Does R&D intensity promote the adoption of circular supply chain management? Evidence from China

This paper explores the relationship between research and development (R&D) intensity and circular supply chain management (CSCM) adoption of high-tech manufacturing companies in China to deepen our understanding of how to improve CSCM adoption in emerging economies. In particular, we examine the moderating effect of three kinds of institutional pressures (i.e., regulatory pressure from governmental regulations, mimetic pressure from industry competition, and normative pressure from overseas customer demand) from the perspective of institutional theory. Based on the panel data of 310 Chinese listed companies from 2006 to 2019, we find that R&D intensity positively affects firms’ CSCM adoption. We further observe that this positive effect is strengthened when the ratio of state-owned shares or the degree of industry competition is higher. However, overseas operating income does not affect the impact of R&D intensity on CSCM adoption. Our study contributes to the literature on the innovation – circular economy debate, confirming the positive effect of R&D intensity on firms' CSCM adoption, and provides insights into moderating effects on this relationship in an emerging economy context.     

How does the partner type in R&D alliances impact technological innovation performance? A study on the Korean biotechnology industry

The number of strategic alliances for R&D activities in the biotechnology industry is sharply increasing. Some studies show that each alliance partner type has different alliance motives, resources and capabilities, organizational structures and cultures, and degrees of competition with partners, which can lead to different performances of strategic alliances. In this regard, this study conducts an empirical analysis of the different impact of each type of alliance partner on technological innovation performance and finds the moderating effect of absorptive capacity and potential competition by categorizing strategic alliances for R&D activities in the biotechnology industry into three types: vertical-downstream alliances, vertical-upstream alliances, and horizontal alliances. This study analyzed 206 Korean biotechnology firms and their strategic alliances for a total of 292 R&D activities. The results of the analysis showed that vertical alliances have a positive impact on technological innovation performance, while horizontal alliances have an inverted U-shaped relationship with technological innovation performance caused by the effect of competition. Additionally, it was confirmed that the R&D intensity of biotechnology firms has a moderating effect of increasing the impact of vertical-upstream alliances on technological innovation performance.     

Do R&D and ICT affect total factor productivity growth differently?

We analyze the effect of ICT and R&D on total factor productivity (TFP) growth across different industries in Sweden. R&D alone is significantly associated with contemporaneous TFP growth, thus exhibiting indirect effects. Although there is no significant short-run association between ICT and TFP, we find a positive association with a lag of seven to eight years. Thus, R&D affect TFP much faster than ICT-investments. We also divide ICT capital into hardware and software capital. To our knowledge, this distinction has not been made in any previous study analyzing TFP at the industry level. The results show that lagged hardware capital services growth is significantly associated with TFP growth. Hence, investments complementary to hardware are needed to reap the long-run TFP effects from reorganizing production.     

The use of influence strategies in interdependent relationship: The moderating role of shared norms and values

The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of interdependence on the influence strategies and investigate the moderating role that “shared norms and values” play in the relationships between interdependence and influence strategies. The results reveal that when the degree of total dependence between suppliers and retailers gets higher, the suppliers adopt fewer hard coercive strategies and more promise and noncoercive strategies. When retailers dependent much more on suppliers, suppliers adopt more hard coercive strategies and fewer noncoercive strategies, but there is no significant effect on promise strategies. Under a higher degree of shared norms and values, the negative relationship between total interdependence and hard coercive strategies, and the positive relationship between total interdependence and (1) promise strategies and (2) noncoercive strategies increase. Moreover, the relationship between interdependence asymmetry and influence strategies is also moderated by shared norms and values. It implies that under a higher degree of shared norms and values and a higher extent to which retailers depend on suppliers, suppliers adopt fewer hard coercive strategies and more promise and noncoercive strategies.     

