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.     

老龄化社会和谐与保险行业创新

在建设和谐社会的过程中，必须面对我国人口老龄化的现实，从这层意义上说，建设我国和谐社会，也就是建设一个老龄化的和谐社会。因此，必须加快保险行业制度创新与产品创新步伐，主动适应社会发展要求，以保险业自身的创新及和谐进步来保障老龄化社会和谐建设。     

Time path in innovation, imitation, and growth: the case of the motorcycle industry in postwar Japan

This study attempts to explore how an industry evolves over time based on a case study of the motorcycle industry in Japan from 1948 to 1964. Using individual firm data, we estimate the determinants of technology improvement and firm growth separately for different development phases, after controlling for the probability of firm survival. We find that the industrys rapid growth in the early phase can be explained by massive entry and the imitation of simple technologies, whereas sustained growth in later phases can be explained by innovations and subsequent imitations, as well as the exit of inefficient firms.JEL Classification: O14, L10, L62, N65 Correspondence to: Tetsushi SonobeWe are grateful to Kotaro Horiuchi, Shunji Tanaka, Katsuaki Nishino, Michael Kevane, Uwe Cantner, and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions.     

The impacts of innovations and standards on trade of measurement and testing products: empirical results of Switzerland’s bilateral trade flows with Germany, France and the UK

Nowadays, the impact of the measurement and testing infrastructure on economic performance and trade is theoretically and even politically widely accepted. However, there are no empirical studies on this issue. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the impact of innovative capacity and technical standards as one important part of the measurement and testing infrastructure on international trade flows and competitiveness. In order to focus on the direct causality between innovative technology and measurement and testing standards and the respective market, the empirical analysis concentrates on the trade of measurement and testing products of a country with a top position in measurement and testing technology. In its empirical analysis of Switzerland’s trade flows with Germany, France and the UK, the paper follows the approach of the pioneering paper of Swann et al. (Economic Journal 106 (1996) 1297), who integrated for the first time technical standards as a technology indicator in the estimation of UK trade performance. The trade flows in measurement and testing products from 1980 until 1995 are explained by both an indicator for innovative capacity and for the degree of standardisation. The first indicator is based on the patent applications at the European patent office. The latter uses the stocks of technical standards in the countries differentiated by their regional scope. Four different trade equations are analysed, besides an export and an import function, the trade balance and the intra-industry trade. The results clearly show that both Switzerland’s innovative capacity and its stocks of standards are able to explain its export performance in the three countries. Secondly, especially the stocks of international standards in Switzerland have a positive impact on imports into Switzerland from the three countries, confirming their positive role for fostering trade in general. Thirdly, Switzerland’s export surplus concerning the three trade partners is positively affected by the stocks of international standards in Switzerland, which seem to be an important factor for international competitiveness. Finally, the results of the intra-industry model underline the common view of the general trade-fostering effect of even national standards in the case of the trade with the three countries.     

Driving force from authorities: the evolution of innovation system for biomedical industry in China

Over the past 30 years, China has fully exploited its advantage to steadily foster an innovation system for the biomedical industry with Chinese characteristics, that is, ‘Government-guided, resource-integrated and long-term planning.’ The system originated from historically famous ‘863 program’ in the 1980s, evolved with a series of favourable policies in the different periods, and eventually has taken shape in the industrial clusters across the country. It features with a systematic and integrated R&D infrastructure (or public platform) at different levels. In this study, China’s biomedical innovation system will be examined and the leading role of Chinese authorities will be explored from the perspective of Triple Helix theory. As the ‘highland of innovation’, Shanghai case is highlighted with plentiful information gathered from primary sources in the involved agencies for the first time, including the Shanghai Biopharma Service Platform.     

