Mining external R&D

Open Innovation presses the case for timely and thorough intelligence concerning research and development activities conducted outside one’s organization. To take advantage of this wealth of R&D, one needs to establish a systematic “tech mining” process. We propose a 5-stage framework that extends literature review into research profiling and pattern recognition to answer posed technology management questions. Ultimately one can even discover new knowledge by screening research databases.Once one determines the value in mining external R&D, tough issues remain to be overcome. Technology management has developed a culture that relies more on intuition than on evidence. Changing that culture and implementing effective technical intelligence capabilities is worth the effort. P&G's reported gains in innovation call attention to the huge payoff potential.     

R&D Competition when firms Choose Variance

I consider an infinite-period race where players choose between low- and high-variance motion technologies. I provide sufficient conditions under which, in equilibrium, the leader chooses a safe technology and the laggard a risky one, thus formalizing the sports intuition that the laggard has nothing to lose. Various examples and empirical implications are presented.     

基于粗糙集理论的投标风险因素分析

文章论述了粗糙集理论在投标报价时的风险因素,根据粗糙依赖度的计算确定了风险因素的权重,为客观准确地确定风险因素的重要性提供了一种有效的算法。     

Modes of innovation,resources and their influence on product innovation: Empirical evidence from R&D active firms in Norway

Evolutionary theory of the firm argues that firms follow different approaches to innovation with implications for their performance. Consistent with evolutionary theory, this paper develops a taxonomy of innovation modes which capture the variation in firms' approaches to product innovation. The taxonomy is based on the open/closed innovation and exploration/exploitation literatures and identifies the following modes: “Open exploration”, “closed exploration” “open exploitation”, and “closed exploitation”. The paper theorizes that the identified innovation modes influence product innovation through their effect on the firms' technological and market resources. Using survey data from over 1000 R&D active firms in Norway analyzed with structural equation modelling it is shown how four modes of innovation are related to actual product innovation.     

Firms' human capital,R&D and performance: a study on French and Swedish firms

This paper studies the effects of human and technological capital on productivity in a sample of large French and Swedish firms. While the role of technological capital as measured by R&D has been intensively investigated, almost no work has been done on the role of human capital as measured by firm-sponsored training and even less its interaction with technological capital. The level of intangible capital may also have a lasting effect on productivity growth, as emphasised by some endogenous growth models in a macroeconomic setting.The study uses data from two panels of large French and Swedish firms for the same period (1987–1993). It constructs measures of a firm's human capital stock, based on their past and present training expenditures. The results confirm that firm-sponsored training and R&D are significant inputs in the two countries, although to a different extent, and have high returns. However, except for managers and engineers in France, we do not find evidence of positive interactions between these two types of capital. Finally, growth effects at the firm level do not appear.     

R&D cooperation and unintended innovation performance: Role of appropriability regimes and sectoral characteristics

This research empirically examines the relation between R&D cooperation and unintended innovation performance. The effects of appropriability and sectoral conditions on the unintended innovation performance in the context of R&D cooperation were also tested. Binary logistic regression was used to analyze the manufacturing firms sampled from the Korea Innovation Survey (KIS) 2012. Our estimation results show that for the high-tech focal firms under strong appropriability regime, cooperation with competitors increases the likelihood of their unintended innovation performance. For the high-tech focal firms under weak appropriability regime, cooperation with customer and user firms and universities increases the likelihood of their unintended innovation performance. For the low-tech firms under strong appropriability regime, cooperation with the customer and user firms and advisory organizations increases the likelihood of unintended innovation performance. For the low-tech firms under weak appropriability regime, cooperation with competitors and government research institutes increases the likelihood of unintended innovation performance. As a whole, the significance of this paper lies in shedding a new light on approaching the innovation performance with the notion of unintended innovation performance, which is shaped by different partner types and environmental conditions.     

On the R&D/marketing interface in knowledge intensive entrepreneurial firms

In this paper we focus on the performance impact associated with whether R&D or marketing takes the lead in product innovations and/or product development. We examine empirically the performance of a sample of entrepreneurial firms across 10 European Union countries for which we can identify alternative regimes in which R&D, or in which marketing, is viewed as being relatively more important in creating and sustaining the firm’s competitive advantage. We find that when R&D is the dominant strategy, firms realize greater growth in sales, other factors held constant.     

Creating technology candidates for disruptive innovation: Generally applicable R&D strategies

In this paper, we first examined the importance of technology creation in technological disruptive innovations (DIs), and found both academic scholars and industrial practitioners have underestimated the challenging nature and importance of technology at least in technological DI. We then moved upstream to study empirically how technology candidates could be created purposefully for potential technological DI. Four generally applicable R&D strategies were abstracted from intensive studies on 37 technological DIs, by applying the central thoughts of principal component analysis which transforms many correlated variables into a small number of uncorrelated ones. The four R&D strategies abstracted are miniaturization, simplification, augmentation and exploitation for another application. Their creation of DI was examined, postulated and then demonstrated by means of the Delphi method. The frequencies of their utilization were also compiled and the implications discussed. This study has further advanced the knowledge at the front-end of R&D, i.e. the technology perspective of DI. It hopes to facilitate more purposeful creation of technology candidates for potential technological DI in future.     

