The importance of design for firms׳ competitiveness: A review of the literature

Scholars dedicated increasing attention towards appreciating how design has changed individuals? perception of new products, firms? understanding and formulation of strategy, or other relevant actors? approach to innovation and technology management. By emphasising the importance of design for the definition of consumers? needs, the restructuring of firms? organisational structures and strategies, and the evolution of firms? value creation processes, this review paper identifies relevant research gaps and questions that would benefit from future scholarly attention. In particular, it is suggested that such effort should address the analysis of how design consumption can help better comprehend consumers? needs; what are the implications of design thinking on the skill sets of design professionals; the organisational structure of firms, including the reconfiguration of other business functions, and their strategy; and whether and how design thinking can shape firms? value creation processes and contribute to the formalisation of design tasks.     

创业机会的创新性、员工心理授权与企业绩效的实证研究

创业活动源于创业者对创业机会的识别,而创业机会的创新性强弱则介于模仿性机会和创新性机会之间,过往研究认为创业机会的创新性与企业绩效正相关。但心理授权理论认为员工对工作认知的不同将影响到其行为,故需考虑员工心理授权的调节作用,毕竟对创新机会的开发利用需要员工共同努力。研究发现,创业机会的创新性确实对企业绩效有显著的正向影响;而且心理授权的4个维度因子,即员工对自身能力的认知、影响力的认知、工作意义的认知以及工作自主性的认知均对企业绩效具有显著的正向影响,说明提升员工的心理授权感受将有助于提升绩效。还发现,员工对自身能力的认知、工作意义的认知以及工作自主性的认知均显著正向调节了创业机会创新性与企业绩效的关系,只有员工对自身影响力的认知的调节作用不显著。研究结论有助于从外部客观创业机会和内部员工心理授权感知两个过程看待企业绩效的提升,全面理解企业绩效的发生机制。     

Technological evolution as creative destruction of process heterogeneity: evidence from US plant-level data

Change in evolutionary economics is predicated on the creative destruction of variety. Despite the importance of the concept of variety, or heterogeneity, in evolutionary economic theory, empirical work that examines the character of variety – its extent and its persistence – is still scarce. Drawing on unpublished, micro-level data from the US Bureau of the Census, this paper examines the characteristics of process heterogeneity in selected US manufacturing industries. More specifically the paper has three goals. First, to demonstrate that heterogeneity in plant technologies exists and that it persists over time even within relatively mature industrial sectors. Second, to examine the veracity of the processes that generate and destroy heterogeneity in production technology within narrowly defined industries. Third, to link the heterogeneity of plant-level techniques of production to the pace and direction of technological change at the level of the industry.     

R＆D与企业规模关系模型再研究

关于R＆D活动与企业规模的关系之前已做过不少的研究。本文从新的视角重新检验两者之间的关系,通过一个非线性函数研究R＆D与企业规模的关系。企业规模变量不是作为一个独立的解释变量,而是作为调节变量。2001-2008年沪深两市上市的制造业公司数据为研究面板数据。研究结果表明,R＆D与企业规模呈现一个近似“U型”关系。     

Measuring productivity of research in economics: A cross-country study using DEA

We measure productivity in leading edge economic research by using data envelopment analysis (DEA) for a sample of 21 countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Publications in ten top journals of economics from 1980 to 1998 are taken as the research output. Inputs are measured by R&D expenditure, the number of universities with economics departments and (as an uncontrollable variable) population. Under constant returns-to-scale, the US emerges as the only efficient country. Under variable returns-to-scale, the efficiency frontier is defined by the US, Ireland and New Zealand. With the exception of the US, all countries in our sample display increasing returns-to-scale, and thus have the potential to raise their efficiency by scaling up their research activities.     

How does R&D intensity influence firm explorativeness? Evidence of R&D active firms in four advanced countries

Despite R&D is seen as a starting point of innovation, firms usually confront a trade-off in allocating limited R&D resources to either exploratory or exploitative activities. Relative to the latter, the former produces a more distinctive variation from the prior knowledge base and helps the firm tap into new opportunity. Given the increasing importance of firm explorativeness in the fast changing environments, the influence of R&D investment on firm explorativeness is not yet conclusive in the literature, not to mention whether the increased R&D investment induces firms to become more explorative. This study aims to generate insight into how and when firm explorativeness is determined by their R&D intensity. As a notion of the use of knowledge new to the organization, firm explorativeness is treated as the degree of using knowledge new to the organization in the pursuit of innovation. Based on a panel data of 1267 firm-year observations in four advanced countries during 1999–2003, the results reveal that a higher level of R&D intensity makes firms more exploitative and less explorative. Nevertheless, the negative relationship between R&D intensity and firm explorativeness is found to be alleviated in the presence of technological opportunity or financial slack. The configurational model sheds further light on the combined and relative weight of two moderators.     

