How open search strategies align with firms’ radical and incremental innovation: evidence from China

The purpose of this paper is to describe the ways in which open search strategies (i.e. open search breadth and open search depth) align with firms’ radical and incremental innovation. By analysing survey data collected from 162 firms in Chinese high-tech markets, we found that a firm pursuing radical innovation benefits more from open search breadth than open search depth to achieve its performance goals; in contrast, a firm processing incremental innovation benefits more from open search depth than open search breadth to improve its performance. Based on these results, managers should pay attention to the fit between open search strategies and radical/incremental innovation. This study not only contributes to the studies of search strategies by identifying the parallel relationship of open search strategies and two types of innovation, but also enriches the theory of open innovation with an empirical analysis.     

DISAGGREGATING FIRMS IN ANALYSING THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF THE UNIVERSITY–INDUSTRY RELATIONSHIP: BASED ON AN ANALYTICAL AND EMPIRICAL STUDY FROM SCOTLAND

It has been acknowledged that universities are key institutions in national and regional systems of innovation. This recognition has led to a rich stream of literature analysing the university–industry relationship. However, relatively little attention has been devoted to disaggregating the ‘industry’ side of this relationship and examining the costs and benefits to the disaggregated parties involved. In the present article, which draws on an analytical and empirical study from Scotland, it is suggested that it makes sense to distinguish between three kinds of firms in analysing the university–industry relationship: large national and international R&D-intensive firms, university spin-out firms, and established small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that have had little interaction with universities. The different costs and benefits facing these firms in their interactions with universities are analysed. It is concluded that the established SMEs confront relatively high costs in relating to universities. Finally, the policy implications are explored.     

内向型开放式创新、国际化、投机性学习与创新绩效的关系

组织学习过程中的投机性行为影响着企业创新绩效。运用组织学习与创新理论,从开放式创新视角阐述了国际化企业投机性学习影响创新绩效的过程机理。研究发现,高新技术企业的内向型创新模式能够提高创新绩效,但国际化程度负向调节它们之间的关系;同时,投机性学习行为削弱了内向型与创新绩效之间的正向关系,即投机性学习不利于提高内向型开放式创新绩效。研究结论对于新兴企业的开放式创新与国际化具有理论和实践意义。     

The division of innovative labour: when does customer codevelopment contribute to firm innovation performance?

ABSTRACT

Innovative firms often involve customers in their product development to drive innovation outcomes. However, few have empirically examined how this division of innovative labour affects innovation performance. Drawing on prior studies and the knowledge-based theory of the firm, we theorise conditions under which customer codevelopment benefits innovation performance. By examining panel data from Swiss firms, we provide the first empirical account of the performance effects of customer codevelopment based on a large-scale survey sample. We find that a firm's absorptive capacity reinforces the relationship between customer codevelopment and innovation performance. We elaborate on the implications of these findings for the literatures on customer codevelopment and open innovation.     

Exploring a theoretical framework to structure the public policy implications of open innovation

Open innovation is increasingly popular among practitioners and scholars, but its implications for public policy making have not yet been analysed in detail. This paper explores a theoretical framework to structure the debate about public policy making that facilitates open innovation. We first define open innovation in terms of firms’ open innovation practices and external conditions that encourage enterprises to practice open innovation. We show that policies for open innovation are legitimate as traditional arguments like market and system failures continue to apply. Next, we identify several guidelines for policymaking. Rather than just offering R&D and interaction-oriented policies, we conclude that open innovation warrants attention in a broader range of policy areas, including entrepreneurship, education, science, labour markets and competition. Developing truly horizontal policies is a major challenge to facilitate open innovation in developed economies.     

Regulating away competition: the effect of regulation on entrepreneurship and employment

Many scholars have worried that regulation deters entrepreneurship because it increases the cost of entry, reduces innovation in the regulated industry, and benefits large firms because they can overcome the costs of complying with regulations more easily than smaller firms. Using novel data on the extent of US federal regulations by industry and data on firm births and employment from the Statistics of US Businesses, we run fixed effects regressions to show that more-regulated industries experienced fewer new firm births and slower employment growth in the period 1998–2011. Large firms may even successfully lobby government officials to increase regulations to raise their smaller rivals’ costs. We also find that regulations inhibit employment growth in all firms and that large firms are less likely to exit a heavily regulated industry than small firms.     

