运用汽车生产商知识对不同类型供应商技术创新的促进作用

基于通过交叉供应商在知识创造能力和与生产商技术相似度两个维度的异质性,将供应商分为4类。采用专利数构建计量指标,探索了不同类型的供应商在技术创新中运用生产商知识的效果。非参数检验与负二项回归结果证明了供应商异质性的存在。研究结果还显示:能力弱的供应商运用生产商知识能获得更好的创新成果--无论它们与生产商技术的相似度高低与否;能力强的供应商不能通过运用生产商知识获得高水平的创新成果。     

Technological Expectations And The Diffusion Of ‘Intermediate’ Technologies

The concept of ‘technological expectations’ has established itself as a key one in the smdy of innovation adoption. The article suggests that it may help explaining not just the adopters' timing decisions, but also their decisions regarding the kind of innovation they adopt. Innova tions that set the technological frontier face the competitive diffusion of some ‘intemdiate’ technologies. These may be either old technologies or ‘midrange’ ones. which purposefully lag behind the frontier, in order to impose lower adoption costs to their users.

Taking into account midrange innovations casts new light on the supply side of the diffu sion process. in terms of technological variety and selection effects. Drawing examples from the electronic colour pre-press industry, we highlight the equipment suppliers' anxious quest for the successful midrange innovation, able to hit the right txade-off between proximity to the frontier and adoption costs.     

中国农业发展方式的评价

本文运用非参数的莫氏（Malmquist）指数法,研究了1978-2009年期间中国农业全要素生产率增长、构成的时序特征及其农业增长方式转变的绩效。结果表明,中国农业全要素生产率在1978-2009年的31年间,年均增长率为26%,农业全要素生产率的增长主要来自技术进步,中国农业仍然保持粗放型发展方式,目前主要处于低度粗放型阶段。在未来农业生产方式转变中,通过技术进步、劳动者素质和生态环境保护来提高生产要素的使用效率,实现农业发展方式的转变。     

Weaker jobs,weaker innovation. Exploring the effects of temporary employment on new products

This work explores the relationship between temporary employment and product innovation focusing on five major European economies (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands) observed between 1998 and 2012. The analysis distinguishes sectors according to their technological characteristics and regimes finding that industries using temporary employment tend to have a weaker product innovation propensity. The negative correlation between temporary employment and innovation turns out to be stronger in those sectors where tacit firm’s specific knowledge is crucial to the development of innovations. These sectors are identified using both the ‘Cumulativeness’ proxy stemming from Peneder’s classification as well as distinguishing between different Schumpeterian regimes – Schumpeter Mark I vs. II – of knowledge accumulation.     

Possible suboptimal diffusions of technological innovations in clustered scale-free networks

Many inter-firm networks take a skewed power-law- or scale-free distribution in which one or a few central actors are connected to numerous peripheral actors. Research argues that central actors can act as early adopters and catalysts for the adoption of technological innovations, but studies are inconclusive regarding central actors’ de facto role in this matter. Peripheral actors in scale-free networks tend to cluster, which implies that they are structurally embedded and mutually dependent. A major thesis in this paper is that clustered peripheral actors in scale-free networks may restrict central actors’ propensity to adopt innovations, and as a result impede their diffusion. The paper discusses which implications this may have for stakeholders in the private and public sector domain and practitioners of strategic management.     

Technological start-ups in the innovation system: an actor-oriented perspective

The functional approach of the Technological Innovation System (TIS) has become important in innovation theory to understand the dynamics of technological innovations. Until now, TIS has mainly been applied top-down from a policy perspective. The aim of this study was to investigate whether TIS can be used in the management domain, from an actor-oriented perspective, to explain the dynamics in which technological start-ups are involved when developing innovations. We interviewed the founders of 24 technological start-ups about their experiences with the developmental processes of their innovations. Our results highlight that the functions of TIS provide a useful framework to structure the interactions of technological start-ups. Especially the functions ‘Resource Mobilisation’ and ‘Legitimation’ appeared to be important functions for start-ups when developing an innovation. Our findings show that TIS is a promising framework for the strategic management domain that can offer guidance in the development of innovations.     

China's agricultural patents: How has their value changed amid recent patent boom?

Patent applications have surged in China over the past two decades. Has the application boom been accompanied by a simultaneous drop in the value (quality) of the patents? Our research examines this question by analyzing invention patents in agriculture. Using data from China's State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) for patents between 1985 and 2005 that had been granted before January 2011, we conduct duration analysis of patent life span and the length of patent renewal with the Weibull and Cox Proportional Hazard modeling respectively. The results show that the value of Chinese agricultural patents, measured by their life span and renewal length, has been improving, although foreign grants are still maintained significantly longer than domestic ones. For domestic grants, private entities, especially companies, are more likely to have a longer patent protection period than public entities. Furthermore, patent value varies significantly across different technological fields, with grants to inventions in complex and emerging technologies such as agricultural biotechnology and agricultural chemicals demonstrating higher value than others. The findings have implications for understanding the impacts of China's innovation policy on global patenting activities as well as China's innovation trajectory in agriculture and other sectors.     