Collaborative innovation and policy support: the emergence of trilateral networks

ABSTRACT

The present article models the critical factors for a successful and evolutionarily stable National System of Innovation. We simulate a model, against the background of increasingly complex technologies, in a national process of agents’ interactions with social-dilemma characteristics. In particular, the articleinvestigates the emergence of a trilateral collaborative innovation alliance among ‘enterprise’, ‘university’ and ‘government’. We apply a tripartite evolutionary game with a replication process and explore the role and options of the public policy agent to support collaboration on innovation. We find that some policy mix, in particular, a combination of (1) public rewards for cooperation, (2) public punishment for non-cooperation and (3) settings of public cost controls and tax income from innovation, can promote broad and sustainable innovation alliances. For instance, threats of strong punishment, even with low public rewards for cooperation, may promote the formation of a collaborative innovation alliance. We run some sensitivity analyses of the results through parametric variation of two critical factors of the model, knowledge spillover and output elasticity of knowledge input. We find some qualifications for the velocity of the process.     

Investing in innovation to enable global competitiveness: The case of Portugal

The concept of leveraged innovation to create wealth within regions, countries and economies is not a new concept. Competitiveness of regions in the increasingly global economy now requires not only that innovation be present within a regional economy, but also that mechanisms exist to effectively transfer those developed innovations from the research laboratory to the marketplace. It is surmised that increased innovation, and the transfer of this innovation, can lead to increased prosperity of regions (Porter). As such, many developing countries around the world are looking at investments in innovation as a means to spur regional economic development and wealth creation while preserving national competitiveness. That said, innovation investment is by no means an exact science. Historically, typical “innovation investments” have been focused on “tangible” capital infrastructure projects such as the establishment of incubators and science parks. While many regions point to the existence of such tangible innovation assets as proof of investment in innovation, it has been discovered that in some cases, an investment in the capacity building of human networks to engage in technology transfer and commercialization related activities can act as a stronger facilitator for the transformation of economies and produce a larger return on investment in innovation for the country. Given not only Portugal's, but other regions throughout the EU-Zone, recent financial and economic woes, it bears examination on whether investing in the innovation and technology transfer knowledge and “know how” of key human networks within a struggling economy is a worthwhile investment for financially struggling countries during the current times of fiscal crisis.     

Knowledge flows and the geography of networks: A strategic model of small world formation

This paper aims to demonstrate that the strategic approach to link formation can generate networks that share some of the main structural properties of most real social networks. For this purpose, we introduce a spatialized variation of the Connections model [Jackson, M.O., Wolinsky, A., 1996. A strategic model of social and economic networks. Journal of Economic Theory 71, 44–74] to describe the strategic formation of links by agents who balance the benefits of forming links resulting from imperfect knowledge flows against their costs, which increase with geographic distance. We show, for intermediate levels of knowledge transferability, clustering occurs in geographical space and a few agents sustain distant connections. Such networks exhibit the small world property (high clustering and short average relational distances). When the costs of link formation are normally distributed across agents, asymmetric degree distributions are also obtained.     

创意产业集群化:基于知识分工协调理论分析

创意产业集群化形成和发展的一个主要原因,是劳动分工引致的知识分工的深化和创新合作网络的扩展。为了有效解决外部知识资源的嫁接问题,获取知识分工所形成的递增报酬,创意产业集群化网络应运而生。集群化网络所拥有的社会资本优势,又促进了网络内部知识分工的深化,有效地推动了隐含经验类知识的流动与共享,减低了知识的学习成本,为成员自身知识和创新能力的积累创造了良好的环境,进而形成彼此相互演化的机制。     

基于顾客知识的服务失误归因模型研究：以航空服务业为例

本文基于顾客知识的视角，从消费者归因的内部驱动因素出发，通过文献回顾和航空旅客对航班延误归因过程的实证分析，建立并验证了“知识-归因”模型。研究证明了顾客知识对归因结果的显著影响，并且验证了信任在归因过程中起到了重要的作用。     

Technological innovation and knowledge network in Asia: Evidence from comparison of information and communication technologies among six countries

