International knowledge spillovers through high-tech imports and R&D of foreign-owned firms

The international transmission of knowledge through import spillovers, as a source of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth, has received much attention in the literature. We investigate two additional direct channels through which R&D disseminates: the import of high-technology goods and the internationalization of business R&D. Building on an extensive data-set, covering both developing and industrial countries, we add foreign-owned patents as a proxy for R&D activities of foreign multinationals. While we confirm the significance of import spillovers for all countries included, we find additional spillovers for developing countries through the import of high-technology goods. Only developed economies seem to benefit from the diffusion of knowledge that originates through cross-border cooperation in R&D by multinationals.     

Impact of International Business Education on Ethnocentricity

Abstract

As evidenced by recent surveys of American managers, there is a serious shortage of qualified candidates on the US job market. This shortage is most evident in two specialization areas: high-technology knowledge workers and internationally competent managers. Indeed, American companies rate lack of qualified high-technology personnel as their number one reason for slower than desired business expansion. The other less glamorized, yet serious shortcoming of the American educational system is its inadequate training of cross-culturally competent workers for this truly global post-industrial era. In response to this human resources crisis, realizing that “the future economic welfare of the US will depend substantially on increasing international skills in the business community,” the United States Department of Education began an active campaign of promoting international education and research in several major American universities in the late 1980s. Since 1988, nearly 40 universities have been awarded tens of millions of dollars to engage in such activities as developing formal international business curricula, offering foreign language courses, promoting internationally-oriented research, provoking international education and research dialogues among the faculty, exchange programs between American and foreign universities for students and the faculty and similar activities. This research is a first attempt in evaluating the impact of one such program on the internationalization level of American students. It will be shown that the international education program at one major American university has successfully produced a cadre of more global and less ethnocentric workforce for American corporations.     

Regional competitiveness, university spillovers, and entrepreneurial activity

This study examines the impact of regional competitiveness on the innovative activity of entrepreneurial firms. Based on a unique and hand-collected dataset of publicly listed high-technology start-ups and university regions, this paper tests how regional competitiveness and university spillovers affect the innovation behavior of entrepreneurial firms. The results provide strong evidence that regional competitiveness and university spillovers are strong complements in fostering innovation activity of entrepreneurial firms. However, the results also raise the question whether incentives for universities and their actors might lead to crowding out effects.     

The impact of local and external university knowledge on the creation of knowledge-intensive firms: evidence from the Italian case

This paper investigates how far in space university knowledge goes to breed the creation of knowledge-intensive firms (KIFs), depending on the nature (either codified or tacit) and quality of this knowledge. We consider the impact of knowledge codified in academic patents and scientific publications and tacit knowledge embodied in university graduates on KIF creation in Italian provinces in 2010, while distinguishing between local university knowledge created by universities located in the same province and external university knowledge created by universities located outside the province. Our econometric estimates indicate that the positive effects of scientific publications and university graduates are confined within the boundaries of the province in which universities are located. Conversely, the creation of new KIFs in a focal province is positively affected by both local and external university knowledge codified in academic patents, even though the positive effect of this external knowledge rapidly diminishes with geographic distance. Furthermore, the above effects are confined to high-quality universities; low-quality universities have little effect on KIF creation.     

Regional public research, higher education, and innovative start-ups: an empirical investigation

Based on detailed information about the regional knowledge base, particularly about universities, we find that regional public research and education have a strong positive impact on new business formation in innovative industries but not in industries classified as non-innovative. Measures for the presence and size of public academic institutions have more of an effect on the formation of innovative new businesses than indicators that reflect the quality of these institutions. We find relatively weak evidence for interregional spillovers of these effects. Our results clearly demonstrate the importance of localized knowledge and, especially, of public research for the emergence of innovative new businesses.     