R&D and regional competitiveness: a study of global entrepreneurial firms

We quantify, using data from the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys and the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index, the empirical relationship between global competitiveness and R&D investment activity as well as the independent relationship between global competitiveness and R&D investments across geographic regions of economic development. We also explore alternative measures of the effectiveness of R&D investments. Our findings suggest that R&D investments are a possible policy target variable in high-income regions for policy makers to consider for increasing firms’ global competitiveness.

     

Size and value effects in high-tech industries: The role of R&D investment

We use monthly US stock data over 55 years from 1962 to 2017 to show that the R&D intensity at firms adds another important dimension to the size and value effects in describing stock returns, especially for small high-tech firms. A trading strategy that double sorts on R&D intensity and size or book-to-market ratio outperforms a simple small-minus-big (SMB) or high-minus-low (HML) strategy in producing higher and more significant portfolio returns. The most profitable schemes involve triple sorts by size, BM, and R&D intensity: the payoffs of buying high-BM/R&D-Active portfolio and selling low-BM/R&D-Inactive portfolio in the small-size/high-tech group and that of buying high-tech/high-BM and selling low-tech/low-BM in the small-size/R&D-active group generate a return of more than 2% on a monthly basis. Our results are robust to alternative classification method of assigning stocks in portfolios.     

The impact of open innovation on firm performance: The moderating effects of internal R&D and environmental turbulence

Researchers have identified open innovation as two dimensions, external technology acquisition and external technology exploitation. This study explores the direct and interactive effects of these two dimensions on firm performance and further examines the moderation effects of two factors (i.e., internal R&D and environmental turbulence) on the relationship between both types of open innovation and firm performance. Based on Chesbrough's open innovation model, multi-item scales were developed to measure two dimensions of firm-level open innovation. Survey results of 176 Taiwanese high tech manufacturing firms provide support for most hypotheses. The result shows that external technology acquisition positively affects firm performance, whereas external technology exploitation does not. This study also finds that external technology acquisition strengthens the relationship between external technology exploitation and firm performance. Both external technology acquisition and external technology exploitation are positively related to firm performance under high internal R&D investment and a turbulent market environment. However, technological turbulence only positively affects the relationship between external technological acquisition, but not external technology exploitation, and firm performance. The findings contribute to enhanced understanding of how the degree of leveraging open innovation dimensions depends on their complementarity, internal R&D, and environmental turbulence.     

The effect of researchers' interdisciplinary characteristics on team innovation performance: evidence from university R&D teams in China

This study examines the effect of researchers' characteristics on the performance of R&D teams. Based on the multi-perspective of organization behavior and knowledge management, the authors adopt the framework of ‘Input-Process-Output’ regarding the process of the R&D team as knowledge creation. The theoretical model and corresponding hypotheses were tested empirically, drawing on a sample of 80 R&D teams from four universities in China. We concluded that knowledge communication, sharing, and integration play very important mediated roles in the knowledge creation process of the R&D team. Though researchers might have differing opinions on interdisciplinary research, they still tend toward communication and sharing their knowledge, experience, and viewpoints in the R&D process; this is an essential means for the achievement of knowledge integration. In order to achieve high innovation performance, management should pay attention to the process of knowledge communication, sharing, and integration.     

Real options game models of R&D competition between asymmetric firms with spillovers

Using real options game models, we consider the characterization of strategic equilibria associated with an asymmetric Research and Development (R&D) race between an incumbent firm and an entrant firm in the development of a new innovative product under market and technological uncertainties. The random arrival time of the discovery of the patent protected innovative product is modeled as a Poisson process. Input spillovers on the R&D effort are modeled by the change in the leader’s hazard rate of success of innovation upon the follower’s entry into the R&D race. Asymmetry between the two competing firms include sunk costs of investment, stochastic revenue flow rates generated from the product, and hazard rates of arrival of success of R&D efforts of the two firms. Under asymmetric duopoly, we obtain the complete characterization of the three types of Markov perfect equilibria (sequential leader–follower, preemption and simultaneous entry) of the firms’ optimal R&D entry decisions with respect to various sets of model parameters. Our model shows that under positive input spillover, preemptive equilibrium does not occur in the R&D race due to the presence of dominant second mover advantage. The two firms choose optimally to enter simultaneously if the sunk cost asymmetry is relatively small; otherwise, sequential equilibrium would occur. When the initial hazard rate is low relative to the level of input spillover, simultaneous entry would occur as an optimal decision, signifying another scenario of dominant second mover advantage. On the other hand, when the initial hazard rate is sufficiently high so that the first mover advantage becomes more significant, simultaneous equilibrium does not occur even under high level of positive input spillover.     

