CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND INNOVATION: A SURVEY

Abstract The traditional economics of innovation, inspired by Schumpeter and more recent advances on his work, seem unable to explain why firms with similar external conditions may show greatly different performance in innovation. Contrastingly, the literature on corporate governance provides some useful insights for understanding corporate innovation activity, to the extent that such literature examines the economic effects of different modes of coordination between firm members. The process through which individuals integrate their human and physical resources within the firm is central to the dynamics of corporate innovation. This paper provides the first survey of the literature on this issue. We start by discussing how various theoretical approaches to the analysis of the firm deal with technological innovation. We then describe three main channels – corporate ownership, corporate finance and labour – through which a system of corporate governance shapes a firm's innovation activity. Finally, we examine the relationship between country‐level institutional settings, national patterns of corporate governance and the aggregate innovation activity of corporations. We conclude by suggesting that future research should focus more deeply on the interrelation between the various dimensions of corporate governance and on their joint effect on firm innovation.     

Sectoral Shocks and Metropolitan Employment Growth

In this paper, we study the sources of industry employment growth in each of five metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). The objective is to understand the relative importance of aggregate disturbances versus local sectoral shocks in generating observed employment fluctuations at the MSA level. The empirical evidence presented in this paper derives from structural vector autoregressions (SVARs), estimated for each of the five MSAs. Estimations use monthly employment data covering nine one-digit industrial categories for the period 1951:1–1999:8, as well as two variables that capture the influences of aggregate (i.e., national) shocks on MSAs. We find that within-MSA industry shocks explain considerably more of the forecast error variance in industry employment growth than do aggregate shocks. Sectoral shocks account for between 87 and 94% of the 36-month-ahead forecast error variance. Among individual local sectors, shocks to MSA-specific government, manufacturing, and service sector employment growth are the predominate sources of variability.     

How open innovation processes vary between urban and remote environments: slow innovators,market-sourced information and frequency of interaction

Geographic research on firm-level innovation is generally premised on the idea of open innovation, suggesting that innovation occurs more readily in urban settings or clusters, which generate local buzz and allow access to external actors. However, a growing body of evidence demonstrates that firms also introduce first-to-market innovations in remote locations. In this exploratory paper, building upon work by Philip McCann, we outline a conceptual framework that connects innovators (differentiated by information source and frequency of interaction with interlocutors) and location (distance from a metropolitan area): slow innovators, relying on non-market-sourced information and infrequent contacts, will be overrepresented in isolated locations. Fast innovators, relying on market-sourced information and frequent interactions, will locate closer to cities. Our results confirm this. Our interpretation of these results – slow innovators are more reliant on technological information which loses value more slowly than faster decaying market-oriented information – requires further investigation.     

The influence of supply network structure on firm innovation

In this study, we examine the structural characteristics of supply networks and investigate the relationship between a firm's supply network accessibility and interconnectedness and its innovation output. We also examine potential moderating effects of absorptive capacity and supply network partner innovativeness on innovation output. We hypothesize that firms will experience greater innovation output from (1) higher levels of supply network accessibility and supply network interconnectedness, (2) the interaction between the levels of these two structural characteristics, (3) the moderating role of absorptive capacity on supply network accessibility and the moderating role of supply network partner innovativeness on supply network interconnectedness. Supply network partner relationships are drawn in the context of the electronics industry using data from multiple sources. We use social network analysis to create measures for each supply network structural characteristic. Using regression techniques to test the relationship between these structural characteristics and firm innovation for a sample of 390 firms, our findings suggest that supply network accessibility has a significant association with a firm's innovation output. The results also indicate that interconnected supply networks strengthen the association between supply network accessibility and innovation output. Moreover, the influence of the two structural characteristics on innovation output can be enhanced by a firm's absorptive capacity and level of supply network partner innovativeness. By addressing the need for deeper structural analysis, this study contributes to supply chain research by accounting for the embedded nature of ties in supply networks, and showing how these structural characteristics influence the knowledge and information flows residing within a firm's supply network.     

