Sources of knowledge and process innovation: The moderating role of perceived competitive intensity

Global competition means that firms are under pressure to systematically develop the efficiency of their manufacturing processes. However, little has been said in the international business literature about how firms, especially those subject to severe barriers, can search for knowledge within and across national boundaries to help in the development of process innovation. We build on key aspects of the innovation and search strategy literature to develop our conceptual model and hypotheses, which we test in the context of a less-developed, isolated, and closed economy, using data from 171 automotive component suppliers in Iran. We find that foreign knowledge search is positively related to process innovation, even in an economy that operates under severe economic sanctions. This contributes to the international business field by providing evidence that, while economic sanctions are increasingly used in modern geopolitics by the world’s most powerful countries, these actions may fail to achieve their goals with respect to individual businesses.     

正式与非正式知识搜索、知识属性与产品创新

基于正式、非正式搜索的视角,以217家浙江中小型制造企业为样本,研究外部知识搜索对产品创新绩效的影响机制。实证结果表明：正式和非正式搜索对产品创新绩效均具有显著的正向影响,而知识缄默性正向调节正式搜索和产品创新绩效之间的正向关系,负向调节非正式搜索与产品创新绩效之间的正向关系;技术复杂性负向调节非正式搜索与产品创新之间的关系。上述发现确认了外部知识搜索在中小企业创新活动中的重要作用,同时也从知识属性角度识别了影响外部知识搜索效能的重要情境条件。     

Geographical FDI knowledge spillover and innovation of indigenous firms in China

In recent decades, theoretical debate on firm innovation has considered particular forms of spatial clustering and foreign direct investment as almost mutually exclusive drivers. While cluster literature pays less attention to firm heterogeneity in ownership structure, FDI literature ignores the importance of geographical dimension in spillover effects. This study combines these two lines of theoretical inquiry to investigate regional FDI knowledge spillover effects on product innovation of China's indigenous electronic firms. It is found that localized innovative-related activities of foreign-invested firms significantly facilitate product innovation of domestic firms. However, FDI horizontal spillover is more important than vertical spillover and cross-sector rather than intra-sector knowledge is significant for indigenous innovation. FDI spillover effects can be reinforced by local innovative activities of domestic firms. This study highlights the significance of geographical proximity and relatively heterogeneous knowledge in FDI spillover effects on domestic innovation but questions the mutual trust relationship between foreign and domestic firms in a cluster.     

Impact of international entry choices on the nature and type of innovation: Evidence from emerging economy firms from the Indian bio-pharmaceutical industry

As emerging economy multinational enterprises (EMNEs) enter foreign countries in search of new markets, seeking to expand their knowledge bases, research on the type and nature of innovation activity is needed to address the impact of EMNEs’ choices related to international expansion. Building on prior literature on entry mode and location choices, as well as on organizational learning, we argue that how and where an EMNE expands internationally will impact the nature of its innovation. We carry out empirical analysis on a sample of 167 Indian bio-pharmaceutical firms for the period from 1997–2017. Our findings suggest that greenfield ventures foster innovation in core technologies, while cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) foster innovation in non-core technologies. In addition, locating subsidiaries in high income countries encourages product innovations, while locating in low income countries encourages process innovations. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on differences in learning outcomes of EMNE internationalization.     

跨国公司生产组织变革、技术外溢与我国加工贸易的升级

本文探讨了跨国公司国际生产组织的变革以及与这种变革相适应的国际生产网络中的技术外溢机制与加工贸易升级之间的关系。为了与产品内分工相适应,跨国公司调整其国际生产组织方式,形成了国际生产网络。以跨国公司为主导的国际生产网络中的技术外溢为我国加工企业提升生产能力带来了良机,对我国加工贸易升级具有重要意义。我国的加工贸易企业既要积极参与到国际生产网络之中,又要主动学习和吸收高层级主体向其溢出的先进技术和知识。     

The dual role of local sites in assisting firms with developing technological capabilities: Evidence from China