R&D subsidies and export performance of manufacturing industries

One of the main purposes of government R&D subsidies is to give domestic enterprises a competitive edge in international trade of high technology products. The empirical evidence, however, is disappointing: cross-section regression approach for six industries and five countries yielded a negative impact of R&D subsidies on exports of research intensive goods. An analysis of the distribution of public funds suggests that this poor performance could at least partially be explained by the high concordance of national technology policies and the concentration of public funds on big science projects.     

Performance evaluation of China's high-tech innovation process: Analysis based on the innovation value chain

The Chinese high-tech industry has developed greatly since the beginning of China's “National High-tech R&D (863) Program” and “China Torch Program”. This paper introduces a conceptual model extended from the innovation value chain model to simultaneously estimate the R&D and commercialization efficiencies for the high-tech industries of 29 provincial-level regions in China. To match reality, a network DEA incorporating both shared inputs and additional intermediate inputs is constructed to open the “black box” view of decision making units used in single-stage DEA. This study is the first attempt to link the R&D and commercialization with a solid theoretical foundation and feasible mathematical methods. The empirical findings show that most of the 29 regions have low efficiency in the commercialization sub-process compared to the R&D sub-process, although there are regional differences in China's high-tech industry. Pearson correlation shows that the R&D sub-process is not closely correlated to the commercialization sub-process in terms of efficiency. Our analysis can provide information for the formulation of policies to achieve high innovation efficiency.     

The effects of slack resource of R&D professionals on firm performance: evidence from traditional manufacturing firms in an emerging economy

Abstract

As an important component of organizational human resource slack (HR slack), the slack of research-and-development (R&D) professionals has been studied by several authors. However, it remains unclear whether and how this small component of general HR slack, i.e. the slack of research-and-development professionals (RHR slack), may affect overall firm performance in an emerging economy without much R&D tradition or pro-R&D institutions. Based on two organizational theories, i.e. institutional theory and the resource-based view of the firm (RBV), we propose competing hypotheses on the relationship between RHR slack and firms’ accounting performance. We also examine whether the relationship between RHR slack and firm performance should be linear or curvilinear. Finally, we also test the relationship between RHR slack and other dimensions of firm performance. Several interesting findings have been obtained. For instance, neither the perspective based on institutional theory nor that based on RBV can fully predict all types of RHR slack-performance relationships, be these relationships linear or curvilinear.     

The impacts of family involvement on R&D investment intensity in firms: Evidence from China

Drawing on the perspective of socioemotional wealth, this paper explores the types of family involvement in family firms and their impacts on R&D investment intensity. Using data from the forecasts issued by A-share family firms listed on Chinese stock markets between 2008 and 2019, the study finds that the separation of ownership and control is negatively associated with R&D investment intensity in non-high-tech firms, whereas potential gains of socioemotional wealth from R&D activities by high-tech firms produce a positive influence that offsets the negative impact of the separation of ownership and control on R&D investments. It reveals the importance of gains of socioemotional wealth. In contrast to the separation of ownership and control, family involvement in management is negatively associated with firms’ R&D investment intensity in both high-tech firms and non-high-tech firms. Our results capture the diversity of family members’ identity recognition, which leads to family members’ different evaluations of the potential gains and losses of socioemotional wealth. Overall, the distinction between high-tech family firms and other family firms is shown to be significant, as is the distinction between the impacts of different types of family involvement.

     

Emergence of innovation networks from R&D cooperation with endogenous absorptive capacity

This paper extends the existing literature on strategic R&D alliances by presenting a model of innovation networks with endogenous absorptive capacity. The networks emerge as a result of dynamic cooperation between firms occupying different locations in the knowledge space. Partner selection is driven by absorptive capacity which is itself influenced by cognitive distance and R&D investment allocation. Under different knowledge regimes, we examine the structure of networks that emerge and how firms perform within such networks. We find networks that exhibit small world properties which are generally robust to changes in the knowledge regime. Certain network strategies such as occupying brokerage positions or maximising accessibility to potential partners pay off, especially in ‘young’ industries with limited involuntary but abundant voluntary spillovers. This particular result is driven by endogenous absorptive capacity.     

The moderating effect of environmental uncertainty on the relationship between real options and technological innovation in high-tech firms

In the past decade, management scholars have applied aspects of real options theory to organizational settings, considering it an approach to enhancing strategic flexibility in the firm. They have also recognized that technological innovation is a critical mechanism through which high-tech firms try to secure a place in the competitive world of the future. Uncertainty about the environment makes it very important to analyze both factors, since the use of real options obligates managers to reflect constantly on future scenarios for which they will have to propose innovative solutions. This paper attempts to apply the theory of real options to innovation theory to propose a model in which real options reasoning improves the level of product/process technological innovation. We argue that this improvement will increase when the environment's level of uncertainty is higher. The proposal is supported empirically by a study performed on a sample of technology firms from different countries in the European Union.     

创新企业如何获利——基于模块化的分析

创新企业通过规模经济、范围经济以及技术垄断等传统途径来获利变得越来越困难,在技术变革剧烈、需求多样化的时代,模块化设计因其具有的专业化协作的优势不断提升企业的创新能力,不断适应环境来获得高额回报。