South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, China and India have become much larger force in the world economy. Due to the enormous contribution of the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in economic growth, this study investigates four main issues related to technological innovation and knowledge network in ICT among six countries. First, indicators of technological innovation were evaluated and used to compare capability of technological innovation in ICT between the six countries. Secondly, differences in innovation configurations among six countries were manifested. Thirdly, relative innovation strengths of these six countries were examined in five sub-technological fields. Finally, this study consists of analyzing the interactions into knowledge network among them; moreover, this study manifests the difference of knowledge network in five sub-technological field of ICT. The empirical findings of this study, based on analysis of a patent and citation dataset comprised of all patents granted by the U.S. Patents and Trademark Office (USPTO) to assignees in six countries from 1976 to 2006, are helpful to understand the comparative development of technological innovation of ICT in six countries.     

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.     

The organisation of innovation: collaboration, cooperation and multifunctional groups in UK and German manufacturing

Marked differences exist between the institutional and socialcontext for innovation in the UK and Germany. The question addressedhere is how these different contexts affect the objectives andorganisation of innovation in UK and German manufacturing. Inparticular, the paper examines the extent to which UK and Germanplants engage in inter-plant collaboration and cooperation andmultifunctional working as part of their innovative activity,and explores the reasons for differences in these patterns ofinvolvement. The investigation is based on a large-scale, comparativesurvey of manufacturing plants in the two countries. In Germany,institutional and social norms are found to encourage collaborativeinter-plant innovation, but aspects of the German skills trainingand industrial relations systems make the adoption of more flexibleinternal systems more difficult. In the UK, by contrast, themore adversarial nature of inter-firm relations makes it moredifficult to establish external collaborations based on mutualtrust, but less restrictive labour market structures make iteasier for UK plants to adopt multifunctional working. Thisis linked to differences in attitudes to the property rightsand transaction cost problems inherent in innovation.     

The impact of exploration and exploitation learning on organisational innovativeness among hospitals: an open innovation view

This study tries to explore the impact of exploration and exploitation learning on organisational innovativeness among health service organisations from an open innovation view. We developed several constructs including realised absorptive capacity (RACAP), breadth and depth of external knowledge acquisition and tried to explore the roles of these constructs in the influence process of organisational learning on organisational innovativeness. The mail survey was used to collect research data from top hospital managers in Taiwan. The overall valid response rate was 44.23%. We applied a structural equation model to test the research hypothesis. Results indicated the breadth and depth of external knowledge acquisition would affect organisational innovativeness through RACAP. Exploration learning had a directly positive influence on RACAP and also had an indirect impact through the mediation of breadth and depth of external knowledge acquisition among health service organisations.     

Intellectual capital and new product development performance: The mediating role of organizational learning capability

Previous studies rarely examined the relationship between intellectual capital and organizational learning capability. Moreover, most studies neglect the mediating effect of organizational learning capability in the relationship between intellectual capital and new product development performance. This study uses interviews and the survey method to discuss the relationships governing intellectual capital, organizational learning capability, and new product development performance. Results are based on empirical data from Taiwan's IC design industry, and are generated by the Partial Least Squares (PLS) method. Results show that human capital and relational capital actually improve new product development performance through organizational learning capability. Although structural capital positively affects organizational learning capability, managers should pay attention to possibly negative effects of structural capital on new product development performance. Relational capital is the greatest factor among these three types of intellectual capital in Taiwanese IC design companies, structural capital is second, and human capital is last. Comparing three types of intellectual capital of Taiwan's large enterprises with those of Taiwan's small and medium enterprises (SMEs) reveals that the relational capital of Taiwan's SMEs is marginally less than that of large enterprises.     

The role of innovation in venture capital: empirical evidence from European Union and EFTA countries

This article investigates the effects of innovation attempts on the venture capital and investment activity in the cases of the selected European Union plus European Free Trade Agreement countries using annual panel data and by controlling for real income growth and business sophistication. Our findings suggest that innovation has positively significant effects on venture capital in the cases without opt-out countries (United Kingdom and Denmark); however, these effects become negative in the cases with opt-out countries. Policy implications are provided in the conclusion section of this study.     

