Managerial perceptions of employees’ affective commitment and product innovation

In this paper we examine how managers perceive employees’ affective commitment and how this perception determines their trust as a managerial attitude toward organizational learning capability (OLC). Likewise, we study how managerial trust affects product innovation and OLC. In other words, we carry out a double mediation: firstly, we examine whether managerial trust is a mechanism through which managerial perceptions of employees’ affective commitment influences on OLC, and secondly, we study if OLC mediates between managerial trust and product innovation. By using structural equation modeling (partial least squares) on a sample of 192 Spanish firms we conclude that: (1) if managers perceive employees to be affectively committed, they will be willing to enhance OLC and to trust them; (2) managerial trust favors OLC and product innovation and (3) OLC appears to exert a full mediation between managerial trust and product innovation.     

Impact of organizational innovation on product and process innovation

The purpose of this paper was to test the effect of organizational innovation on product and process innovation (while controlling for endogeneity). Our hypothesis was that organizational innovation should have a significant and positive impact on technical (product or process) innovation. We control for endogeneity by using a Poisson estimator that accommodates a binary endogenous regressor. We test 10 potential instruments using a battery of test criteria and settle on five. All results are presented using the five instruments to avoid expectation bias. In general we find that organizational innovation does impact technical innovation positively. With the 2009 data we find that the mean of the average treatment effect for product innovation is roughly 1.7 times that of process innovation. For the 2009–2012 data we find that the impact on product innovation is roughly 1.5 times that of process innovation. For the 2012 data, we had anomalous results for process innovation, such that organizational innovation reduced the number of process innovations by 2.3 per year. In terms of Canadian government policy, the results lend support to the view that technical innovation is not the only innovation that matters. The right policy mix may encourage firms to experiment with and adopt more organizational innovations to enhance technical innovation.     

何去何从:贸易保护还是开放竞争?——来自微观企业创新的证据

文章基于熊彼特效应和逃离竞争效应假说,结合中国转轨时期的经济制度背景,利用2001?2008年制造业关税数据和沪深A股上市公司专利数据,研究了中国加入WTO后,关税削减所导致的进口竞争对企业创新的影响.研究发现,关税削减后,企业的发明专利申请数量显著增加,而专利申请总数和非发明专利申请数量却没有受到显著影响,表明进口竞争激励企业进行了高质量的发明创新.进口竞争的激励效应对于易受竞争影响和全要素生产率高的企业更加显著.文章认为,应以开放的心态迎接贸易自由化和进口竞争,引导企业将进口竞争转化为创新动力,推动企业创新向高质量迈进,形成国际竞争新优势.     

Innovation and coordination: A schutzian perspective

This paper discusses the nature of innovation, the innovation process and its associated coordination problems in the subjectivist perspective. It argues that innovation, when viewed in the first person perspective, is not a homogeneous concept. Instead, the degree of newness of an innovation is determined subjectively by adopters. The stages of the innovation process described in the management literature are re-interpreted in light of Schutz' phenomenology. Innovation creates coordination problems. Schumpeterian innovation disrupts plans of market participants and threatens people's sense of reality. The stocks of knowledge of market participants are no longer able to solve new problems brought about by pioneering entrepreneurs. Knowledge taken for granted becomes problematic. As a result, coordination fails. In attempting to remove uncertainty arising from radical innovation, human agents create knowledge surrogates and project acts in the future perfect tense. Through a process of typification, successful actions are crystallised into firm routines and institutions that once again help to serve for coordination. The arguments developed in this paper throw new light on three aspects of business strategies, namely, management of innovation, vertical integration and advertising.     

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.     

Strategic R&D and the innovation of products: understanding the role of time preferences and product differentiation

We evaluate the effects of innovation on competition using an optimal control approach that incorporates firms' time preferences. Using a model where firm(s) innovates by investing in research and development to create a more appealing product for heterogeneous consumers, we examine conditions that maximize social welfare. When firm(s) choose discount rate regardless of market structure, a monopoly will develop more innovative products. However, we show that duopolies may increase innovation if competition alters firms' outlook. Finally, we identify firm incentives to behave myopically, which in the context of collusion may impede industry-wide innovation.     

An Evolutionary Approach to Financial Innovation

The purpose of this paper is to explain why some markets for financial products take off while others vanish as soon as they have emerged. To this end, we model an infinite sequence of CAPM-economies in which financial products can be used for insurance purposes. Agents' participation in these financial products, however, is restricted. Consecutive stage economies are linked by a mapping ('transition function") which determines the next period's participation structure from the preceding period's participation. The transition function generates a dynamic process of market participation which is driven by the percentage of informed traders and the rate at which a new asset is adopted. We then analyse the evolutionary stability of stationary equilibria. In accordance with the empirical literature on financial innovation, it is obtained that the success of a financial innovation, a mutation, depends on a sufficiently high trading volume, marketing, and new and differentiated hedging opportunities. In particular, a set of complete markets forming a stationary equilibrium is robust with respect to any further financial innovation while this is not necessarily true for a set of incomplete markets.
"There is no generally accepted theory of financial innovation, but some broad generalizations of the innovation process are possible. What matters is not the invention of a financial product or process (which is often obscure) but its diffusion through the market environment".
Ted Padolski (1987) in: The New Palgrave on Money and Finance: Financial
Innovation and Money Supply (p. 68)     