As strong local knowledge bases emerge in some developing countries and regions, more research efforts are devoted to examine the role of local sites in technological-capability development of firms from developing countries. However, most of these studies illuminate the direct input (e.g., knowledge, human capital) and the role of motivating multinational companies (MNCs) to upgrade their local operations in developing countries so as to perform more innovation activities. Few articles are presented that examine the role of local sites in the learning and technological-capability building processes that take place during technology import activities. This study investigates how local sites in developing countries help their firms benefit from the spillovers of international technology diffusion, by empirically scrutinizing Chinese licensee firms. The empirical results support the hypothesis that Chinese local sites assist with their firms’ technological-capacity building, driven by international technology licensing-in activities, in three indirect ways. That is, the enrollments of sufficient R&D personnel from local sites, the collaborations with local universities and research institutes, and the collaborations with local industrial community firms positively influence the relationship between firms’ international inward technology licensing and technological capabilities.     

Job machine,think tank,or both: what makes corporate spin-offs different?

One way through which knowledge and technology transfer can take place is through the foundation of new firms by former employees of incumbent private firms. In this paper, we examine whether knowledge transferred from the incumbent causally affect employment growth and post-entry innovation activities of the new firm. We focus on start-ups for which a new idea (a new product, technology, production process, or management concept), which the founder developed during her work as an employee, was essential for setting up the new business. These firms are denoted corporate spin-offs. Using data from German start-ups founded in the period from 2005 to 2008, we apply nearest-neighbour propensity score matching. We find that corporate spin-offs outperform other start-ups founded by former employees of incumbent private firms that are not based on an essential idea in terms of post-entry innovation activities. However, we cannot show that corporate spin-offs benefit from the transferred idea in terms of employment growth. We conclude that a transferred idea is primarily an input factor and a stimulus for subsequent post-entry innovation activities of corporate spin-offs.     

Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs’ involvement in internationalization and innovation: Three Canadian cases

In international entrepreneurship literature, entrepreneurs moving across borders have received less attention than other entrepreneurs. Also, only scant attention has been paid to immigrant entrepreneurs’ contributions to their organizations. This paper aims to contribute to the emerging international immigrant entrepreneurship literature by studying Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs’ roles in their firms’ international and innovative activities in Canada, China, and other countries. It is based on three cases of Chinese entrepreneurs who established businesses in Canada. We conclude that these immigrants’ experience of doing business in China and Canada, their network relationships and knowledge of these markets quickened their firms’ internationalization considerably. Moreover, these firms became active in product or service innovation as the case immigrants also involved other immigrants and locals. Consequently, immigrant entrepreneurs should actively use their connections both in their new country of residence and also in their previous home country, but to become even more successful, they should also reach beyond their ethnic ties.     

组织知识、跨部门协调与新产品创新绩效

组织的知识包括顾客知识、竞争者知识、技术知识等不同类型,不同类型的知识在新产品创新过程中起着不同的作用,并且会受到跨部门协调的影响。本研究基于长三角地区143家企业的问卷调查数据,实证考查了不同类型的组织知识是如何影响企业新产品创新绩效的,及跨部门协调在二者关系中的调解作用。结果表明（1）顾客知识对新产品市场表现有显著正向影响,但对新产品创新效率没有显著影响;（2）竞争者知识对新产品创新效率有显著正向影响,但对新产品市场表现没有显著影响;（3）技术知识对新产品市场表现和创新效率都有显著正向影响;（4）跨部门协调正向调解技术知识与创新绩效的关系。研究结果对于企业怎样提升新产品创新绩效具有重要的启示意义。     

Effect of consumer self‐confidence on information search and dissemination: Mediating role of subjective knowledge