Innovation,R&D productivity,and global market share in the pharmaceutical industry

In this paper, we estimate two empirical models using a pooled, cross-section sample of international pharmaceutical firms for the period 1987 to 1989. The first model tests the relationship between R&D productivity and a vector of firm-specific characteristics. The second model tests the determinants of global market share. The empirical analysis reveals three findings. First, we find evidence that there are diminishing returns in the pharmaceutical R&D process. Second, we find that firm size has a positive effect on average R&D productivity and a positive impact on the marginal R&D productivity for plausible R&D staff sizes. And third, we find evidence that R&D productivity and the number of sales employees have a positive effect on the firm's global market share.The views presented in this paper reflect those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. International Trade Commission or any of its individual commissioners. We thank William Comanor, Daniel Gropper, Daniel Hamermesh, Susan Pozo, Paul Thistle, and Mark Wheeler for their comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper. We assume all responsibility for any errors contained herein.     

Agricultural research spending must increase in light of future uncertainties

Agricultural productivity depends critically on investments in research and development (R&D), but there is a long lag in this response. Failing to invest today in improvements of agricultural productivity cannot be simply corrected a few decades later if the world finds itself short of food at that point in time. This fundamental irreversibility is particularly problematic in light of uncertain future population, income, and climate change, as portrayed in the IPCC’s Shared Socio-Economic Pathways (SSPs). This paper finds the optimal path of agricultural R&D spending over the 21st century for each SSP, along with valuation of those regrets associated with investment decisions later revealed to be in error. The maximum regret is minimized to find a robust optimal R&D pathway that factors in key uncertainties and the lag in productivity response to R&D. Results indicate that the whole of uncertainty’s impact on R&D is greater than the sum of its individual parts. Uncertainty in future population has the dominant impact on the optimal R&D expenditure path. The robust solution suggests that the optimal R&D spending strategy is very close to the one that will increase agricultural productivity fast enough to feed the World under the most populous scenario. It also suggests that society should accelerate R&D spending up to mid-century, thereafter moderating this growth rate.     

Pursuing opportunities in distance: the determinants of overseas R&D by Chinese multinationals

This study investigates two relevant dimensions of institutional distance – knowledge and economic distance – that influence the overseas research and development (R&D) intensity of emerging market multinational enterprises. We undertake a longitudinal analysis of 121 listed Chinese manufacturing multinational enterprises for the period 2011–2016. The results reveal that the enterprises' overseas R&D is more intense in host countries with greater knowledge and economic distance. Moreover, as the strength of intellectual property rights protection in host countries grows, the positive effects of knowledge and economic distance on the enterprises' overseas R&D intensity become weaker. We also find that political ties with home country governments strengthen the positive relationship between knowledge distance and the enterprises' overseas R&D intensity, while its moderating effect on the relationship between economic distance and overseas R&D intensity is insignificant.     

Cooperative R&D between vertically related firms with spillovers

This paper analyzes the effects of cooperative R&D in two vertically related duopolies, which are two final-good manufacturers and two input suppliers, with horizontal and vertical spillovers. Vertical R&D cartels yield a larger social welfare than non-cooperative R&D and, if the horizontal spillover rate between the input suppliers is not sufficiently high, than horizontal R&D cartels. Technological improvement is accelerated by forming vertical research joint ventures (RJVs), whether or not their member firms' R&D decisions are coordinated. Vertical RJV cartels yield the largest social welfare when the vertically related firms can coordinate their R&D decisions and/or share useful knowledge fully.     

Does business group affiliation encourage R&D activities? Evidence from India

The decision to undertake investment in innovative activities is an important strategic choice made by firms. This study investigates the relationship between business group (BG) affiliation and research & development (R&D) activities of Indian firms. Using an empirical approach that accounts for endogeneity and selection bias, we observe that BG affiliation has significant positive influence on the sample firms’ R&D activities. Employing various proxies for institutional development, we show that the effect of BG affiliation on R&D declines with the improvements in institutional and regulatory mechanisms. Further, this study explores the linkages between diversification strategies at the group level and R&D investments by firms affiliated with BGs. Results show that degree of related diversification is positively associated with the affiliates’ innovation efforts.     