卖空对创新质量的影响——基于知识产权密集型公司的经验证据

创新驱动发展是“十四五”规划和实现2035年远景目标的主线。本文聚焦于知识产权（专利）密集型公司,基于我国卖空渐进式扩容这一准自然实验,运用多期倍分法考察了卖空对知识产权（专利）密集型公司创新质量的影响。研究发现,卖空会降低知识产权（专利）密集型公司的创新质量,并且此种影响会持续至少一年以上。进一步的渠道检验证实,卖空会加剧上市公司委托代理问题,使得经理人因卖空压力而做出不利于公司研发创新的决策,进而降低创新质量。本文从公司内部治理角度明确了卖空对知识产权（专利）密集型公司创新质量的作用路径,从“卖空压力”这一新的视角为解读我国实体企业创新发展提供了理论参考,也为我国金融改革的制度完善提供了可供参考的本土经验依据。     

学习、创新与核心能力:机制和路径

学习和创新是影响核心能力的重要因素,而核心能力又是组织获取竞争优势提升绩效的基础,但国内外学术界尚未对学习、创新、核心能力与绩效之间的相互影响路径和作用机制进行实证研究。本文基于战略的资源基础观,整合学习理论、创新理论与核心能力理论,首先构建了一个新的理论模型,再以华南地区202家企业为样本运用结构方程模型进行检验和修正。其学术贡献在于明确了学习并不是企业绩效提升的直接影响因素,学习也不能直接带来企业的核心能力,学习导向必须通过创新才能提高核心能力,并进而提升绩效;创新并非直接提升组织绩效,而是有一个培育核心能力的中间过程;在中国的管理环境下,不同产业的企业其创新对核心能力有不同的影响,即创新并不必然转化为核心能力。实践意义在于为企业正确理解和运用学习、创新来构建核心能力及提升组织绩效提供借鉴。     

Does Technological Innovation Really Reduce Marginal Abatement Costs? Some Theory,Algebraic Evidence,and Policy Implications

The existing literature models innovation in pollution control as a reduction in marginal abatement costs. We show that this assumption is inappropriate for production process innovations such as fuel switching. Algebraically, we examine the effects of different innovation types on marginal abatement cost curves, showing that some desirable innovations increase marginal abatement costs. Empirically, we estimate marginal abatement costs for sulfur dioxide by measuring the output distance function for electric power in Korea. Regression results confirm that production process innovations did raise marginal abatement costs in this case. One policy implication: economic instruments do not always provide stronger innovation incentives than command-and-control policies.      

精神性因素对研发人员创新行为的影响——伦理情境的调节效应

以组织创新成分理论、精神型领导理论和领导情景理论为依据,探讨精神型领导和职业召唤感等精神性因素对研发人员创新行为的动力作用以及儒家工作伦理的调节效应。通过企业调研获得268套领导-员工的有效配套问卷数据,统计分析表明:(1)精神型领导对研发人员的职业召唤感和创新行为具有显著正向影响;(2)研发人员的职业召唤感对其创新行为具有显著正向影响,并在精神型领导和研发人员创新行为之间具有部分中介作用;(3)儒家工作伦理调节了精神型领导对研发人员创新行为的正向影响,儒家工作伦理越明显,精神型领导对研发人员创新行为的正向影响也越强;(4)儒家工作伦理还调节了职业召唤感在精神型领导和研发人员创新行为之间的中介效应,儒家工作伦理较高时,精神型领导通过研发人员职业召唤感的中介进而对其创新行为的间接影响也随之增强,反之则减弱。研究结论拓展了基于精神性视角的创新行为动力机制及其边界条件研究。为管理者实践精神型领导、培育研发人员职业召唤感和加强研发工作伦理建设,从而有效激发研发人员的创新行为提供了理论借鉴和管理启示。     

Persistence of product innovation: comparing breakthrough and incremental product innovation

In this paper we examine whether and to what extent breakthrough and incremental product innovation is persistent at the firm level. Drawing on a panel database created from the Community Innovation Survey (CIS) we find that lagged breakthrough product innovation ‘new to the market’, has a significant and positive influence on firms’ ability to develop current breakthrough innovation, while this is not the case for incremental-product innovation ‘only new to the firm’. Our findings show that the dynamics of innovation persistence differ across types of (product) innovations.     

Ethics, Innovation and Innovation Studies

I argue that the critical potential of innovation studies can be considerably enhanced by including questions of ethics, both as an object of study and as an aspect of study. I approach this by first reviewing what we understand by ethics, secondly by speculating how two stylized opposing positions in innovation studies-radical epistemology and radical politics-might each treat the question of ethics, and finally by offering a position that is complementary to those whilst not attempting any resolution of their supposed dilemma.     

