Vertical educational diversity and innovation performance

This paper uses panel data of Swiss firms to analyse the impact of education-level diversity in the workforce on innovation performance, addressing endogeneity by exploiting within-firm variation as well as variation in labour supply across regions. We find that vertical educational diversity increases the extensive margin of R&D and product innovation, particularly new product innovation. However, the relationship with process innovation, R&D intensity, and product innovation intensity is insignificant. These results are in line with the idea that vertical educational diversity enhances the creative moment of the invention phase, while it has no effect on the commercialization phase due to the relevance of coordination and communication costs relative to the gains in creativity.     

R&D strategy and innovation performance: the role of standardization

Firms now increasingly recognise the important role of R&D strategy in building technological advantage. However, few attempts have linked standardisation with specific R&D strategies in explaining innovation performance. To bridge this gap, this study empirically examines the relationships between R&D strategies, standardisation, and firms’ innovation performance. Based on a sample of 371 firms in China, we use structural equation modelling (SEM) and find that novelty-oriented R&D strategy generates greater accumulation of standardisation knowledge and standards diversity, while R&D openness only positively relates to this standardisation knowledge accumulation. Moreover, standardisation knowledge accumulation is positively related to both administrative and technical innovation performance, while a greater variety of standards only leads to higher administrative innovativeness. More importantly, our results reveal that accumulation of standardisation knowledge mediates the relationships between R&D novelty and administrative and technical innovation performances. Both the theoretical and practical implications that arise from these findings are discussed.     

Firm ownership,industrial structure,and regional innovation performance in China's provinces

This paper uses panel data between 2000 and 2010 to explore how firm ownership and regional industrial structures contribute to regional innovation performance in Chinese provinces. Specifically, we explore how the extent of specialisation and diversification in regional industrial structures at the province level fosters both Marshall–Arrow–Romer and Jacobs spillovers, as well as how foreign and state ownership influence regional innovation. We find: (i) China's regional innovation systems benefit from Jacobs but not MAR externalities, with the former spurring higher quality innovation in the form of increased invention patenting; (ii) state-owned enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises advance local innovation, with the latter again fostering higher quality innovation; and (iii) a convergence towards a combination of low specialisation and high diversity in provincial industrial structure is taking place between China's more developed inland coastal provinces and less developed inland provinces. Implications and suggestions for policy-making and future research are discussed.     

Knowledge search modes and innovation performance: The moderating role of strategic R&D orientation

Prior studies implicitly assume that knowledge search modes are homogeneous, and little is known about the impacts of specific search modes on innovation. Drawing upon the knowledge search literature, we differentiate among four types of search modes and analyze their impacts on innovation performance. Moreover, we enrich the theoretical framework by recognising the moderating role of strategic R&D orientation in affecting the relationship between specific types of search modes and innovation performance. Using a unique dataset of 418 Chinese firms, we find that, except for inward licensing, value chain search, capital search, and industry-university-research institute collaboration (IUR collaboration) exert positive effects on innovation performance. Moreover, the empirical results indicate that a strategic R&D orientation amplifies the positive effects of value chain search and IUR collaboration while it mitigates the negative effect of inward licensing on innovation performance.     

Disentangling the effects of process and product innovation on cost and demand

ABSTRACT

We explore in this note different structural models of the impact of process and product innovation on firms' demand and production cost functions. We find that the introduction of process and product innovations affects them differently as could be expected. Both product and process innovation shift forward the demand for the products of the firm. Process innovation reduces production marginal cost, but not always. A possibility, that we cannot prove or reject with the current specification of our models and available data, is that process innovation associated with product innovation raise marginal cost. Interestingly, we also find that advertising significantly augments demand but does not affect production marginal cost. To obtain broader conclusions, richer data will be needed allowing an enlargement of the model, in which process and product innovations could be specified distinctively and well identified.     

Measuring universities’ R&D performance in China’s provinces: a multistage efficiency and effectiveness perspective

ABSTRACT

Evaluating universities’ R&D performance can serve as a tool for policymakers, enabling them to identify the best R&D practitioners for benchmarking and develop strategies for enhancing performance by highlighting areas of weakness. This study divides universities’ R&D performance into two dimensions: efficiency and effectiveness. We employ a network data envelopment analysis approach to measure universities’ R&D efficiency, and separately use a multi-index comprehensive evaluation method to assess their R&D effectiveness from a multistage perspective. We calculate the comprehensive R&D performance of universities in 30 provinces in China from 2004 to 2014. An analysis of temporal variation reveals that universities’ R&D performance in some provinces improved rapidly, increasing gaps in performance as a whole. The spatial pattern for the 30 provinces shows that universities in provinces with medium or strong R&D performance are mainly in coastal provinces and central areas in China. Finally, universities’ R&D activities are considered ‘efficient and effective’ only in a small number of provinces, while in most provinces, these activities can generally be considered ‘less efficient and effective.’ Hence, universities in provinces with different R&D performance modes should implement targeted improvement strategies according to their characteristics.     