基于诺思制度变迁框架的中国近代企业史研究——以荣家企业制度变迁为例

从20世纪90年代起,中国经济史学研究引入了新制度经济学理论,这是传统经济史学研究方法上的突破。但这些研究大多集中于正式制度对近代企业的影响和运用交易成本或产权理论分析近代企业制度变迁。文章在诺思产权—国家—意识形态的制度变迁理论框架的基础上,以企业代替国家为制度变迁的主体,重点从意识形态视角进行研究,并通过对荣家企业的案例分析,为近代企业史研究提供了一个内在逻辑一致的理论框架。     

知识溢出支撑集群企业创新跨越研究

培育集群企业技术创新能力是产业集群竞争优势的主要表现形式,而企业是集群中最活跃的行为主体,单个企业的技术创新能力在很大程度上反映了一个集群的技术创新能力.知识溢出、集群企业吸收能力是产业集群创新的关键要素.首先对集群企业技术创新能力、知识溢出、集群企业吸收能力的相关文献进行了综述,在此基础上归纳本文的研究要素,明确要素之间的逻辑关系;针对当前集群企业的现实,从吸收能力视角提出了知识溢出支撑集群企业技术创新能力跨越的理论分析框架,并从隐性知识、显性知识、吸收能力与集群企业技术创新能力跨越进行了分析,知识溢出对集群企业提升技术创新能力具有促进作用,而这种促进作用的大小受到集群企业本身吸收能力影响,即吸收能力增强了知识溢出对集群企业技术创新能力的促进作用.     

外部研发合作广度与新产品开发绩效：一个有调节的中介模型

基于企业外部合作伙伴分布广泛的特点,从外部研发合作广度的两个维度（市场广度和研究广度）出发,选取2010—2018年160家中国制造业上市企业数据,运用多元回归分析法探讨外部研发合作广度对企业新产品开发绩效的影响。结果表明,外部研发合作的市场广度和研究广度正向影响新产品开发绩效,其中,研究广度的作用更为显著;网络学习在外部研发合作广度对新产品开发绩效的影响机制中存在部分中介作用;知识库同质性正向调节外部研发合作广度与网络学习的关系。结论丰富了新产品开发绩效前因变量研究,对企业制定外部研发合作战略,提升新产品开发绩效具有重要管理启示。     

Market size and entry in international trade: Product versus firm fixed costs

This paper develops a theoretical framework to infer the nature of fixed costs from the relationship between entry patterns in international markets and destination market size. If fixed costs are at the firm level, firms take advantage of an intrafirm spillover by expanding firm‐level product range (scope). Few firms enter with many products and dominate international trade. If fixed costs are at the product level, an interfirm spillover reduces the fixed costs to export for all firms producing the product. The resulting entry pattern consists of many firms exporting different varieties of the same product. Using cross‐country data on firm and product entry, I find empirical evidence consistent with product‐level costs. More firms than products enter in larger markets offering their consumers lower prices and a greater variety of goods within the product category.     

WHAT ARE EMPLOYERS DOING TO CREATE A COMPETITIVE MARKET FOR HEALTH CARE IN THE TWIN CITIES?

Employers' willingness to control costs is a critical aspect of pro-competition strategies for the health-care market. Here, we present some of the first quantitative evidence of what employers do to control health-care costs. Our sample is 44 large private and public employers in Minnesota.
We develop a theoretical model in which the employer chooses cost-control "innovations"—along with wages, fringe benefits, and labor-force size—to maximize profits. The role of innovations is to reduce unit costs of offering fringe benefits.
Our data are from a 1982 survey. Eighty percent of the surveyed employers, representing nearly 200,000 employees, responded. Most respondents offer both indemnity insurance plans and health-maintenance organizations (HMOs). Many firms and individual health-insurance plans conduct cost-control activities, but less than half of the firms which offer HMOs have adopted level-dollar premium contributions for their family health-insurance policies. Few plans have increased their coinsurance and deductible requirements in the past five years.
We use probit equations to estimate the probability that a firm or a health plan will adopt cost-control activities. Our analysis suggests that many firms may soon make major plan-design changes to control health-care costs, although they have not yet done so.     

产业技术创新联盟中企业联盟能力的构建——一个多层面互动的模型

在新的竞争环境下,产业技术创新联盟成为了企业实施技术创新战略的主要形式,而对创新联盟以及创新联盟网络的管理能力也因此成为了企业竞争优势的关键来源。文章超越了现有大多数联盟能力研究所采取的单一分析层面的做法,着重探索了影响产业技术创新联盟中企业联盟能力的组织和个体两个层面的多因素互动机制。在案例研究的基础上,建立了一个联盟能力的多维动态框架,包括组织维度的战略和结构以及个体维度的能力等因素,分别从战略锚定、支持结构和联盟思维等方面阐述了企业联盟能力构建的途径和方法,强调组织层面的因素与个体层面的因素之间的互动是创新联盟中企业联盟能力构建的关键,联盟能力是企业组织层面的战略-结构因素与个体层面的认知结构和能力因素交互作用的函数,从而为企业构建联盟能力以更好地从技术创新联盟中获益提供了一定的指导和借鉴。     

开放式创新效能提升的制度基础:关系治理还是契约治理

开放式创新是21世纪以来理论研究和管理实践中的热点问题,然而,值得注意的是,在理论研究蓬勃发展的同时,企业实践并未实现预期效果,甚至失败率很高,这一反差不得不引起人们的反思。以往研究忽视了这样一个事实:开放式创新本质上是一种知识联盟,而联盟治理结构是联盟运行的制度基础,不同治理结构会对联盟决策权、利益格局、激励和冲突等问题产生根本影响。整合社会资本理论和交易成本理论,阐释了不同治理结构对开放式创新绩效的影响机理。运用分层线性模型,利用58家制造企业共398份问卷检验了该模型,研究结果表明:1关系治理与开放式创新绩效呈现倒U型关系;2契约治理对开放式创新绩效有倒U型影响;3在网络化程度较低的情境中,关系治理和契约治理能够相互补充,二者共同使用提升了开放式创新绩效。在网络化程度高的情况下,"软"性的关系治理与"硬"性的契约治理具有明显的替代作用,二者共同使用会显著降低开放式创新绩效,形成"软硬兼施"的负效应。     

