企业技术多样性、实质性社会责任信息披露与创新扩散

技术多样性是企业创新能力的重要表征，但现有研究对于技术多样性与创新扩散的关系存在争议。对此，区分相关和不相关技术多样性对创新扩散的异质性影响，并检验实质性社会责任信息披露作为一种信号传递机制对上述关系的调节作用。基于2008—2017年中国研发密集型上市企业数据进行实证分析，结果发现：相关技术多样性能够积极影响创新扩散；不相关技术多样性对创新扩散的影响存在滞后效应；实质性社会责任信息披露正向调节不相关技术多样性与创新扩散的关系。结论丰富了创新扩散理论与实证研究，可为企业创新实践提供决策依据。     

技术联盟企业间联合行动对企业创新绩效的影响

基于社会认同理论类化-认同-比较分析框架，将技术联盟中的企业联合行动、关系认同和知识多样性引入企业创新绩效反应机制，构建联合行动、关系认同和知识多样性三因素交互调节模型，探讨企业创新绩效生成机制。运用428份水环境治理企业调研数据进行实证分析，结果表明：联合行动正向影响企业创新绩效；关系认同正向调节联合行动对企业创新绩效的影响；企业间知识多样性正向调节关系认同在联合行动共同问题解决与企业创新绩效间的调节效应，即在企业间高知识多样性下，提高关系认同可以强化共同问题解决与企业创新绩效之间的关系；而企业间知识多样性对关系认同在联合行动共同认知与企业创新绩效间的调节作用不显著。     

Vertical educational diversity and innovation performance

This paper uses panel data of Swiss firms to analyse the impact of education-level diversity in the workforce on innovation performance, addressing endogeneity by exploiting within-firm variation as well as variation in labour supply across regions. We find that vertical educational diversity increases the extensive margin of R&D and product innovation, particularly new product innovation. However, the relationship with process innovation, R&D intensity, and product innovation intensity is insignificant. These results are in line with the idea that vertical educational diversity enhances the creative moment of the invention phase, while it has no effect on the commercialization phase due to the relevance of coordination and communication costs relative to the gains in creativity.     

Knowledge Intensive, Technical and Other Services: Patterns of Competitiveness and Innovation Compared

Drawing on empirical evidence from a wide-scale survey, this paper examines patterns of innovation and sources of competitiveness amongst German service firms. The purpose is to investigate how these patterns differ across services, and in particular how knowledge intensive and technical service firms differ from services more generally. The analysis finds a high degree of customization in the output of service firms, especially amongst the knowledge intensive and technical service firms, the innovation activities of which are also relatively more oriented to product innovation. Knowledge intensive and technical service firms also invest more heavily in information communication technologies, whilst other services invest heavily in non-ICTs. Thus significant diversity is found between the groups of firms examined, but much diversity also exists within the groups. A serious challenge for research on services is to improve our understanding of this diversity.     

Knowledge Intensive,Technical and Other Services: Patterns of Competitiveness and Innovation Compared

Drawing on empirical evidence from a wide-scale survey, this paper examines patterns of innovation and sources of competitiveness amongst German service firms. The purpose is to investigate how these patterns differ across services, and in particular how knowledge intensive and technical service firms differ from services more generally. The analysis finds a high degree of customization in the output of service firms, especially amongst the knowledge intensive and technical service firms, the innovation activities of which are also relatively more oriented to product innovation. Knowledge intensive and technical service firms also invest more heavily in information communication technologies, whilst other services invest heavily in non-ICTs. Thus significant diversity is found between the groups of firms examined, but much diversity also exists within the groups. A serious challenge for research on services is to improve our understanding of this diversity.     