产业互联网下企业创新“竞合”网络与创新绩效

利用国家知识产权局2013—2019年上市公司之间的专利合作数据,构建企业间创新"竞合"网络,提取了367家企业作为样本,将企业创新绩效分为企业内部创新绩效和对所在区域的创新贡献度两部分,从内到外探讨了企业在创新"竞合"网络中的位置对创新绩效的影响;同时分析了产业互联网对该影响的调节作用.研究结果表明,企业创新"竞合"网络的接近中心度与企业内部创新绩效和区域创新贡献度均呈正U型分布,企业创新"竞合"网络的结构洞与企业内部创新绩效和区域创新贡献度也均呈正U型分布,企业的产业互联网战略实施对以上关系的影响均呈显著的正向调节作用.     

Dynamic R&D choice and the impact of the firm's financial strength

ABSTRACT

This article investigates how a firm's financial strength affects its dynamic decision to invest in R&D. We estimate a dynamic model of R&D choice using data for German firms in high-tech manufacturing industries. The model incorporates a measure of the firm's financial strength, derived from its credit rating, which is shown to lead to substantial differences in estimates of the costs and expected long-run benefits from R&D investment. Financially strong firms have a higher probability of generating innovations from their R&D investment, and the innovations have a larger impact on productivity and profits. Averaging across all firms, the long-run benefit of investing in R&D equals 6.6% of firm value. It ranges from 11.6% for firms in a strong financial position to 2.3% for firms in a weaker financial position.     

An investigation over inbound open innovation in SMEs: insights from an Italian manufacturing sample

ABSTRACT

Building on the Open Innovation (OI) framework, the purpose of this paper is to examine the R&D inbound model of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Specifically, we focus on the impact of different horizontal R&D collaborations on product innovation and innovation performance. Hypotheses are tested using a Probit/Tobit regression on an Italian sample of 2591 manufacturing SMEs. Our analysis shows that collaborating with different horizontal R&D partners brings to different innovation outcomes. In particular, R&D collaboration with universities has a positive impact on product innovation, but not on innovation performance. Whereas, R&D collaboration with research centres and other private companies has a positive impact on both product innovation and innovation performance. Our findings provide implications for SMEs managers and entrepreneurs who have to decide between R&D partners for their innovation strategy. Avenues for future research are discussed.     

The impact of R&D subsidy on innovation: evidence from New Zealand firms

This study examines the impact of government subsidy through R&D grants on innovation output for firms in New Zealand. Using a large database that links administrative and tax data with survey data, we find that R&D grants have a stronger effect on more novel innovation (e.g. applying for a patent or introducing new products to the world) than on incremental innovation (e.g. any product innovation) and that larger, project-based grants are more effective at promoting innovation than smaller, non-project-specific grants. There is little evidence that R&D grants have differential effects between smaller (<50 employees) and larger firms.     

How a firm's position in a whole network affects innovation performance

A whole network consists of the relationships that exist among members of a population. However, prior studies treated the whole network as a metaphor, and consequently, existing empirical research is limited. As such, this paper investigates the effects of a whole network on firm innovation performance among firms engaged in the Korean semiconductor industry using three variables, namely main component, eigenvector centrality, and closeness centrality. The effects are then analysed using two-step generalised method of moments estimates. The results show a firm is included among the main component in a whole network, and the more centralised it is in terms of connectivity and distance, the more advantageous it is for firm innovation. The significance of this paper is two-fold; First, unlike previous studies that use variables reflecting collective characteristics, this study uses variables reflecting the characteristics of individual firms in a whole network. Second, it is a rare empirical study of a whole network.     

The Damoclean tax and innovation

The paper presents a novel tax that is designed to improve the performance of research and development (R&D) investments. Ideally, the tax allows the technical efficiencies of monopoly while bringing about the desirable effects of the competitive pressure of R&D rivalry. Thus, with the tax, the state can sanction a monopoly of R&D investment in order to attain technical efficiencies and yet avoid the underinvestment in R&D that would result without competitive pressures. A critique of the tax emphasizes the problems of implementing it and offers a more practical alternative that would achieve the same desirable effects.     

Bioenergy innovation and energy policy

Using panel data on 13 OECD countries between 1979 and 2008 this paper examines the affect climate and energy policies have had on the rate of biotechnology innovations. The explanatory variables include a vector of important determinants of patenting activity for biotechnologies (e.g. specific and general research and development expenditures, energy consumption, energy prices and total number of registered patents). Fixed effects are employed to capture unobservable country-specific heterogeneity using a negative binomial model. The empirical results indicate that policies are important for stimulating innovations in biotechnologies. The development of feed-in-tariffs (FITs) and the implementation of tradable green certificates have had a positive and statistically significant impact on patent activity. The economic impact of green certificates is found to be larger than that of FITs. In addition, R&D activities have also had a positive and statistically significant effect on innovation.     