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.     

日本新潟农业战略特区建设经验对我国农业高新区建设的启示

为解决制约我国农业发展的若干重大瓶颈问题,农业高新技术产业示范区正在加快推进。日本新潟农业战略特区在政策支持、金融扶持、土地利用、产业融合方面做出了有益探索,将新产业、新经营业态、新商业模式引入农业,特别是借助深厚的知识与技术根底,依靠科技创新提升农业生产率方面的做法值得关注,其经验或对我国农业高新技术产业示范区的建设有所裨益。     

农业产业化对农民收入和农户行为的影响--以山东省龙口市为例

农业产业化是当今中国农业发展的热点，但产业化经营究竟能在多大程度上促进“三农”问题的根本转变，目前仍很少有人进行定量研究。文章以农业产业化起步较早的山东省龙口市为案例，通过生产调查和统计资料分析，对该问题做了初步研究。结果表明：尽管龙口市的乡村工业发展迅速且占据了农村经济的绝大部分，但与农民人均纯收入增长关系最为紧密的仍然是农业产业，其次才是农村第二、第三产业，这一结果应归功于农业产业化的发展。农户在家庭劳动力分配时，年老人趋向于从事农业生产，年轻人趋向于从事非农生产，许多农户将自家的劳动力投入到非农产业，同时又雇佣外地劳力从事自家的农业生产。     

System innovation through stepwise reconfiguration: the case of technological transitions in Dutch greenhouse horticulture (1930–1980)

Although transitions are usually perceived as technological substitution processes, the article shows that stepwise reconfiguration is more likely for supplier-dominated sectors. In this transition pattern, novelties are initially adopted as ‘modular innovation’ into existing systems and subsequently reconfigure the basic architecture through new combinations of old and new elements. Incumbent actors survive these transitions through interactions with suppliers of knowledge and innovations. Using Pavitt's innovation typology, we selected a case study from his supplier-dominated category: greenhouse farming. The article makes a techno-economic analysis of the overall transition pattern in Dutch greenhouse horticulture (1930–1980) and a socio-institutional analysis of the knowledge flows and networks. ‘Innovation cascades’ are identified as a particularly important mechanism in reconfiguration transitions.     

How should firms carry out technological diversification to improve their performance? An analysis of patenting of Korean firms

This research aims to analyze how a firm's technological diversification strategies influence its financial performances, in terms of ‘technological diversification’ in broad technology sectors and ‘technological concentration’ on its own core technology, especially in the case of Korean large firms. The data used in the analysis were panel data encompassing the years between 1990 and 2006, which linked Korean firms’ patent information registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office to the financial data of those firms collected from Korea Investors Service, Inc. (Kis-Value). For the estimation of the panel data, a fixed effect model, which considers the individual firms’ own effect on the financial performance, was used. Tobin's q was used as a dependent variable representing firm performance, while ‘broad technology diversity’ and ‘core technology diversity’ were used as the focal explanatory variables. The results show that a firm seeking to have more technological assets should invest in a broad technological diversification strategy in its search for new business opportunities; it should likewise concentrate on the core technology in order to maintain its financial performance.     

On the joint effect of technological and management innovations on performance: increasing or diminishing returns?

Most studies on innovation are aimed at covering technological innovation, neglecting other modes of innovation based on non-technological drivers. The latter, referred to as management innovation, consists of the implementation of new management practices, processes or organisational tasks. This work advances knowledge on the topic by exploring the joint effect of simultaneously introducing technological and management innovations on performance. Based on an analysis of 12,563 Spanish firms drawn from CIS data, our findings suggest that firms frequently pursue the simultaneous or joint introduction of both technological and management innovations and that integration impacts positively on a firm’s performance, evidencing an inverted U-shape that suggest positive but diminishing returns. A theoretical framework using the capability-based view embraces the emerging conversation on management innovation issues and its relationship with the well-researched technological one.     

The French Revolution and the Creation of Benthamism

Abstract

The article investigates Knut Wicksell's interpretation of aggregate economic fluctuations. It is shown that Wicksell described the business cycle as oscillations of an economy with increasing population and scarce natural resources around its steady growth path ('dynamic equilibrium'), provoked by sporadic technological progress. The ‘shocks’ bring about a wave‐like motion because of psychological and technical lags in the economic structure. Wicksell's suggestion that excess net savings in the depression take the form of stocks of commodities is compared to his contemporaries’ answers to the question ‘What happens to savings during the depression?’ The article also puts forward a relatively neglected connection between Malthus’ and Wicksell's notions of over‐production. Divergences between the natural and market rates of interest — essential to his better‐known ‘cumulative process’ ‐ are not a necessary part of Wicksell's business cycle, but they are important to explain why the upper turning‐point can have the nature of a crisis, which results from wrong expectations induced by cumulative price movements.     