区域创新能力对经济发展质量提升的驱动作用研究

创新驱动是提高经济发展质量的第一动力,推动高质量发展的关键是通过创新提升经济效率。河南全要素生产率代表的经济发展质量与多层面区域创新能力(包括创新基础条件、创新投入、产出与创新制度等)的相互影响关系实证计量分析的结果表明,区域创新能力与经济发展质量间存在较为显著的长期因果关系,河南创新能力每增加一个百分点,经济发展质量相应提升0.6976%。同时还发现区域创新基础条件改善、制度创新能力提升与经济发展质量间存在的正向效应关系最为明显,而区域创新投入因与区域创新能力提升并不明显表现为同步关系,使其对经济发展质量的影响具有一定的滞后性。基于上述研究,促进区域发展质量提升应该强调战略新兴产业和高技术产业对产业优化的引领导向,进一步加大创新投入,促进企业创新主体作用发挥,持续强化区域创新活动的高水平人才支撑,推进制度创新,进一步深化科技体制改革。     

Testing a method to estimate county-level demand for educational attainment

Recent changes in federal support for local workforce training programs have created an increased need for methods of assessing demand for educational attainment in sub-state regions. This research extends current non-survey methods for estimating demand for educational attainment at the county level. It then evaluates the non-survey method on theoretical grounds, and compares survey and non-survey estimates for two West Virginia counties. We found significant differences between survey and non-survey results and conclude that current non-survey methodology will not consistently provide reasonably accurate estimates. We thus propose adjustments to this methodology that should improve its accuracy. Many, if not most, jurisdictions do not have the expertise or funds to carry out periodic employment surveys. Many local policymakers would therefore benefit from development of an inexpensive, straightforward non-survey methodology that provides reasonably accurate information on local employer demand for labor force characteristics such as educational attainment.     

Inside the high-tech black box: A critique of technology entrepreneurship policy

Promoting new technology-based firms is the cornerstone of technology entrepreneurship policies in advanced industrial economies. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative empirical evidence from the UK, this paper provides a critique of these policy frameworks. The aggregate analysis shows that vast majority of these firms are micro firms, a small minority of whom grow rapidly. The paper then highlights the incongruence between the nature of these firms and the public sector technology policies designed to support them. The qualitative data reveals that typically these firms are corporate rather than university spin-offs; most do not undertake large amounts of in-house R&D; most do not have protected IP; and only a small minority are VC-backed. Most derive their main competitive advantages from open innovation sources such as relationships with end-users and customers. The paper offers suggestions for how policy could be recalibrated to better reflect the requirements of local entrepreneurial actors and the types of support required by most high-tech SMEs.     

Do demand curves for stocks slope down?: Evidence from aggregate data

We examine whether the aggregate demand curve for stocks is downward sloping. As a proxy for aggregate demand, we use net outflows (dividends plus repurchases less net issues) from the stock market scaled by the previous year's market capitalization. To disentangle the information and price pressure effects from the demand curve effects, we use an information-free demographic variable as an instrument and look at the relation between annual changes in aggregate demand and excess market return. We find that information-free changes in the annual aggregate demand for stocks do not lead to changes in the annual excess market return. This finding supports long-term horizontal demand curves for stocks.     

Strategic interaction and aggregate incentives

We consider a model of interdependent efforts, with linear interaction and lower bound on effort. Our setting encompasses asymmetric interaction and heterogeneous agents’ characteristics. We examine the impact of a rise of cross-effects on aggregate efforts. We show that the sign of the comparative static effects is related to a condition of balancedness of the interaction. Moreover, we point out that asymmetry and heterogeneous characteristics are sources of non-monotonic variation of aggregate efforts.     

Voluntary Adopters of Integrated Reporting – Evidence on Forecast Accuracy and Firm Value

This study investigates how integrated reporting (IR) creates value for investors. It examines how providers of financial capital benefit from an improved firm information environment provided by IR. Specifically, this study investigates the effect of voluntary IR disclosure on analyst earnings forecast accuracy as well as on firm value. To do so, we use an international sample of 167 listed companies that voluntarily publish an integrated report. Our analysis shows no significant effect of a voluntary IR publication on analyst earnings forecast accuracy and no significant effect on firm value. We thus do not find evidence for the fulfillment of IR's promises regarding improved information environment and value creation of voluntary adopters. We conclude that such companies might already have a relatively high level of transparency leading to an absent additional effect of IR disclosure. Positive effects of IR appear to be more relevant in environments where IR is mandatory.     