Diversity of technology acquisition in technological catch-up: an industry-level analysis of Chinese manufacturing

Using panel data analysis for an industry-level sample of Chinese manufacturing industries from 2000 to 2009, the study examines how latecomers dynamically adapt technology acquisition strategy in terms of technology acquisition diversity during the transition process from imitation to innovation. Our research considers technology acquisition as a portfolio of technology channels and thus examines the impact of technology gap between domestic firms and foreign firms on technology acquisition strategy at the industry level. The findings reveal that technology gap positively affects technology acquisition diversity of Chinese manufacturing industries. Further, it shows that technological uncertainty weakens the positive impact of technology gap on diversity of technology acquisition.     

Additionality of public R&D grants in a transition economy

This paper examines the input and output additionality of public R&D subsidies in Western and Eastern Germany. We estimate the impact of public R&D grants on firms’ R&D and innovation input. Based on the results of this first step we compare the impact of publicly funded private R&D on innovation output with the output effect of R&D funded out of firms’ own pockets. We employ microeconometric evaluation methods using firm‐level data derived from the Mannheim Innovation Panel. Our results point towards a large degree of additionality in public R&D grants with regard to innovation input measured as R&D expenditures and innovation expenditures, as well as with regard to innovation output measured by patent applications. Input additionality has been more pronounced in Eastern Germany during the transition period than in Western Germany. However, R&D productivity is still larger for the established Western German innovation system than for Eastern Germany. Hence, a regional redistribution of public R&D subsidies might improve the overall innovation output of the German economy.     

金融体系特征、风险特性与企业创新

本文基于中国工业企业库和专利数据库，利用2006—2008年中国证券市场资本化总额占比的快速上升和企业风险特性的差异，探讨了金融结构和金融发展对企业创新的影响。实证结果表明，市场主导程度更高的金融结构，而非更大的金融市场总体规模，通过缓解外部融资依赖程度更高行业中的私有企业的融资约束，显著促进了高风险私有企业的创新。以上实证结果并非由金融体系特征变化前的时间趋势所驱动，并对遗漏变量等问题保持稳健。本文对于深入理解转型升级，构建支持企业创新的金融体系具有重要政策含义。     

Two-way relationship between innovation and market structure: evidence from Indian high and medium technology firms

ABSTRACT

This study analyses a two-way relationship between innovation and market structure in Indian high and medium technology firms. We perform an empirical analysis based on a simultaneous equation model on data for 991 high and medium technology firms during 2000–2015. Patent applications and patent grants capture innovation activity of the firms. We find that the market structure has an insignificant impact on innovation. A separate analysis of neck-and-neck firms also suggests that market structure has no impact on innovation. On the other hand, patenting has a positive and significant impact on market structure in both high and medium technology firms. The study concludes that in-house technology creation is a vital source of market dominance in Indian high and medium technology firms.     

Exploration or exploitation of knowledge from universities: does it make a difference?

In the first step, based on the existing theoretical and empirical literature, we develop a series of hypotheses with respect to the relative importance of possible determinants of exploration and exploitation of knowledge in collaboration with universities and test them on Swiss firm data. In the second step, we investigate the impact on innovation performance of knowledge exploration versus knowledge exploitation. We obtain a clear pattern of the differences between firms that are engaged both in exploitative and explorative activities (‘exploration’-oriented firms) and purely ‘exploitation’-oriented firms. We find that exploration-oriented firms have a greater knowledge absorptive capacity, are technologically more diverse and are strongly exposed to intensive non-price competition compared with exploitation-oriented firms. We further find a positive effect on innovation performance for exploitation-oriented firms but not for those that were exploration oriented.     

Directors’ and officers’ liability insurance and firm innovation

In this paper, we investigate the impact of directors’ and officers’ insurance (D&O insurance) on firm innovation in China. We find that D&O insurance is significantly positively associated with firm innovation, which indicates that D&O insurance enhances managers’ tolerance for failure. To address endogeneity concerns, we adopt the propensity score matching method and difference-in-differences approach. We find that firms with D&O insurance have a stronger risk bearing capacity. Further analyses show that the impact of D&O insurance on firm innovation is more pronounced in firms with a better legal environment, male executives, and stronger external supervision.     