Industrial conglomerates,risk spreading and the transition in Russia

This article explains the lasting transition crisis of Russian agriculture by applying Hayami & Ruttan's theory of induced innovation. The empirical analysis uses Russian farm data. For various types of farms factor intensities and partial factor productivities are calculated to identify differences in productivity between them. We identify the mechanism through which institutional frictions in Russia influence the choice of technology and the adaptation of technological change. Finally, policy recommendations are derived to make technical change more consistent with relative factor supplies and prices, and improve productivity, especially of inefficient farm types. In our view nothing speaks in favour of expensive Western ‘high-tech’ machinery imports to enhance the efficiency of Russian farms (especially larger ones). Until now the poor operation of domestic markets in Russia has obstructed a sufficient supply of Russian technology consistent with relative scarcities.     

R&D Spillovers: Evidence from U.S. Food Processing,Farm Machinery and Agricultural Sectors

This paper computes private and social rates of return to R&D capital in the three vertically linked sectors, primary agriculture, food processing, and the farm machinery in the United States. Using a cost function approach, the private rates of return to R&D ranged from an average of 21.5% per annum for farm machinery to 87.5% for agriculture. The social rates of return to R&D in food processing and farm machinery are larger than the private rates due to spillovers. We find that spillovers from public agricultural R&D mitigates the market's failure in farm machinery to fully appropriate the returns to its R&D capital.     

THE FARM DEBT CRISIS: TEMPORARY OR CHRONIC?

This paper's objective is to analyze the etiology of the crisis confronting the farm sector and its creditors. It draws on data for the period 1950 to 1984 to argue that: (1) rising productivity of farm assets led to large increases in asset values during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s; (2) rising asset values significantly altered the incentive structure of agriculture; and (3) the resulting capital-gains based agriculture of the postwar period motivated farmers to alter their capital structure in ways that made the current financial debacle inevitable once the income growth from assets tapered. From this basis, the paper concludes that farmers' borrowing behavior was substantially more responsible for the existing crisis than often-cited adversities in the markets for agricultural commodities. Accordingly, a farm incomes policy cannot remedy the situation, and the current consolidation in agricultural debt—though painful—represents an unavoidable adjustment for American agriculture.     

Complementarity and substitutability between farm and nonfarm activities: Evidence from agricultural households in Tanzania

Increasing evidence shows that farm households in developing countries maintain a portfolio of income-generating activities. Concerns have been raised that household income diversification to include nonfarm activities will stifle farm works, and thus reduce agricultural productivity. On the contrary, some evidence of complementarity between the farm and nonfarm activities in rural areas has been found. This paper uses data from the fourth and the fifth waves of Tanzania's National Panel Surveys to examine whether there exists complementarity or substitutability between farm and nonfarm activities in rural Tanzania. The findings show that participation in off-farm work and nonfarm business activities has no clear relationship to the adoption and use of improved agricultural practices, namely, irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. Participation in off-farm work and nonfarm business activities does not also seem to directly influence agricultural investments, production, and productivity nor overall household income. These results suggest that the complementary and substitution effects of nonfarm activities offset each other in Tanzania, implying that proper policies are required to unleash the potential impact of nonfarm activities on agriculture.     

Institutional Change and the Evolution of the World Leisure Industries

I explore the changing institutions of leisure and their dynamic relationship with the evolution of the world leisure industries through an analytical framework that incorporates the theory of institutional change of Paul Dale Bush and related evidence worldwide. I find a ceremonial-instrumental dichotomy in terms of the forces that enter the different phases of institutional change and the receptivity of the markets. Since the mid-twentieth century, the world leisure industries have rapidly advanced because they are not only interactively promoted by an increasing number of mass leisure institutions, but also due to technological advancements and industrial innovations. Indeed, the development paths of these industries in different countries are influenced by institutional factors, such as public interests, culture, and education, and their interactions and changes over time. Given that the paths may not be so straightforward, my findings show that Bush’s related works provide a synthetic framework which deserves further examination in the economics of leisure.     

When technological discontinuities and disruptive business models challenge dominant industry logics: Insights from the drugs industry

An industry's dominant logic is the general scheme of value creation and capture shared by its actors. In high technology fields, technological discontinuities are not enough to disrupt an industry's dominant logic. Identifying the factors that might trigger change in that logic can help companies develop strategies to enable them to capture greater value from their innovations by disrupting that logic. Based on analyzing the changes that biotechnologies and bioinformatics have brought to the drug industry, we identify and characterize three triggers of change that can create disruptive business models. We suggest that, in mature industries experiencing strong discontinuities and high technological uncertainty, entrants' business models initially tend to fit into the industry's established dominant logic and its value chains remain unchanged. But as new technologies evolve and uncertainty decreases, disruptive business models emerge, challenging dominant industry logics and reshaping established value chains.