Facilitating sustainable development decisions: measuring stakeholder reactions

Sustainable development is an issue of increasing importance, in which organizations must engage multiple stakeholders and consider their objectives when deciding on organizational actions, but research provides little guidance regarding how managers can measure stakeholder reactions and use information to facilitate decision‐making. The broad objective of this study is to provide insights useful for decision‐making. In this study, we investigate in its natural and complex environment a real‐world sustainable development conflict – whether to expand energy development in Wyoming. The primary issue is the impact that expanding energy development will have on wildlife and the environment. We collect data from both the local community and a broader national population for use in a quantitative analysis. We use contingent valuation methods to capture the social impact ascribed by the stakeholders. We conclude with a discussion of how this information can be used ex ante to inform decision‐making for sustainable development. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Agglomeration in an innovative and differentiated industry with heterogeneous knowledge spillovers

This paper introduces an agent-based simulation model to study the technological development, the economic performance of firms and the evolution of agglomerations in a differentiated industry. The analysis is based on the interaction and behavior of firms, which might share knowledge but at the same time are competitors on the goods markets. Firms do not only compete with quantities they can also introduce process and product innovations. The level of knowledge of a firm describes the capabilities to perform innovations. Knowledge can be accumulated by investing in R&D and by knowledge spillover, which depend on geographical and technological proximity. Simulation runs show that there is an incentive to agglomerate in young industries and that geographical proximity enhances innovation, especially the number of product innovations.      

Editorial: Purchasing and innovation: Past,present and future of the field of research

This paper introduces the special topic forum (STF) on purchasing and innovation. Presenting the findings from a systematic literature review, we take stock of the current state of the field, delineating themes, theories and methods, and identifying key trends over time. Our study shows a take-off in research on purchasing and innovation during the last decade. This has predominantly focused on private sector manufacturing firms although a recent expansion into public sector research is evident. Large-scale surveys and case studies are still the dominant research methods where the unit of analysis is typically the ‘firm’ or ‘project’. The findings also show how in the past the field was driven by questions on how purchasing can facilitate different types of innovation projects, seeking to derive practical implications, and rarely making explicit statements regarding theories applied; this still characterises much of the research but we find an increasing focus on theory development. We also see a shift in the type of technological innovation being investigated: past studies tended to focus on the role of purchasing in new product development (NPD) projects, which reflected a relatively low degree of technological uncertainty, but we see a trend towards innovation projects facing technological uncertainty. Research shows how this requires new ways of sourcing innovations and therefore new ways for purchasing to facilitate innovation sourcing. On the basis of the review, we offer our guidance for future research avenues to 1) carry out more research on procurement of innovation in the public sector; 2) consider new theories and research methods, and 3) go beyond firm-level or dyadic analysis to research networks and ecosystems. We conclude by introducing the papers in the STF.     

Share,price and category expenditure—geographic market effects and private labels

Focusing on the interaction between national brands and private labels, this paper has two main empirical contributions: (i) a simultaneous system of demand (share), price and expenditure equations is estimated, and (ii) differences in the structure of the local geographic market are incorporated into the analysis. The former represents an important step in understanding the complete nature of private label and national brand interaction, while the latter is important for understanding the impact of the local retail environment on market behaviour. IRI scanner data from 1991 and 1992 are used to estimate a five‐equation system across 135 food product categories and 59 geographic markets. The results suggest that concentration at both the manufacturer and retailer level can significantly affect private label and national brand price. However, while increased retailer concentration is associated with higher national brand and private label prices, higher manufacturer concentration is associated with higher national brand but lower private label prices. Increases in national brand advertising has the effect of raising national brand price and share, but lowering private label price and share. This is consistent with previous research and suggests that advertising and local market conditions play a significant role in the ability of national brands to price at a premium over private labels. Finally, marketing decision variables, such as display activity and private label distribution, can have an important impact on total category expenditure. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Is R&D spending influenced by disinvestment and local political corruption? The case of Indian central public sector enterprises

The current study examines the effect of disinvestment (dilution of state ownership) and local political corruption on R&D spending in enterprises owned by the central government of India. Based on certain characteristic features of innovation as a strategy available to state-owned enterprises, I build two sets of hypotheses formalising the channels of how these variables may affect the possibility and amount of R&D. Data is drawn from multiple sources to compile a dataset that covers all manufacturing central government-owned enterprises in India over a period of ten years from 2007 to 2016. The study employs an instrumental variable technique to reduce the endogeneity between disinvestment and R&D decisions. We find that, while disinvestment and local political corruption have strong negative effects on whether a firm invests in R&D or not, it has no effect on the amount of R&D. In fact, the amount is driven by a host of firm-specific factors such as size, profit and proficiency of the share of skilled labor, managerial strength and non-unionisation of labor. We also find that the effects are strongly driven by the size of firms, special status awarded to firms and the ideology of the state where the enterprise operates.     

