Synergizing independent and cooperative R&D activities: the effects of organisational slack and absorptive capacity

Firms undertaking independent and cooperative research and development (R&D) activities simultaneously often have difficulties to realise their synergistic effects. This study contends that such difficulties are caused by tensions between two types of R&D activities in terms of resource competition and knowledge leakage. Moreover, organisational slack and absorptive capacity may affect these tensions and thereby play important role in synergizing independent and cooperative R&D activities. Based on a survey data of 286 firms, this study finds that such two types of R&D activities jointly have a negative impact on firm performance. Furthermore, organisational slack aids in synergizing them, while absorptive capacity has an adverse impact. These findings enrich our knowledge on the interrelation of independent and cooperative R&D activities and shed light on how firms can synergize them.     

A comparative analysis of the change in R&D efficiency: a case of R&D leaders in the technology industry

This paper measures the cumulative change in research and development (R&D) efficiency of globally leading R&D companies in the technology industry. We use Data Envelopment Analysis /Malmquist index to analyse 49 such companies. The change in R&D efficiency is analysed by decomposing the Malmquist index into ‘catch-up’ and ‘frontier shift’ indices, and by comparing cumulative indices to those at the starting period. Those cumulative indices are obtained at both a firm and an industry level. Results indicate that the overall R&D efficiency of these globally leading R&D companies declined slightly during the period 2007–2013. At a firm level, this study determines in detail how the trend of each firm in R&D activities differs from other companies.     

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.     

Battle royal in biotechnology: R&D vs. product vs. process innovations

Companies regard innovation as a central element of their business. However, as not all innovation types are the same, the central question is: should their announcements bring about the same effect on performance? This article analyses potential differences in firm value derived from the innovation-type announcements ‘R&;D’, ‘product’, and ‘process’, made by intensive news-generating firms such as biotech companies. The empirical application shows a significantly positive reaction to innovation announcements, with the prospect of future innovation (‘R&;D’ investment announcements) having greater impact on firm value than ‘product’ and ‘process’ innovations. Firm experience also acts as a moderator in this innovation–performance relationship, which is particularly relevant for entrepreneurs who need to develop and send credible signals indicating the value of the firm's intangible assets to the market.     

Converging scientific fields and new technological paradigms as main drivers of the division of scientific labour in drug discovery process: the effects on strategic management of the R&D corporate change

The thesis of this study is that the convergence of genetics, genomics and proteomics spurs new technological paradigms in medicine, which are generating a R&D corporate change: division of scientific labour of the drug discovery process by strategic alliances among firms in order to reinforce the integrative capabilities in different biomedical research fields and collective and cumulative learning between in-house R&D and external sources of innovation. This study shows, by key a case study of pharmaceutical companies, as scientific and technological paradigms in medicine are main drivers of industrial and R&D corporate change to enhance and accelerate the discovery process of ground-breaking drugs for more and more personalised healthcare.     

Research technology organisations as leaders of R&D collaboration with SMEs: role,barriers and facilitators

Research technology organisations or RTOs have attracted academic interest in the last decade due to their role as technology transfer agents and R&D collaborative leaders for firms and especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Although their role within the diversity of specialised structures in generating R&D for industry in National Innovation Systems is recognised, there are scarce publications in relation to their strategies, performance or characteristic, as leaders of R&D collaboration with SMEs. The aim of this work is to identify the role, barriers and facilitators for RTOs performance as well as to develop a contingency relationship between industry environment, strategy, organisational structure and other factors for successful technology transfer from technology organisations to SMEs. This research is based on a field study conducted on 14 technology organisations based in the Valencia region, working with various industry sectors.     

Comparison of excess social rates of return to product and process R&D

This paper reports results for a well established production function that includes research and development (R&D). By assuming zero depreciation, it can be used to provide estimates of excess social rates of return to R&D. The estimates distinguish spending on product and process innovations for three US manufacturing industries. The results suggest that, while excess social rates of return are found to be negative for product R&D, they are positive for process in each of the industries. They therefore suggest some scope for public R&D subsidies or tax benefits to process R&D but not to product R&D.     

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.     

Into thin air: using a quantile regression approach to explore the relationship between R&D and innovation

Applying quantile regression to 760 Finnish firms, we show that the relationship between R&D and firm performance is less straight forward than so far assumed. OLS regression analysis fails to capture the effect of R&D expenditure at different locations on the performance distribution. We reveal that R&D matters, especially on the medium quantiles, while regressing against the upper quantiles of the economic gains from innovation distribution exhibit decreasing returns scale in R&D. Our results confirm that Gaussian statistics fail to capture the most interesting part of the distribution – namely the extreme observations located in the tails.     