Growth and Agglomeration

This article presents a model in which growth and geographic agglomeration of economic activities are mutually self-reinforcing processes. Economic agglomeration in one region spurs growth because it reduces the cost of innovation in that region through a pecuniary externality due to transaction costs. Growth fosters agglomeration because, as the sector at the origin of innovation expands, new firms tend to locate close to this sector. Agglomeration implies that all innovation and most production activities take place in the core region. However, as new firms are continuously created in the core, some relocate their production to the periphery.     

Matchmaking as multi-sided market for open innovation

An obvious task in open innovation is to find suitable partners for collaboration. In this paper we present results from three participatory case studies of identifying and matching technology firms for collaborative innovation projects. We observe that matchmaking is a more complex process than an (online) market transaction. The cases show how innovation intermediaries organise the matching process as external service-providers and what economic contribution they can have. The paper conceptualises matchmaking for collaborative innovation as economic resource allocation process in the shape of a multi-sided market which involves the innovation partners and intermediaries. The paper concludes with theoretical and practical implications that such a conceptual lens opens for exploratory technology analysis projects and the management of matching processes for innovation partnership formation.     

Southern Multinationals

Investments in the North by Southern firms are still unusual. While such investments may be motivated by tariff jumping and internalization, casual empiricism suggests that such reverse DFI may be motivated by improved technology access. This paper examines, within a theoretical framework, whether enhanced technology access provides sufficient motivation for the endogenous formation of southern multinationals. Southern firms are most likely to establish northern subsidiaries in industries with rapid technological obsolescence; when global sales are high relative to DFI costs; and when domestic production costs are high. Neither market power nor significant market shares are a prerequisite for southern multinationals.     

Evaluating the Effects of Product Innovation on the Performance of European Firms by Using the Generalised Propensity Score

The relationship between product innovation intensities and the performance of European firms is assessed, assuming that the selection into different intensities is based on a set of observed covariates. Most studies only distinguish between the innovating and non‐innovating status of firms within a binary treatment framework. Instead, we use a generalised propensity score to estimate a dose–response function, which connects the product innovation intensities of the firms to their labour productivity and profitability growth rates, as measures of performance. The results indicate that high levels of product innovation intensity have significant positive effects on the profitability rate, whilst no significant effects are found on productivity rate.     

Sources of technological innovation: Radical and incremental innovation problem-driven to support competitive advantage of firms

A fundamental problem in the field of management of technology is how firms develop radical and incremental innovations that sustain the competitive advantage in markets. Current frameworks provide some explanations but the general sources of major and minor technological breakthroughs are hardly known. The study here confronts this problem by developing a conceptual framework of problem-driven innovation. The inductive study of the pharmaceutical industry (focusing on ground-breaking drugs for lung cancer treatment) seems to show that the co-evolution of consequential problems and their solutions induce the emergence and development of radical innovations. In fact, firms have a strong incentive to find innovative solutions to unsolved problems in order to achieve the prospect of a (temporary) profit monopoly and competitive advantage in markets characterised by technological dynamisms. The theoretical framework of this study can be generalised to explain one of the sources of innovation that supports technological and industrial change in a Schumpeterian world of innovation-based competition.     

The importance of government commitment in attracting firms: A dynamic analysis of tax competition in an agglomeration economy

Agglomeration tendencies of industrial firms significantly affect the nature of tax competition. This paper analyzes tax competition between two countries over an infinite time horizon in an economy with trade costs and internationally mobile industrial firms. Most of the previous studies on tax competition in the ‘new economic geography’ framework employ static models. In this study, two governments dynamically compete with each other to attract firms through their choices of taxes and subsidies. It is shown that the commitment of the governments to their policies is crucial in determining the distribution of firms in the long run. Specifically, if governments find each others׳ tax policies credible, then one country will attract all the firms when trade costs are low enough to make agglomeration forces dominant. If policies are not credible, both countries may attract an equal share of firms even when trade costs are low, as the lack of commitment by governments acts as a dispersion force.     

Environmental Regulations and Managerial Myopia

It has recently been claimed that, contrary totraditional neoclassical theory, suitably chosenenvironmental regulation is often beneficial for theregulated firms because it induces cost-reducinginnovations. I analyze the extent to which thisposition is compatible with microeconomic analysis. Itturns out that even in a framework in whichorganizational inefficiencies might lead tounderinvestment, environmental policy can onlyincrease firm profits if several very specificconditions are met. These conditions concern the typeof policy, the extent of inefficiencies, the costs ofpotential innovation projects and their effect onproductivity and abatement costs.