Occupational Choice: The Influence of Product vs. Process Innovation

Prior studies have found that knowledge gained from work experience is a way to gather insights for business opportunity recognition. However, little is known about the specific types of knowledge that lead to business founding. Utilizing concepts from knowledge spillovers and from the opportunity recognition literatures, this paper argues that an organization’s technological innovation activities can help its employees develop specialized knowledge that provides them with the entrepreneurial opportunities to found new businesses. Besides highlighting the positive relationship between technological innovation activities in organizations and the propensity of individuals leaving the organizations to start new businesses, this paper also provides a more fine-grained explanation of the types of technological innovation activities that can lead to business founding. We argue that knowledge acquired through product innovations is more easily adopted by individuals for commercial uses, while knowledge acquired through process innovations must be integrated with other parts of the organization to be valuable. This study proposes that product innovation activities in an organization, more so than process innovation activities, are related to new business founding. Implications for opportunity exploitation and ways to exploit knowledge spillovers are discussed.      

Firm Resources and Host‐Country Factors Impacting Internationalization of Knowledge‐Intensive Service Firms

In the era of the global economy, knowledge‐based services are becoming important sectors of the service industry. Services offered by a university are knowledge‐based services. Universities are in the service business, and they play a key role in creating and disseminating knowledge through teaching, research, and related services that cross domestic borders. The current research focuses on the internationalization of US MBA programs. The internationalization of US MBA programs refers to the delivery of knowledge‐based services beyond the domestic borders. The main objective of our research is to examine the effect of an organization's (e.g., a US business school) resources and a host country's attractiveness on the internationalization of knowledge‐based services offered by a firm (a US business school). Using data gathered from MBA programs of US colleges and universities, theÊstudy findings show that internationalization is influenced by human capital, prestige and reputation, management's willingness, and foreign market attractiveness. The results of this study offer practical insights for US business school leaders. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Entrepreneurial Access and Absorption of Knowledge Spillovers: Strategic Board and Managerial Composition for Competitive Advantage

The resource theory of the firm implies that knowledge is a key resource bestowing a competitive advantage for entrepreneurial firms. However, it remains rather unclear up to now how new ventures and small businesses can access knowledge resources. The purpose of this study was to suggest two strategies, in particular, that facilitate entrepreneurial access to and absorption of external knowledge spillovers: the attraction of managers and directors with an academic background. Based on data on board composition of 295 high-technology firms, the results clearly demonstrate the strong link between geographical proximity to research-intense universities and board composition.     

Firms size and R&D spillovers: Evidence from Italy

The recent emergence in the industrial organization literature of a wave of studies identifying small firms as more innovative than their larger counterparts poses something of a paradox? Where do small firms get their knowledge generating inputs? The purpose of this paper is to link innovative inputs to innovative outputs. This enables the identification of the extent to which spillovers exist from major sources generating new economic knowledge, such as the research and development (R&;D) laboratories of private and public firms, as well as universities, to the innovative activity of large and small enterprises. Based on twenty Italian regions over a period of nine years, the emprical evidence suggests that, while firm R&;D expenditures contribute to the generation of innovative output for all firms, as well as for large and small firms, the spillovers from university research are apparently more important for small-firm innovation than for large-firm innovation.     

Spillovers through backward linkages and the export performance of business services. Evidence from a sample of Italian firms

We provide evidence on the role of spillovers through vertical linkages in service firms’ internationalisation process. We combine input–output coefficients with region-level information on downstream manufacturing sector exports to build a measure of spillovers through backward linkages, which we assess as a systematic determinant of Italian BS firms’ export status. Once considered firm and sector specificities, export spillovers especially matter for exporting to high-income economies outside Europe. This finding originates from higher sunk costs stemming from greater distance to the destination market and tougher competition within the destination market. Furthermore, the spillovers’ geographical scope is mainly local. We thus contribute to international business theory by generalising existing evidence from case studies on the importance of buyer–supplier relationships for service firms’ internationalisation across several BS sectors. Our research carries important implications for international business practices as well, as joining networks with internationalised customers may play an important role in enhancing BS firms’ exports, regardless of the BS supplied.     

Innovative and creative entrepreneurship support services at universities

In the context of entrepreneurial universities, new stakeholders and new roles for old ones have emerged. Accordingly, university entrepreneurship support services have to behave in a creative and innovative manner to actively support business creation at universities. This means that a common framework is necessary that includes the different stakeholders and goals, which gives a clear picture of the process of entrepreneurship encouragement and business development support (EE&BDS). We present a model for knowledge transfer and company growth within the context of entrepreneurial universities. This alternative integrative approach of the different stakeholders, actors, activities, tools, goals, and needs helps us to arrange and manage them in a better way. Our analysis allows us to show the role and relationships among the different university stakeholders and how this integrative approach contributes to the enhancement of the EE&BDS process for this institution.     