Managing technological and social uncertainties of innovation: The evolution of Brazilian energy and agriculture

This paper explores how technological, commercial and social uncertainties shaped the development of Brazilian biofuels. Technological innovation allowed the country to emerge as a global leader, but Brazil continues to struggle with major social uncertainties due to poverty and environmental concerns common in many emerging economies. Contemporary approaches to development within the innovation literature focus primarily on overcoming technological and commercial uncertainties, but only peripherally explore social uncertainties. To fill this void, we draw on Martin and Hall's framework for managing innovative uncertainties, which is based on Kuhn and Popper's approaches to the evolution and methodology of science, and extend it with Aldrich and Fiol's concept of cognitive versus socio-political legitimacy. Based on qualitative data collected in Brazil, we outline the evolution of automotive fuel ethanol and flex-fuel technology, the development of Brazilian soybean production, and castor for socially inclusive biodiesel production. We show how innovation solved some technological and commercial uncertainties and generated new opportunities, but also created additional social uncertainties that are now being addressed. Through this process, Brazil has acquired capabilities in alternative energy technologies and more sustainable agriculture, becoming an exemplar for other emerging economies. We conclude with implications for policy and industry.     

The coevolution of firms and their knowledge environment: Insights from the pharmaceutical industry

What are the most effective learning strategies for firms given the characteristics of their knowledge environment? This paper addresses this question by documenting the major changes in the knowledge environment of the pharmaceutical industry, with a particular emphasis on the period since the emergence of biotechnology, and discussing the related changes in the learning strategies of established pharmaceutical firms. Both the historical analysis and a review of the empirical research on organizational learning and knowledge transfer reveal a strong emphasis of firms on external learning through interfirm collaborations and sourcing of external knowledge. This learning strategy seems to be driven by the speed, uncertainty, and dispersion of knowledge developments in the industry. Studying the connections between the knowledge environment and the effectiveness of organizational learning processes is important to understand organizational change and adaptation, and is an area of research that deserves further attention.     

广告结论的明暗示程度对态度形成的影响:认知需求和消费者知识的扰动作用

本文主要研究了认知需求和消费者知识在广告信息结论明暗示程度对态度形成的影响中所产生的扰动作用.参与实验的受访者共有360人.研究表明:相对于明示性的广告结论信息,高认知需求的消费者对暗示性的广告结论信息会产生较佳的态度;相对于暗示性的广告结论信息,低认知需求度的消费者会对明示性的广告结论信息产生较佳的态度.另外,相对于明示性的广告结论信息,低消费知识的消费者对于暗示性的广告结论信息会产生较佳的态度;但广告结论信息的明暗示程度不会影响高消费知识消费者的态度.还有,广告结论信息的明暗示程度不会影响高认知需求且具有高消费知识消费者的态度;反之相对于暗示性的广告结论信息,低认知需求且消费知识低的消费者对于明示性的广告结论信息会产生较佳的态度.     

The trade-off between innovation and defense industrial policy: A simulation model analysis of the Norwegian defense industry

The paper investigates the trade-off between innovation and defense industrial policy. It presents an agent-based simulation model calibrated for the Norwegian defense industry that compares different policy scenarios and examines the effects of a pending EU market liberalization process. The paper points to two main results. (1) It finds that a pure scenario where national authorities focus on, and provide support exclusively for, either a) international competitiveness or b) national defense and security objectives, is more Pareto efficient than a corresponding mixed strategy where policy makers simultaneously pursue both international competitiveness and defense and security objectives. (2) Under the conditions of the new EU liberalization regime, it finds that a stronger and more visible trade-off will emerge between international competitiveness and national defense and security objectives. Policy makers will have to choose which to prioritize, and set a clear agenda focusing on one of the two objectives.