Impact of different patent cooperation network models on innovation performance of technology-based SMEs

ABSTRACT

Patent cooperation network, an important way for technology-based SMEs to enhance innovation performance, has become a research hotspot in recent years. Different types of patent cooperation network models and different degree of SMEs embedding them will lead to different effects on enterprise innovation performance improvement. This research selected the ICT industry and the pharmaceutical industry technology-based SMEs with rich patent output as research objects. Based on binary structure perspective of network breadth and depth, the patent cooperation networks are divided into four types: ‘strong exploration’, ‘weak exploration’, ‘strong utilisation’ and ‘weak utilisation’. Through the multi-selection model and the negative binomial regression model, the general factors in the selection of patent cooperation network models and the impact of different models on enterprise innovation performance are analysed. This research provides path breakthroughs and development proposals for technology-based SMEs to access innovative resources and enhance their innovation capabilities on patent cooperation networks.     

Service-sector competition,innovation and R&D

The central prediction of the Aghion, Bloom, Blundell and Howitt model is an inverted U-shaped relationship between innovation and competition. The model is built on the assumption of a product market and has not yet been tested on the service sector. Using detailed firm-level data on Swedish service-sector firms, we find evidence of an inverse U-shaped relationship for exporting service-sector firms. A further breakdown of innovation expenditures shows that the inverse U-shaped pattern holds for intramural R&D and training, but not for extramural R&D. Finally, the results indicate that as competition increases, small firms tend to seek strategic alliances with competitors, whereas large firms tend to reduce collaboration with competitors. The behavior of large firms can partly be due to their superior capacity to handle innovation projects internally, which will become more important if increased competition results in higher pay-offs to innovation.     

Types of cooperation partners as determinants of innovation failures

In this paper we analyse if specific R&D cooperation partners are related to an increase in the probability of innovation failures in terms discontinuing innovation projects. We distinguish between seven different R&D cooperation partner types, and we discriminate between product innovation failures and process innovation failures. Using German Community Innovation Survey data we find that, firstly, each type of R&D cooperation partner has a different effect on innovation failures. Secondly, we show that product innovation failures and process innovation failures are not affected in equal measure by the same type of R&D cooperation partner. Our results suggest that while R&D cooperation with public research institutes is significantly and negatively related to the probability to cancel a process innovation project, the coefficient is positive but insignificant for product innovation failures. Firms conducting partnerships with suppliers, however, run the risk of both product and process innovation failures. In turn, cooperation with competitors is positively correlated only to process innovation failures.     

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.     

Measuring innovation in long product development cycle industries: an insight in biotechnology

This paper examines and measures innovation in the context of biotechnology firms by analysing the link between R&D, innovation performance and organisational growth. We conceptualise innovation performance as a latent construct with two dimensions: innovation efficacy and innovation efficiency. We use structural equations modelling to test the hypotheses on a data set from the biotechnology industry. Results support our innovation performance conceptualisation which is found to be especially useful to measure innovation in industries with long product development cycles. Findings also underline the importance of R&D knowledge creation for biotechnology firms.     

The role of price and nonprice factors in predicting Australia's trade performance

This article investigates the role of price and nonprice factors in predicting Australia's trade performance. Results broadly suggest that Australia's trade performance is largely explained by the nonprice factors namely, R&D, reliability of domestic supply, aggregate world demand and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flows in long run. Price factors such as, relative price of Australian exports and domestic prices are also important predictors of trade competitiveness. The policy implications of these findings are that there are dividends in terms of improved trade performance by encouraging R&D expenditure, attracting FDI, improving domestic supply and implementing appropriate policies to improve price competitiveness.     

The impact of dual network structure on firm performance: the moderating effect of innovation strategy

ABSTRACT

Firm innovation is embedded in a collaboration network among researchers and a knowledge network composed of knowledge elements; the two networks are decoupled. Guided by social network theory, this study puts forward the definition and the classification of firm dual network structure, probes into the influence of dual network structure on firm performance, and explores the alignment between innovation strategy and firm dual network structure. We conduct an empirical study of 183 listed companies in China from 2004 to 2018. It is found that the four types of dual network structure all have positive impacts on firm performance, and the impact of a collaboration network is slightly higher than that of a knowledge network. Besides, innovation strategy plays a positive moderating role in the relationship between dual network structure and firm performance. Our findings provide new ideas for firms to identify and optimise knowledge and collaboration network structures and match them with innovation strategy to improve performance.