EVOLUTIONARY AND NEW GROWTH THEORIES. ARE THEY CONVERGING?

Abstract.  This paper presents a critical review of evolutionary and new growth theories. The purpose is to discuss the often-made claim that the two approaches, both inspired by Schumpeter's seminal work, are becoming more and more similar in terms of the sources and mechanisms of the growth process on which they focus. According to this argument, some kind of theoretical convergence between the two paradigms is taking place. Differently from previous surveys of the field, this paper compares evolutionary and new growth theories by focusing on their major theoretical foundations. The discussion leads to the conclusion that the two approaches greatly differ with respect to all of their main theoretical building blocks, and that no convergence between the two paradigms is therefore taking place. This finding should be welcomed by both evolutionary and new growth scholars, because it is the process of interaction and the fruitful exchange of ideas between different approaches that lead to advances in growth theory, not their convergence to a common paradigm.     

创业者能力和机会对产品差异化优势的影响

本研究针对相关产业成长期创业的差异化阶段进行探索性研究。研究问题：哪些知识和机会概念的构成因素产生产品属性与竞争优势？经过对方太公司案例的探索,得出以下结论：低相关产业成长期创业的产业特殊知识门槛低,创业团队的学习创新能力强,创业决策时存在创业机会,才能使产品差异化成功。创业机会是一个潜藏着利润的特殊产业结构,本研究命名为创业机会结构,它由以下项目构成：（1）下游存在市场需求并成长;（2）忽视产品问题的竞争者数量多;（3）创业者有异质理念知识。差异化成功将产生上市新产品的三个产品竞争属性,即产品需求强度、产品有价值的差异程度、产品稀少性。这三个产品竞争属性正向影响产品竞争优势程度,进一步影响后续的利润。     

Identifying the effects of firing restrictions through size-contingent differences in regulation

We study the effects of the more stringent employment protection legislation (EPL) that applies in Italy to firms with over 15 employees. We consider firms' propensity to grow when close to that threshold and changes in employment policies when they pass it. Using a comprehensive matched employer–employees dataset, we find that the probability of firms' growth is reduced by around 2 percentage points near the threshold. Using the stochastic transition matrix for firm size, we compute the long-run effects of EPL on the size distribution, finding that they are quantitatively modest. We also find that, contrary to the implications of more stringent firing restrictions, workers in firms just above the threshold have on average less stable employment relations than those just below it. We document that this might be because firms above the threshold make greater use of flexible employment contracts, arguably to circumvent the stricter regulation on open-end contracts.     

Roles, resources and benefits of intermediate organizations supporting triple helix collaborative R&D: The case of Precarn

Triple helix collaborations involving academia, government and industry are believed vital to the success of regional technology development. However, due to differences in culture, organizational functioning and incentive mechanisms as well as the different objectives of the various actors involved, such collaboration is difficult to create and sustain. A case study of the organization called Precarn, a collaborative, which manages a program of triple helix projects, is used here to illustrate how an intermediate organization can help triple helix partnerships towards the successful commercialization of new technologies. The paper contributes to the literature on managing R&D collaborations and innovation networks using organization theories to explain why and how collaborative intermediate organizations can facilitate successful technological adoption and commercialization across innovation networks.     

Are firms ready to use big data analytics to create value? The role of structural and psychological readiness

In this study, we leverage Information Technology (IT) readiness literature and resource-based view (RBV) to investigate the impact of firm structural and psychological readiness on firm value creation, as mediated by big data analytics usage. The proposed research model is empirically validated using survey data from 179 senior IT managers. The findings demonstrate the importance of both structural (i.e. IT infrastructure capability, tools functionality, employee analytical capability, and bigness of data) and psychological readiness (i.e. IT proactive climate) in enhancing firm value creation through big data analytics usage. These results provide interesting theoretical and practical insights.     

The entrepreneurial university: Examining the underlying academic tensions

With increasing pressure on universities to play a role in the national innovation process, this exploratory case study investigates how the concept of the entrepreneurial university (Etzkowitz et al., 2000) is manifesting itself within the context of a comprehensive European university setting. Semi-structured interviews with key professors spanning the diverse disciplines of the university were conducted to uncover attitudes towards the entrepreneurial third mission and the underlying complexities of developing a unified entrepreneurial character within the institution. The case study identifies the emergence of an increasing schizophrenic divide between disciplines within the university. This attitudinal split has the potential to cause widespread disharmony amongst the academic community and impede progress towards achievement of the third mission. The case findings reveal that a strong top-down push towards the ideal of the entrepreneurial university would actually reduce overall entrepreneurial activity across the university. This case study finds support for Burgelman's (1983) understanding of the entrepreneurial process, and identifies a number of key barriers to realising the entrepreneurial ideal. Ultimately, the case study calls into question the assertion of Etzkowitz et al. (2000) that the concept of the entrepreneurial university is a global phenomenon with an isomorphic development path.