Consumers search for information about products to make a satisfactory purchase decision and gain knowledge about new features and updates. Consumers also use this knowledge to be vocal about their product experience because several consumers seek interpersonal recommendations. This phenomenon has contributed to the emergence of information search (IS) and information dissemination (ID) as a key research area in the field of consumer behaviour. However, the role of personal factors such as consumer self‐confidence and subjective knowledge has received little attention in the extant IS and ID literature. The major argument of this study is that information acquisition confidence and social outcome confidence enhance subjective knowledge and consequently increase the will of consumers to search and disseminate information in the context of smartphone buyers in India. Structural equation modelling was employed to test the proposed hypotheses using a convenience sample of 259 consumers obtained through a cross‐sectional survey. The study shows that subjective knowledge is crucial in strengthening the association between consumer self‐confidence and consumer intention for IS and ID. Additionally, enhancing consumer’s social outcome confidence contributes towards high subjective knowledge and consequently accelerates information dissemination. Results suggest that firms could focus on enhancing the social outcome confidence and subjective knowledge of consumers to motivate them to disseminate information. The results also show that consumers with high confidence in information acquisition ability have the high subjective knowledge and are more likely to search for information. Overall, this study contributes to the emerging literature regarding the role of personal factors in IS and dissemination behaviour.     

Product Innovation and Small Business Growth: A Comparison of the Strategies of German,U.K. and Irish Companies

Innovation in small firms is important both because of its direct contribution to the competitiveness of those companies but also because of the potential for the small firm sector to act as the initiator, catalyst and medium for wider technical change. In this paper data from the Product Development Survey, a new international survey of firms' product innovation activity and strategy, is used to examine the relationship between product innovation and growth in German, Irish and U.K. small firms. In each country the output of innovative small firms was found to grow significantly faster than that of non-innovators. In Germany, output growth was achieved by a product innovation strategy which sharply increased productivity but reduced employment. U.K. and Irish small firms adopted a more balanced approach with increases in both employment and productivity associated with innovative behaviour. Comparison of the organisation of product innovation indicated that German small firms adopted a less market-oriented, less risky, and more formally organised approach than their U.K. and Irish counterparts. The revealed characteristics of U.K. and Irish small firms suggested that they may be the most effective initiators and catalysts for wider technological change. The larger proportion of German small firms which were innovating, however, suggested that the German small firm sector may be the more effective technology transfer medium.     

Open innovation: Are absorptive and desorptive capabilities complementary?

While recent studies in open innovation emphasize the synergies between in-bound and out-bound knowledge flow, empirical results are inconsistent. In this study, we argue that in order to engage simultaneously in both “buying” and “selling” activities, firms need to develop specific capabilities to manage knowledge inflows and outflows, e.g., absorptive and desorptive capacities. We build on key aspects of open innovation and knowledge management literature, arguing that absorptive and desorptive capacity are complementary rather than substitute, and engaging simultaneously in both activities should allow firms to develop their financial performance. We test our model using a sample of 541 New Zealand firms that are deeply involved in international collaborations and find empirical evidence that absorptive and desorptive capacity are not independent and the balanced development of these capabilities has higher impacts on firm’s performance. Further, our findings indicate that technology licensing capability is not a stand-alone task, and its interplay with absorptive capacity plays a key role in the development of a firm’s performance.     

国际外包承接对我国内资企业生产率的影响

跨国外包作为产品内专业化分工在国际市场的延伸,使参与其中的国家和行业生产都得到了专业化分工的好处。作为发展中国家,我国内资企业多利用劳动资源优势参与国际分工,即以外包的承接方身份参与跨国外包。本文首次从外包承接企业角度出发,利用我国制造业内资企业面板数据,实证分析了企业承接外包对其生产率的影响。结果表明,内资企业承接国内的外包业务并不会提高企业的生产率;但是企业承接国际外包会提高企业的生产率。这说明,内资企业在承接国际外包的情况下,能够从国外的外包商那里获得相应的生产技术、工艺或者经营管理知识,从而提高了企业的技术水平,促进了生产率的提高。     

Firm Size and Innovation in European Manufacturing

The paper investigates the differences between small, medium-sized and large firms regarding their performance in the introduction of new products and processes. After a review of the relevant literature, two models are proposed and tested in search for different business strategies and innovation inputs connected to product and process innovations. The empirical analysis uses innovation survey (CIS 2) data at the industry level for 22 manufacturing sectors, broken down in three firm size classes, for eight European countries. Special attention is devoted to tackling the issues of possible endogeneity of the regressors and of unobserved sectoral heterogeneity. The results – strengthening the findings of previous studies – show that product and process innovations, though having some complementarities, are associated to different innovative inputs and strategies pursued by firms. Systematic differences also emerge between the behaviour of large firms and SMEs.      