Born global or local? Factors influencing the internationalization of university spin-offs—the case of Halmstad University

A wealth of research in the past decades has examined born globals or international new ventures, which are firms that from inception view the whole world as a market and as a source to access resources. Many of these firms build their competitive advantage on high-tech knowledge. However, although many studies have shown how born globals can achieve success if they access resources through their relationships from actors in their networks, few studies have explored the relationship between born globals and universities. Universities are important actors in creating new technology knowledge, and many studies have shown how new firms, or so-called university spin-offs (USOs), are formed around universities. The current study explores why some USOs are successful in their international growth strategy and discusses the factors that influence and facilitate the internationalization process. The study investigates 10 USOs around the newly established Halmstad University in Sweden and finds that universities have a positive effect on firm creation and initial international growth. The regional competence base increases from the establishment of a local university, primarily by strengthening the regional human capital and by increasing university research. This study shows that researcher entrepreneurs’ ventures start as born globals, but that these firms do not continue to grow. Born global business models, per se, do not lead to competitive advantage and successful internationalization. Instead, a strategy built on customer focus and an ability to adapt to different customer demands lead to growth, and the location of growth is dependent on the size of the home market. This study also shows that student entrepreneurship can be a successful growth strategy for USOs focusing on both international and local markets.     

Managing cross-border knowledge transfer for innovation: An introduction to the special issue

This introduction to the special issue maps the extant research on managing crossborder knowledge for innovation and classifies it into four clusters: knowledge spillovers and location, international alliances and R&D networks, knowledge transfer and absorptive capacity, and learning organization and capabilities. The eleven articles that compose the special issue are introduced, and a future agenda for international business research is proposed.     

Do innovation spillovers impact employment and skill upgrading?

So far, the research on impact of innovation on employment and skills focused on effects within firms and sectors. Little attention was paid to the influence of interlinkages between sectors as a source of employment change. The main contribution of this paper to the field refers to broadening the analysis of innovation impacts to innovation spillovers from vertically linked sectors on firms' employment and skill change in user industries. The empirical analysis conclusively demonstrates an important role of innovation spillovers in the economy. Firms' employment growth is shown to benefit significantly from spillovers of product innovations in manufacturing and knowledge-intensive services. Similarly, firms that are subject to increased spillovers of product innovations as well as marketing and organisational innovations are more likely to upgrade their skill composition. Conversely, employment growth and skill composition of firms seem to be negatively affected by spillovers of process innovations in vertically linked sectors.     

Business incubation: innovative services in an entrepreneurship ecosystem

This article studies the process of business services provision by business incubators. It considers this provision as an innovative and dynamic process, carried out in an open innovation context, where many elements from the entrepreneurship ecosystem (EE) interact. Thus, the article creates new knowledge because conceptually, it defines and relates all the key elements that are the source of innovation and value added: business services themselves, the EE, the context of open innovation and the features of that interaction. This conceptualization is tested empirically in two different scopes, a broad one with 255 business incubators around the world, and a Spanish case with two university incubators with some references to a foreign two-country study. Results detect some patterns of service provision according to ownership, size and partnership of the business incubators and show the efficacy of the cooperation of the private and public sectors and the universities.     

Academics’ start-up intentions and knowledge filters: an individual perspective of the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship

Previous studies suggest that entrepreneurial activity tends to be greater in contexts where investment in new knowledge is relatively high (e.g., entrepreneurial universities). However, in this specific knowledge context, only a few academics recognize opportunities and act on them through entrepreneurial activities (e.g., spin-offs). A plausible explanation could be the existence of several filters that limit the total conversion of knowledge into economically useful knowledge. The vehicle to knowledge transfer is entrepreneurship. Therefore, the main actor is the academic entrepreneur, but no empirical study has highlighted the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship at the individual level. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of academics’ start-up intentions and knowledge filters on the knowledge transfer process within entrepreneurial university. Adopting the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship and the planned behavior theory, a proposed model was tested with a sample of 207 academics enrolled in entrepreneurial universities in Spain using structural equation modeling. Our findings could provide insights for policy-makers to design policies that bring further benefits to society and educational organizations as well as significant contributions to the literature.     