Internal and External Antecedents of Process Innovation: A review and extension

Abstract

Innovation in public organizations is widely documented and has increasingly been the subject of empirical scrutiny. This article integrates the empirical evidence of the internal and external antecedents of process innovations in local governments and proposes directions for future research. The importance of the internal antecedents of organizational size, administrative capacity and organizational learning is uncovered using the meta-analytic support score method, but not in relation to external antecedents. Directions for further research are presented on the independent, joint and non-linear effects of antecedents on the adoption of innovation, and the implications of these arguments on the future study of innovation in local governments are considered from a structural contingency perspective.     

Future business and the role of purchasing and supply management: Opportunities for ‘business-not-as-usual’ PSM research

The raison d'être for this article is simple: traditional ways of researching, theorizing, and practicing purchasing and supply management (PSM) are no longer sufficient to ‘meet the moment’. Scholars need to advance a “business-not-as-usual” footing approach to their work, if they are to make a meaningful contribution to addressing the current and future emergencies, as highlighted by recent extreme weather and the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, what can this, or should this, mean for a field rooted in traditional business thinking? This article builds on the Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management's (JPSM) 25th Anniversary Special Issue editorial (2019); members of the JPSM's editorial team advance their unique perspectives on what “business-not-as-usual” means for PSM. Specifically, we advocate both thinking much more widely, in scope and ambition, than we currently do, and simultaneously building our ability to comprehend supply chains in a more nuanced and granular way. We explore whether the bias toward positivist work has omitted potentially interesting findings, and viewpoints. This leads to a call to re-think how we approach our work: should the key criteria always be to focus on theory development or testing? Should academics “think bigger”? Turning to specific research themes, illustrations of how our current thinking can be challenged or broadened by addressing the circular economy, and role of purchasing and innovation. Specifically, the focus on the PSM function as an intrapreneur within the larger organization, and the role of innovation and technology in PSM work. Taken together, we hope the ideas and arguments presented here will inform and inspire ambitious and novel approaches to PSM research with significant and enduring impact on the transformation of business.     

Validating a theoretical model of citizens’ trust in tourism development

This research establishes the theoretical link between the development of tourism and citizens' trust. The research is grounded in political economy of state intervention in tourism and draws from social exchange theory to build the theoretical model. The latter incorporates variables such as trust, power, knowledge, and benefits and costs of tourism, which are central to any exchange process between social actors. The model distinguishes and proposes a theoretical relationship between domain specific political trust and generic political trust. The former refers to citizens' trust in local government in the specific context of tourism development while the latter refers to citizens' general level of trust in local government. The model is tested using data collected from residents of the metropolitan area of Naples, Italy. Results suggest that residents’ trust in local government in the specific context of tourism strongly influences their general level of trust, suggesting a spill-over effect of political trust. We demonstrated empirically that political trust in the context of tourism and the general trust in an institution are theoretically distinct concepts. The constructs we used to conceptualize tourism development has distinct influence on the two dimensions of political trust.     

High-frequency credit spread information and macroeconomic forecast revision

We examine whether professional forecasters incorporate high-frequency information about credit conditions when revising their economic forecasts. Using a mixed data sampling regression approach, we find that daily credit spreads have significant predictive ability for monthly forecast revisions of output growth, at both the aggregate and individual forecast levels. The relationships are shown to be notably strong during ‘bad’ economic conditions, which suggests that forecasters anticipate more pronounced effects of credit tightening during economic downturns, indicating an amplification effect of financial developments on macroeconomic aggregates. The forecasts do not incorporate all financial information received in equal measures, implying the presence of information rigidities in the incorporation of credit spread information.     

Is synergy always good? Clarifying the effect of innovation capital and customer capital on firm performance in two contexts

The resource-based view (RBV) posits that a firm can leverage the effect of existing capital on firm performance via capital configuration, complementarity, and integration, but little empirical research has addressed these issues. This study investigates the effects of innovation capital and customer capital on firm performance, whether their complementary interactions are important determinants of relative firm performance within the industry, and whether these effects considerably differ significantly between high- and low-technology manufacturing firms. Based on data collected from 312 high-technology manufacturing firms and 204 low-technology manufacturing firms in the Taiwanese manufacturing industry, the results of SEM analyses demonstrate that the main effects of both innovation and customer capital significantly and positively impact firm performance. The analytical results demonstrate that: (1) a significant interaction effect only exists in the high-technology manufacturing firms; (2) the main effect of customer capital is lower among high-technology manufacturing firms; (3) the main effect of innovation capital is the same for both high- and low-technology manufacturing firms. Additionally, this investigation also discusses the limitations of the current research, future research directions, and the theoretical and practical implications of the empirical analysis.