创新与出口间因果关系分析——基于中国高技术产业企业数据的实证研究

使用1999—2009年我国18万家规模以上高技术产业微观企业数据,采用倾向得分匹配方法控制内生性问题,分析了企业创新与出口之间的因果关系。以产品创新衡量企业创新的估计结果表明,企业创新与出口间存在明显的因果关系:企业创新使其出口概率平均增加14%以上,企业出口使企业创新概率平均提升超过8%,从创新到出口、从出口到创新的因果关系方向均显著。区分出口强度和企业类型的估计结果显示:这种因果关系随着出口强度的增大而减弱;内资企业的创新对其出口的影响要大于外资企业;外资企业的出口对其创新的影响要大于内资企业。以研发衡量企业创新后也得到了类似结果。     

Does bank shareholding impact corporate innovation? Evidence from China

Corporate innovation is an engine of economic development, while bank shareholding is the phenomenon of having a bank as a shareholder. Their relationship, however, has been underexamined. We provide the first study on the direct impact of bank shareholding on corporate innovation. Using patents granted to Chinese firms from 1999 to 2013, our findings suggest that bank shareholding significantly contributes to corporate innovation. Additional analysis suggests that easing financial constraints can facilitate the positive impacts of bank shareholding on corporate innovation. We also find that bank shareholding works better when firms have effective external monitoring and when they are nonstate-owned firms with nonstate-owned banks as shareholders. We contribute to the literature by showing that (1) despite the restrictions some countries impose on bank shareholding, allowing it could be a good economic policy for promoting corporate innovation, and (2) successful corporate innovation requires proper monitoring and incentives.     

Technological area experience,experience diversity and innovation

One conclusion from the knowledge-based view is that firms develop knowledge from experience. This paper examines the conditions under which firms’ R&D experiences might have stronger or weaker effects on innovation capabilities. We posit that any potential benefit depends on the nature of this experience. In particular, we look at how technological area experience and experience diversity affects innovation capabilities. We further propose that, in order to leverage their experience, firms need to consider how the interactions of technological area experience and experience diversity affect performance. To test this model, we draw on a data set of 3034 drug development projects undertaken by 30 large pharmaceutical companies between 1980 and 2008.     

Appropriability mechanisms,innovation, and productivity: evidence from the UK

ABSTRACT

We use an extended version of the well-established Crepon, Duguet, and Mairesse model [1998. “Research, Innovation and Productivity: An Econometric Analysis at the Firm Level.” Economics of Innovation and New Technology 7 (2): 115–158] to model the relationship between appropriability mechanisms, innovation, and firm-level productivity. We enrich this model in three ways: (1) We compare estimates obtained using a broader definition of innovation spending to those that use R&D spending. (2) We assume that a firm simultaneously innovates and chooses among different appropriability methods to protect the innovation. (3) We estimate the impact of innovation output on firm productivity conditional on the choice of appropriability mechanism. We find that firms that innovate and rate formal methods for the protection of intellectual property highly are more productive than other firms, but that the same does not hold in the case of informal methods of protection, except possibly for large firms as opposed to SMEs. We also find that this result is strongest for firms in the services, trade, and utility sectors, and negative in the manufacturing sector.     

Measuring and Explaining Innovative Capability: Evidence from Southeast Asia

What causes firm‐level product innovation in developing economies? This paper answers this question by emphasizing the role of process improvements that are influential in product innovation. We construct a firm‐level innovative capability score using novel, broad‐based, but detailed data on various process improvement practices obtained from firms in Southeast Asia. We then investigate the factors that may affect innovative capability. We also estimate the effect of the innovative capability score on product innovation controlling for research and development intensity and other firm characteristics. Our empirical investigation identifies a chief executive officer (CEO)'s past experience at a foreign or large firm, and buyer pressure to adopt international standards as key determinants of innovative capability. Novel and unique findings from our examination include: (i) the impact of a CEO's past experience at a foreign or large firm on the innovative capability is larger for local enterprises and small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises; (ii) the impact of share of foreign workers in the upper managerial levels only appears to be significant in foreign firms and larger firms; and (iii) buyer pressure is a more likely contributor to innovative capability compared with capital tie‐ups with multinational enterprises or joint venture buyers that capture vertical technology transfers. Finally, our empirical results show that a firm in Southeast Asia is more likely to achieve product innovation if the firm has had a higher innovative capability.     