Business students' ethical perceptions of retail situations: A microcultural comparison

Due in part to a growing realization of the importance of the role that retailing plays in the marketing channel, and to the increasing numbers of college graduates being employed by retailers, growing attention is being placed on business students' ethical perceptions of retailing practices. This study continues this focus by examining the ethical perceptions of collegiate business students attending two different universities which likely represent two different microcultures — conservative evangelical Protestant and secular.The results suggest that ethical perceptions may vary between the students attending two universities which likely represent differing microcultures. The students attending the conservative evangelical Protestant university appear to possess ethical perceptions which are significantly more ethical than those of students attending the public university. Evidence was observed, therefore, which suggests that ethical perceptions may vary across students from differing microcultures.Dr. David J. Burns is Associate Professor of Marketing at Youngstown State University. His research has appeared in a number of journals. His research interests include business ethics, retail location, and the adoption of new products.Mr. Jeffrey K. Fawcett is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Cedarville College, Cedarville, Ohio where he has taught since 1987. He is currently working toward his DBA. His research interests include business ethics, and the marketing of services and not for profit organizations.Dr. John M. Lanasa is Associate Professor of Marketing at the A. J. Palumbo School of Business Administration, Duquesne University and a member of the Biard Center for Leadership and Ethics. Dr. Lanasa has numerous publications and his research interests include business ethics and sales training.     

Determinants of corporate social responsibility and business ethics education in Spanish universities

The current economic crisis, unsustainable growth, and financial scandals invite reflection on the role of universities in professional training, particularly those who have to manage businesses. This study analyzes the main factors that might determine the extent to which Spanish organizational management educators use corporate social responsibility (CSR) or business ethics stand‐alone subjects to equip students with alternative views on business. A web content analysis and non‐parametric mean comparison statistics of the curricula of undergraduate degrees in all universities in Spain were conducted. The main conclusion of this paper is related to the Bologna effect in Spanish universities. Comparing our results with prior research in this matter, it is demonstrated that the main reason that explains the increase of CSR and ethical education in Spain is the Bologna process and its adaptation to the European Higher Education Area. Also, private universities in Spain are more likely to require an ethics course than public universities. Other factors, such as size, political orientation, or related to CSR chairs are not statistically explanatory of CSR and ethical education.     

Knowledge spillovers and high-impact growth: Comparing local and foreign firms in the UK

This paper is concerned with entrepreneurial high-impact firms, which are firms that generate ‘both’ disproportionate levels of employment and sales growth, and have high levels of innovative activity. It investigates differences in the influence of knowledge spillovers on high-impact growth between foreign and local firms in the UK. The study is based on an analysis of data from UK Innovation Scoreboard on 865 firms, which were divided into ‘high-impact firms’ (defined as those achieving positive growth in both sales and employment) and low-impact firms (negative or no growth in sales or employment). More precisely, the paper investigates the influence of knowledge spillovers on high-impact growth of foreign and local firms, from regional, sectoral and firm size perspectives. The findings suggest that (1) firms’ access to regional knowledge spillovers (from businesses and higher education institutions) is more significantly associated with high-impact growth of local firms in comparison to foreign firms; (2) because knowledge spillovers are more likely to occur in high-tech sectors (compared to low-tech sectors), firms in high-tech sectors are more associated with high-impact growth. Nonetheless, the relationship is stronger for local firms compared to foreign firms; (3) because small firms have greater need for knowledge spillovers (relative to large firms), there is a negative relationship between firm size and high-impact growth, but the negative relationship is greater for UK firms in comparison to foreign firms. Implications are drawn for policy and research.     

Toward a Typology of University Spin-offs

This paper discusses existing definitions of USOs in order to reconcile them and to provide criteria for classifying and understanding the different facets of this multi-headed concept. Drawing the boundaries of this concept and elucidating its variety through a typology are therefore the two main objectives of this paper. USOs are defined as new firms created to exploit commercially some knowledge, technology or research results developed within a university. The proposed typology is based on two key discriminatory factors, namely (1) the status of individuals involved in the new business venturing process (researchers or students) and (2) the nature of knowledge transferred from university to the new venture (codified or tacit), inducing the nature of the USO activities (product or service-oriented).