R&D Collaborations and Product Innovation*

This paper studies the relative impact on product innovation of research and development (R&D) collaborations with universities, suppliers, customers, and competitors. It argues that each type of R&D collaboration differs in terms of the breadth of new knowledge provided to the firm and in the ease of access of this new knowledge, resulting in a different impact on product innovation. As a result, it proposes that R&D collaborations with universities are likely to have the highest impact on product innovation, followed by R&D collaborations with suppliers, customers, and, finally, competitors. These arguments are tested on the R&D collaborations undertaken by a sample of 781 manufacturing firms during 1998–2002. The tests find that R&D collaborations with suppliers have the highest positive impact on product innovation, followed by collaborations with universities. Surprisingly, R&D collaborations with customers do not appear to affect product innovation, and collaborations with competitors appear to harm it. Moreover, the positive influence of R&D collaborations with universities and suppliers is sustained over the long‐term, but the negative influence of R&D collaborations with competitors is, fortunately, short‐lived. These findings indicate that ease of knowledge access, rather than breadth of knowledge, appears to drive the success of R&D collaborations for product innovation. R&D collaborations with suppliers or universities, which are characterized by relatively easy knowledge access, have a positive influence on product innovation, whereas R&D collaborations with customers or competitors, which are characterized by reduced ease in knowledge access, are not related or are even negatively related to product innovation. Moreover, to achieve product innovation with the help of R&D collaborations, it appears that the collaboration must first have mechanisms in place to facilitate the transfer of knowledge; once these are in place, it is better if the partner has a relatively narrow knowledge base. Thus, while R&D collaborations with both suppliers and universities are positively related to product innovation, the narrow knowledge base provided by collaborations with suppliers appears to have a larger positive impact on product innovation than the wider knowledge base provided by collaborations with universities. These arguments and findings are important and novel. The paper is one of the first to theoretically explain and empirically show that various types of collaborations have a differential influence on product innovation. It goes beyond previous literature by providing a theoretical logic for ranking the likely impact of types of collaborations on product innovation. The study also suggests to managers to carefully select the partners for their firms' R&D collaborations. Collaborations with suppliers appear to be the most promising for product innovation, followed by collaborations with universities, whereas collaborations with competitors may be detrimental to product innovation.     

Complementarity in R&D Cooperation Strategies

This paper assesses the performance effects of simultaneous engagement in R&D cooperation with different partners (competitors, clients, suppliers, and universities and research institutes). We test whether these different types of R&D cooperation are complements in improving productivity. The results suggest that the joint adoption of cooperation strategies could be either beneficial or detrimental to firm performance, depending on firm size and specific strategy combinations. Customer cooperation helps to increase market acceptance and diffusion of product innovations and enhances the impact of competitor and university cooperation. On the other hand, smaller firms also face diseconomies in pursuing multiple R&D cooperation strategies, which may stem from higher costs and complexity of simultaneously managing multiple partnerships with different innovation objectives.The empirical analysis for this paper has been performed at CEREM/Statistics Netherlands. We thank Bert Diederen of CEREM for his assistance. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies of Statistics Netherlands. We thank two anonymous referees, the editor (Lawrence White), Bonnie Beerkens, Geert Duysters, Katrin Hussinger, and Pierre Mohnen for helpful comments on earlier drafts     

Types of R&D Collaborations and Process Innovation: The Benefit of Collaborating Upstream in the Knowledge Chain

This paper explains how research and development (R&D) collaborations impact process innovation; given the differences in innovation mechanisms, prior insights from studies of product innovation do not necessarily apply to process innovation. Extending the knowledge‐based view of the firm, this paper classifies four types of R&D collaborations—with universities, suppliers, competitors, and customers—in terms of two knowledge dimensions: position in the knowledge chain and contextual knowledge distance. Position in the knowledge chain is the position of the R&D collaboration partner in the knowledge chain of the industry—the input–output sequence of activities that result in the transformation of raw materials into products that are used by end customers. Based on this knowledge chain, this paper considers universities and suppliers as upstream R&D collaborators, and competitors and customers as downstream R&D collaborators. Contextual knowledge distance is the difference in industry‐related contexts of operation of the R&D collaboration partners and the firm. Based on this, this paper views R&D collaborators that are suppliers and competitors as having low contextual knowledge distance to the firm, and R&D collaborators that are customers and universities as having high contextual knowledge distance to the firm. Using this classification, this paper proposes a ranking of R&D collaborations in terms of their impact on process innovation: R&D collaborations with suppliers have the highest impact, followed by R&D collaborations with universities, then R&D collaborations with competitors, and finally R&D collaborations with customers. These arguments are tested on a four‐year panel of 781 manufacturing firms. The results of the analyses indicate that R&D collaborations with suppliers and universities appear to have a positive impact on process innovation, R&D collaborations with customers appear to have no impact, and R&D collaborations with competitors appear to have a negative impact. As a consequence, the main driver of the impact of R&D collaborations on process innovation appears to be position in the knowledge chain rather than contextual knowledge distance. These novel ideas and findings contribute to the literature on process innovation. Even though process innovation tends to be internal and tacit to the firm, it can still benefit from external R&D collaborations; this paper is the first to analyze this relationship and provide a theoretical framework for understanding why this would be the case. This study also has important managerial implications. It suggests that managers need to be careful in choosing the partners for their firms' R&D collaborations. Engaging in R&D collaborations with universities and suppliers appears to be helpful for process innovation, whereas conducting R&D collaborations with competitors may potentially harm process innovation.     