高等学校在创新搜索中重要程度的影响因素——研发强度、创新开放程度与自主创新意愿

选取"2008年中国创新调查问卷"中基于科学的创新企业作为研究样本,探讨研发强度、创新开放程度与自主创新意愿3个企业特性对高等学校在创新搜索中重要性的影响。研究发现:高等学校对于创新开放程度较高的企业具有更高的重要性,而企业研发强度并不会显著影响高等学校的重要性;企业的自主创新意愿对创新开放程度与高等学校重要性的关系具有正向调节作用。最后提出:在基于科学的创新产业中,既自主又开放的企业更重视高等学校在创新搜索中的作用。     

Technological Discontinuities and the Nature of Competition

We revisit the Schumpeterian model of competition driven by the perennial gale of creative destruction. Not every innovation must necessarily lead to the destruction of incumbent firms. In many high-technology industries we observe a symbiotic coexistence between new entrant and incumbent firms. This phenomenon warrants more attention. We build upon the innovation and strategic alliance literature to develop the notion of 'complementary innovation.' We advance propositions with respect to the following questions: What impact will a complementary innovation have on firm entry, interfirm cooperation, and the nature of competition? Based on the propositions advanced, we develop a cyclical model of industry dynamics initiated by a complementary innovation. The propositions and the cyclical model of industry dynamics are illustrated in a case study of the biopharmaceutical industry.     

IS THERE A CURSE OF RELOCATION? ANALYSING THE CAUSAL LINK BETWEEN OFFSHORING AND THE INNOVATION PERFORMANCE OF (SMALL) FIRMS

We analyse the empirical link between offshoring activities and different dimensions of innovation performance at the firm‐level. In order to identify causal effects running from offshoring to innovation, we use a quasi‐experimental comparison group approach by means of (conditional) difference‐in‐difference estimations applied to German establishment‐level data for firms that conducted offshoring activities in the period 2007–13. We find that the international relocation of business functions has a negative impact on the firms’ propensity to be innovative in terms of product and process innovations as well as product improvements. While for larger firms the reduction in process innovations is most striking, potentially due to a lack of resources, stagnation in expertise and a reduction in intra‐organizational learning‐by‐doing associated with the relocation of some business activities, for small and medium‐sized enterprises we particularly observe a reduction in product innovations after the offshoring activity has taken place. When interpreting this ‘pessimistic’ picture on the link between offshoring and the innovation performance of firms, the reader should note that our findings for German establishments have to be assessed through the lens of a global economy in economic recession after 2008, which may have intensified the negative impact of offshoring on the firms’ innovation performance.     

Innovation and firm performance in Korea and China: a cross-context test of mainstream theories

We investigate the relationship between innovation and firm performance in two divergent emerging economy contexts: Korea and China. Mainstream innovation theories make disparate claims for how (1) intensity of innovation, (2) scope of innovation and (3) spillovers impact firm performance. Using a comparative institutionalist approach we hypothesise how these relationships apply to firms in Korea and China. Analysis of 897 firm–year data points over a 4-year period provides broad support for our hypotheses. Intensity of innovation (patent intensity) is a strong cross-contextual argument. Scope and spillover arguments appear to be more context-sensitive. Firms with innovation depth in specific technological fields enjoy better performance in Korea, while diversified innovation is more beneficial for firms in China. Spillovers have a stronger impact in Korea than China. The findings underline the importance of incorporating change in institutional context when developing policy and theory relating to firm innovation and performance in emerging economies.