivity: a technology–firm–stakeholder framework

The adoption of cleaner technology (CT) has the potential to play an important role in tackling the impacts of business on climate change on business. It is therefore important to understand the factors motivating the adoption of CT in business. Using a technology–firm–stakeholder framework, this study proposes a perception‐based model for the adoption of CT for climate proactivity that is tested against data collected from 106 firms in India. Six factors are tested using a logistic regression and five are found to be significant in distinguishing adopter firms from non‐adopter firms. The results suggest that the perception‐based model using a technology–firm–stakeholder framework is a useful approach for examining factors affecting the adoption decision. While techno‐economic benefits are perceived to be higher by adopter firms than by non‐adopter firms, other benefits are not perceived differently by either adopter or non‐adopter firms. In addition, adopter firms perceive lower financial costs and higher technical capability than non‐adopter firms do. Also, adopter firms perceive higher regulatory pressure but lower stakeholder pressure than non‐adopter firms do. Implications of the findings and future research areas are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Knowledge transfer and competitive advantage on environmental uncertainty: An empirical study of the Taiwan semiconductor industry

This study investigates the inter-relationships among environmental uncertainty, knowledge transfer, and competitive advantage. Based on 176 subjects from the R&D and manufacturing department of 56 Taiwan semiconductor companies, this paper implements a structural equation model to test the research framework and hypotheses. It finds that knowledge transfer could develop semiconductor firms’ core competence and then build their own competitive advantage. In addition, this study considers that environmental uncertainty is a vital factor during knowledge transfer. Research results indicate that the partially mediated model shows good model fitness for this relationship. In addition, the relationship between environmental uncertainty and knowledge transfer is negative, and knowledge transfer and competitive advantage have a positive relationship. This means that environmental uncertainty could hinder knowledge transfer and lead semiconductor firms to develop knowledge by themselves. Therefore, knowledge transfer to semiconductor firms is very important for technological and knowledge management activity in this rapidly changing industry environment.