Economic policy,the new economy and the social rate of return to R&D in UK manufacturing

This article focuses on the question of whether public policy changes and/or the new economy have influenced the social returns to R&D expenditure in UK manufacturing over the three decades up to the end of the millennium. The basic methodology is reasonably straightforward, to estimate a production function in which, in addition to labour and fixed capital, R&D appears separately in a form that directly enables estimates of the social return to investment in knowledge and how it has changed over time. The results suggest that neither changes in government R&D policy nor the new economy have raised social returns to R&D.     

研发创新、非研发创新对创新绩效影响的差异化——基于高新技术企业的实证研究

基于2013—2016年河北省高新技术企业的数据,从微观层面系统分析了研发创新和非研发创新对创新绩效的影响,以及来自不同行业的企业和处于不同成长周期阶段的企业在该影响上的差异。结果显示:研发创新和非研发创新均对整个高新技术企业的经济创新绩效产生了显著的促进作用,且内部研发创新的影响最大;非研发创新对企业的技术创新绩效具有显著的促进作用;对于来自不同行业、处于不同成长周期阶段的企业而言,研发创新和非研发创新对创新绩效的影响存在显著差异,甚至同一创新路径对来自不同行业的企业、处于不同成长周期阶段的企业的创新绩效可能产生完全相反的影响。     

税收优惠与企业创新绩效 ——基于研发投入和非研发创新投入的双重中介效应

税收优惠政策对企业创新绩效的影响广受关注,其传导机制更是一个有待深入探讨的问题。基于2000-2015年全国规模以上工业企业的省级面板数据,采用中介效应分析方法,研究税收优惠对企业创新绩效的影响,并运用面板门槛模型对两者之间的非线性关系进行探讨。结果表明:税收优惠一方面可以直接对创新绩效产生正向推动作用,另一方面可以通过研发投入和非研发创新投入发挥部分中介效应,间接提高企业的创新绩效,中介效应值为39.5%,且两者还存在着正向的协同效应。同时这种内在的传导机制存在着区域异质性:对于东部沿海地区而言,研发投入和非研发创新投入同时发挥中介效应;但是对于中西部地区而言,非研发创新投入的中介效应不显著。而且税收优惠对企业创新绩效的促进效果并非一成不变,而是随着研发投入和非研发创新投入的逐渐增加呈递增态势。因此,进一步地加大税收优惠力度的同时,合理规划自主研发和外源技术的资金安排,有利于实现企业创新绩效的最大化。     

Boundary spanning leadership,resource mobilisation,and performance of university-industry R&D projects: a study in a Japanese university

Acquisition of university knowledge has grown significantly for firms to complement an internal knowledge base of technological innovation. Recognising the significance, an increasing body of literature has analysed the performance of university-industry R&D projects by adopting managerial and social approaches. Despite the important role played by project leaders, existing research paid scant attention to the critical ability and quality of successful project leaders in acquiring university knowledge. To address these limitations, this study performed a survey of firms that collaborated with the Ritsumeikan University in Japan and investigates the influence of boundary spanning leadership of project leaders in firms on both knowledge and commercial performance of R&D projects. Furthermore, it also evaluates the mediation effect of university resource mobilisation that links boundary spanning leadership and project performance.     

R&D boundaries of the firm: An estimation of the double-hurdle model on commissioned R&D,joint R&D,and licensing in Japan

This paper studies the firm’s decisions on in-house R&D and its procurement from outside through commissioned R&D, joint R&D, and technology acquisitions (i.e., licensing-in). Using the data about 14,000 manufacturing firms in Japan, we estimate a modified double-hurdle model in which the first hurdle determines whether the firm should perform any R&D at all and the second hurdle determines whether (and how much) it should perform each mode of procured R&D. The results generally support the two major theories—the transaction cost theory and the capability theory. The estimated positive effects of firm size, in-house R&D intensity, diversification, and vertical integration support the hypothesis that capability is needed for procured R&D, while the estimated positive effect of the index of appropriability by patents supports the hypothesis that this appropriability reduces transaction costs. In addition, we found that information flow from scientific sources and that from transaction-based sources affect the three modes of procured R&D differently.     