Effect of entrepreneurial orientation,collectivistic orientation and swift Guanxi with suppliers on market performance: A study of e-commerce enterprises

This study investigates the influence of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and swift Guanxi (three dimensions: mutual understanding, reciprocal favor and relationship harmony) on perceived value of suppliers and market performance of e-commerce enterprises, and the moderating effect of collectivistic orientation on the relationship between EO and swift Guanxi. The results obtained from a sample of 153 Chinese e-commerce enterprises using SEM-PLS analysis show that market performance of this kind of businesses is favorably influenced by their EO, but not by their swift Guanxi with suppliers. The findings confirm EO’s direct effect on swift Guanxi and its indirect effects on perceived value of suppliers, mediated through reciprocal favor and relationship harmony. In addition, the findings verify the negative moderating effect of collectivistic orientation on the EO-mutual understanding link. The study's implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Unlocking the link between relationship duration and product De-listing in retail channels: The role of market orientation and brand diffusion

The literature on retailers' range rationalization is limited and focuses primarily on the consequences thereof from a consumer perspective. Drawing on the extant research on buyer-supplier relationships, brand management, and market orientation (MO) in business-to-business (B2B) markets, our research explores the antecedents of product de-listing in retail channels. It unlocks the link between relationship duration and product de-listing by examining the role of MO and brand diffusion. Using a combination of primary data with both objective and perceptual measures and proprietary objective data from a sample of suppliers to a large British supermarket, we find that the supplier's brand diffusion is an essential means of utilizing relationship duration between suppliers and retailers to reduce product de-listing in retail stores. Additionally, we find that MO plays opposite moderating roles in the links between relationship duration, brand diffusion, and product de-listing. It strengthens the negative influence of relationship duration on product de-listing, while it weakens the positive influence of relationship duration on brand diffusion. Our study contributes to research on marketing channels and B2B marketing by highlighting the limitations of relational view theory and unveiling the role of brand diffusion and MO in explaining the outcomes of buyer-supplier relationships in retail channels.     

知识螺旋影响研发团队创新创意产生实证研究——内部社会资本的调节效应

为了研究研发团队内部知识的交互对于创意产生的机理,通过构建概念模型,研究知识螺旋对研发团队创新创意产生的影响,并分析内部社会资本的调节效应。采用结构方程模型和分层线性分析,基于274份样本的实证研究表明:一方面,知识螺旋显著积极影响研发团队创新创意产生,并且知识表出化、知识结合化、知识内在化及知识社会化分别积极影响创新创意产生;另一方面,内部社会资本不同维度在知识螺旋与创新创意产生关系中的调节效应各不相同,结构社会资本的调节效应并不显著,而认知社会资本和关系社会资本显著正向调节知识螺旋对创新创意产生的影响。根据研究结果,提出促进研发团队创意产生的建议。     

Growing in the changing global landscape: the intangible resources and performance of high-tech corporates

The Belt and Road Initiative and Sino-US trade war stand for the trend of globalization and de-globalization. The changing environment motivates innovative high-tech corporates to reassess their intangible resources such as R&D investment and top managers team (TMT) political ties, in order to attain competitive advantages. The study based on a sample of 223 listed Chinese most innovative high-tech corporates (2014–2018) confirms R&D intensity as burden and political ties as support for corporates’ short-term performance. TMT political ties may attenuate the negative effect of R&D intensity on performance. The negative influences of R&D are aggravated when high environmental dynamism in both the US and B&R countries markets. However, the positive influences of political ties are moderated differently by environmental dynamism in the two markets. For the US market, export environmental dynamism implies de-globalization and diminishes the positive effect of the political relations on performance. By contrast, for the B&R market, it suggests globalization and strengthens the positive effect of political ties.