General Purpose Technologies and local knowledge accumulation — A study on MNC subunits and local innovation centers

This research looks into the innovative activities of subunits of large non-U.S firms in the U.S from 1969 to 1995, suggesting that the innovations in the subunits of multinational corporations are closely linked to their specializations in General Purpose Technologies (GPTs). GPTs enable recombining knowledge from different domains on an international scale, and that the specialization of innovations in GPT fields within a subunit is positively associated with the innovative capacity at large, along with the degree of technological diversification of that specific subunit. As firms expand geographically to tap into local innovation centers to develop new growth alternatives, specialization of GPTs in these firms actually facilitates further geographical dispersion of innovative activities across locations. Lastly, additional specializations of innovations in GPT fields within the host innovation centers does help in attracting innovation activities of firms from a wider range of industries.     

Towards an asymmetry-based view of Chinese firms’ technological catch-up

By carefully reviewing our research and related literature, in this paper, we propose a two-stage model of Chinese firms’ technological catch-up, and provide asymmetrybased explanations. We argue that at the approaching stage, Chinese firms mainly focus on knowledge accumulation through frugal innovation for capturing local and global low-end markets; while at the pole vault stage, they focus on knowledge creation through radical innovation for capturing the high-end market. Moreover, we propose that lacking world-leading technologies but striving to achieve technological catch-up quickly, Chinese firms mainly rely on asymmetric resource and capabilities that are embedded within Chinese institutional, technological and market contexts. Turning these asymmetries into sustainable capabilities and then matching them to market opportunities by developing asymmetric innovation strategies, Chinese firms could achieve technological catch-up in a unique way.     

One size doesn’t fit all: How institutional complexity within the state shapes firms’ environmental innovation

This study investigated how firms respond to conflicting demands within the state. Using Chinese listed firms data, we found that firms linked with central government relate positively to environmental innovation, while firms located in provinces with gross domestic product (GDP) priority exhibited a negative influence on environmental innovation. Beyond the independent roles of central and local government expectations, we found that central and local government demands work interdependently to negatively affect firms’ environmental innovation, such that firms located in GDP priority regions lower the positive impact of the central government on environmental innovation. The present study added to the existing literature by unpacking government roles into two competing sets of expectations, independently and interdependently.     

Convergence and interdisciplinarity in innovation management: a review,critique, and future directions

Knowledge integration in the interstices between different disciplinary fields is becoming a critical challenge to innovation management. As disciplines converge into new hybrid fields, such as information and communication technology or nano-biotechnology, it ultimately creates winners and losers, be they new firms that displace incumbents or individual scientists better positioned to reap rewards from new targeted grants. While received literature recognizes the importance of interdisciplinarity, little is known about its theoretical and conceptual antecedents. To meet this challenge, we first review and critique the literature on interdisciplinarity from a knowledge-based perspective, and, second, identify challenges for innovation management and formulate implications for further research. In particular, we outline how individual and team-level heterogeneity should be addressed. By adopting such a micro-level perspective, innovation management can embrace heterogeneity and effectively unlock the true value of interdisciplinary knowledge.     

Radical innovation in (multi)family owned firms

By integrating organizational learning theory with the family firm literature, we seek to enhance our understanding of radical innovation in (multi)family-owned firms. We theorize that the goal diversity and path dependency that multifamily ownership creates negatively affects the positive relationship between knowledge integration and radical innovation. However, this is not the case for multifamily-owned firms in which family members embrace a commitment to change. We contend that commitment to change mitigates the negative moderating effect of multifamily ownership by ensuring the effective translation of integrated knowledge into radical innovation within the firm. Overall, our results highlight the complexity of radical innovation in (multi)family-owned firms as a product of the joint effect of knowledge integration, the number of unrelated owning families, and a commitment to change.