Evidence on the impact of R&D and ICT investments on innovation and productivity in Italian firms

Both research and development (R&D) and information and communication technology (ICT) investment have been identified as sources of relative innovation underperformance in Europe vis-à-vis the USA. In this article, we investigate the R&D and ICT investment at the firm level in an effort to assess their relative importance and to what extent they are complements or substitutes. We use data on a large unbalanced panel data sample of Italian manufacturing firms constructed from four consecutive waves of a survey of manufacturing firms, to estimate a version of the CDM model of R&D, innovation, and productivity [Crépon–Duguet–Mairesse 1998. Research, innovation and productivity: An econometric analysis at the firm level. Economics of Innovation and New Technology 7, no. 2: 115–58] that has been modified to include ICT investment and R&D as the two main inputs into innovation and productivity. We find that R&D and ICT are both strongly associated with innovation and productivity, with R&D being more important for innovation, and ICT investment being more important for productivity. For the median firm, rates of return to both investments are so high that they suggest considerably underinvestment in both these activities. We explore the possible complementarity between R&D and ICT in innovation and production, but find none, although we do find complementarity between R&D and worker skill in innovation.     

The impact of public R&D investments on patenting activity: technology transfer at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

ABSTRACT

This paper presents estimates of the impact of public R&D on patenting activity at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Using a time series of public sector agency data, we estimate the per-capita R&D elasticity of new patent applications using a knowledge production function framework model that is an expanded version of what other scholars have used with private sector data. New patent applications are an important step in the technology transfer activities of a federal agency. We estimate this elasticity to be about 2.0. This elasticity value represents an initial estimate of the impact of EPA’s R&D investments on its technology transfer activity.     

Social capital,knowledge sharing,and innovation capability: an empirical study of R&D teams in Iran

Effectively encouraging employees to share valuable knowledge can increase and sustain a firm's competitive advantages. This study adopted an integrated approach to understand casual relationships among knowledge sharing (KS) enablers (social capital factors), mechanism of forming KS behaviours (knowledge collecting and knowledge donating) through individuals’ KS intention, and KS outcome (innovation capability) within research and development teams. The research model was developed by reviewing literature and tested with survey data collected from 230 employees in multiple companies in Iran. Results of partial least squares analysis indicated that social interaction ties (as a structural capital factor), trust, reciprocity, and team identification (as relational capital factors) significantly associated with KS intention. KS intention, in turn, was significantly related to KS behaviours (knowledge colleting and knowledge donating). In addition, findings revealed that members’ willingness to collect and donate knowledge can affect team innovation capability. This study also discusses the implications for fostering social capital and KS behaviours to enhance team innovation capability.     

The impact of R&D programme success on the decision to capitalise development expenditures in European firms

The financial reporting treatment of R&D expenditures can have important implications for firms’ strategic investment in R&D. Yet, financial reporting issues have been largely neglected in the R&D management literature. In this study, we first hypothesise that firms’ capitalisation of development expenditures subsequent to the mandatory adoption of IAS 38 (International Accounting Standard 38: Intangible Assets) is positively and significantly impacted by a measure of R&D programme success. Our empirical findings – based on a pan-European sample of firms – reveal strong support for this prediction. Our findings also offer support for our second hypothesis which predicts that capitalisation of development expenditures in conjunction with an evaluation of R&D programme success has a positive and significant impact on growth in shareholder value. Consequently, our work suggests that an important challenge for R&D professionals within firms is to develop improved measures of R&D success and to communicate this information to senior executives.     

Power-by-the-hour: the role of technology in reshaping business strategy at Rolls-Royce

There is a recognised trend of manufacturing companies offering not only products, but also services and even complete solutions to business problems. Research has highlighted economic, market demand and competitiveness factors as responsible for the reshaping of business strategies that this has involved. This study analyses the extent to which another factor, technology, has been a significant factor in the switch from product oriented to service-oriented strategies. A case study of the aero engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce is used to analyse the impact of technology, which is found to have led manufacturers to reshape their business strategies. The study finds that developments in one technology in particular, namely digital electronics, have been a powerful enabling factor facilitating the implementation of service strategies. This provided original equipment manufacturers like Rolls-Royce with a competitive advantage relative to conventional service providers, by enabling them to acquire new knowledge management capabilities.     

On Clustering in the Location of R&D: Statics and Dynamics

Empirical analyses of research and development find strong evidence that these activities tend to cluster geographically. Clusters are thought to emerge from the presence of localized positive externalities. This paper presents a model of this clustering behaviour. We find that phase changes in clustering exist both as the strength of local externalities changes and as the degree of heterogeneity among firms changes. The dynamics of the system are examined as it responds to shocks to the size of the market for R&D output, and the length scale of the spatially dependent externalities. Dynamic responses take place in two distinct stages: a rapid response to the change in market systems which takes place throughout the space, with litlle regard to externality effects; followed by a slow re-agglomeration process as producers change their spatial decisions to lower the costs of the new production level.