     

R&D Cooperation in a Transaction Cost Perspective

This paper investigates R&Dcooperation between buyers and suppliers, drawing bothon transaction cost theory and resource-based theoryof the firm. Results of logistic regression analyses,using a unique firm-level database containing 689manufacturing firms located in a Dutch region, supportassumptions of transaction cost theory. Frequentknowledge transfer and moderate and high levels ofasset specificity increase probabilities of R&Dcooperation. In particular, Williamson's assumptionsconcerning the moderating influences of uncertainty onbilateral governance are confirmed. Extending theoriginal transaction cost model with indicatorsderived from resource based theory of the firmincreases the performance of the model.     

研发强度与战略性新兴产业成长性研究——基于门限面板模型

本文以属于战略性新兴产业的A股上市公司为研究对象,使用门限面板模型研究了研发投入对成长性的非线性影响。研究结果表明,研发投入强度对战略性新兴产业的成长性存在显著的门限效应,随着研发强度的增加,其对成长性的促进作用表现出边际递减的规律。进一步基于空间异质性视角进行研究,结果表明：在东部、中部和西部地区分别存在唯一的门限值,在东部地区,研发强度对战略性新兴产业成长性始终表现为促进作用,而在中西部地区,研发强度一旦超过门限值,其对战略性新兴产业成长性转变为抑制作用。     

R&D Partnerships and Innovation Performance: Can There Be too Much of a Good Thing?

R&D collaboration facilitates the pooling of complementary skills, learning from the partner as well as the sharing of risks and costs. Research therefore stresses the positive relationship between collaborative R&D and innovation performance. Fewer studies address the potential drawbacks of collaborative R&D. Collaborative R&D comes at the cost of coordination and monitoring, requires knowledge disclosure, and involves the risk of opportunistic behavior by the partners. Thus, while for lower collaboration intensities the net gains can be high, costs may start to outweigh benefits if firms perform a higher share of their innovation projects collaboratively. For a sample of 2735 firms located in Germany and active in a broad range of manufacturing and service sectors, this study finds that increasing the share of collaborative R&D projects in total R&D projects is associated with a higher probability of product innovation and with a higher market success of new products. While this confirms previous findings on the gains for innovation performance, the results also show that collaboration has decreasing and even negative returns on product innovation if its intensity increases above a certain threshold. Thus, the relationship between collaboration intensity and innovation follows an inverted‐U shape and, on average, costs start to outweigh benefits if a firm pursues more than about two‐thirds of its R&D projects in collaboration. This result is robust to conditioning market success to the introduction of new products and to accounting for the selection into collaborating. This threshold is, however, contingent on firm characteristics. Smaller and younger as well as resource‐constrained firms benefit from relatively higher collaboration intensities. For firms with higher collaboration complexities in terms of different partners and different stages of the R&D process at which collaboration takes place, returns start to decrease already at lower collaboration intensities.     

Heterogeneity in R&D cooperation strategies

We explore heterogeneities in the determinants of innovating firms' decisions to engage in R&D cooperation, differentiating between four types of cooperation partners: competitors, suppliers, customers, and universities and research institutes (institutional cooperation). We use two matched waves of the Dutch Community Innovation Survey (in 1996 and 1998) and apply system probit estimation. We find that determinants of R&D cooperation differ significantly across cooperation types. The positive impact of firm size, R&D intensity, and incoming source-specific spillovers is weaker for competitor cooperation, reflecting greater appropriability concerns. Institutional spillovers are more generic in nature and positively impact all cooperation types. The results appear robust to potential simultaneity bias.