Innovation timing games: a general framework with applications

We offer a new algorithm for analyzing innovation timing games. Its main advantage over the traditional approach is that it applies to problems that had previously been intractable. We use the algorithm to examine two classical innovation problems. We find that the competition takes the form of a waiting game with a second-mover advantage either for any level of R&D costs (process innovation) or for high R&D costs (product innovation). Moreover, both models predict that the second-mover advantage is monotonically increasing in the costs of R&D.     

The inventor’s role: was Schumpeter right?

According to Schumpeter, the creative process of economic development can be divided into the stages of invention, innovation (commercialization) and imitation. Each stage is associated with specific skills. This paper examines whether Schumpeter’s assertion was correct, i.e. whether the invention and innovation stages should be undertaken by different agents. In addition, we examine whether there is a rationale for the Schumpeterian entrepreneur to include the inventor in the commercialization process. Combining the abilities of the entrepreneur and the inventor may serve to facilitate customer adaptation, strengthen knowledge transfers and reduce uncertainty, thereby expanding market opportunities. Based on a unique database covering Swedish patents granted to individuals and small firms, the empirical analysis shows that profitability increases by 22 percentage points when inventions are commercialized by the entrepreneur instead of by inventors. However, active involvement of the inventor is shown to have a significantly positive impact on profitability, irrespective of commercialization mode.     

Process and Product Innovation: Complementarity in a Vertically Differentiated Monopoly with Discrete Consumer Types

This paper examines the complementarity between process and product innovation where process innovation reduces the marginal cost of quality. In the context of a vertically differentiated monopolistic market with discrete consumer types, we investigate how the nature of (fixed versus variable) innovation costs and the distribution of consumers over different types affect the complementarity between process and product innovation. We show that under variable innovation costs a process innovation is more likely to occur alone than both innovations together when taste diversity (or consumer heterogeneity) is not significant and/or when there are more low-type than high-type consumers.     

企业金融资产配置对双元创新的影响

以2014-2016年非金融上市公司为样本，研究不同种类的金融资产配置对双元创新的影响，考察高管激励方式在两者之间的调节效应，并基于产权异质性作进一步检验。引入ITCV方法测量内生性问题是否改变了回归结果，以检验结论的稳健性。研究发现：①短期金融资产配置对双元创新不产生蓄水池效应；②长期金融资产配置对探索式创新具有挤出效应，而对开发式创新挤出效应受到产权异质性的影响；③相对于开发式创新，长期金融资产对探索式创新的挤出效应更加显著；④国有企业中，股权激励有助于弱化长期金融资产配置对双元创新的挤出效应，而在非国有企业中，这一调节效应并不显著；⑤相对于探索式创新，薪酬激励弱化长期金融资产配置对开发式创新的挤出效应更加显著。     

Innovation and performance – evidence at micro level

This empirical study aims to shed light on the link between innovation and economic performance at micro level. Based on a comprehensive survey among dairy and crop farms in the Netherlands we estimate a structural multi-stage model to deliver evidence on the effect of engagement and investment in innovation on the production of product, process and organizational or marketing innovations as well as on the effect of such innovations on farm level productivity. The results suggest various market and farm behaviour related factors to stimulate an increase in innovation engagement and production. Furthermore, the study reveals that indeed a greater innovation investment per unit (innovation input) leads to a higher probability of producing at least one successful product, process and/or organizational or marketing innovation (innovation output). The production of process and organizational or marketing related innovation leads to significant productivity gains. Various recommendations towards a more effective and efficient innovation policy are finally given.     

The take-off of an interactive innovation: Evidence from China

An interactive innovation can be defined as an end-user application which is subject to network effects at both the demand and supply sides. As a result of network effects, the diffusion of such an innovation is predicted to follow a take-off curve coinciding with the advent of a critical mass of adopters. The current literature on innovation diffusion, mainly focusing on the demand-side dynamics, such as information cascades and herding behaviors among potential adopters, is not sufficient to explain the take-off (or the failure) of interactive innovations. In this paper, we present and examine a case study of the take-off of an interactive innovation, namely the caller-ring-back-tone (CRBT) and mobile music - mobile value-added services (MVAS) - in China. We find that supply-side dynamics, such as choices of platform strategies, helped drive the take-off of this innovation within China's institutional boundaries. The paper makes a contribution in two ways: first, it presents an ‘inside-out’ view of a unique case of take-off phenomenon; and, second it provides an integrated view combining factors from both the demand and supply sides to explain the take-off phenomenon, which is rare in empirical studies.     

Does social capital determine innovation? To what extent?

This paper deals with two questions: Does social capital determine innovation in manufacturing firms? If it is the case, to what extent? To deal with these questions, we review the literature on innovation in order to see how social capital came to be added to the other forms of capital as an explanatory variable of innovation. In doing so, we have been led to follow the dominating view of the literature on social capital and innovation which claims that social capital cannot be captured through a single indicator, but that it actually takes many different forms that must be accounted for. Therefore, to the traditional explanatory variables of innovation, we have added five forms of structural social capital (business network assets, information network assets, research network assets, participation assets, and relational assets) and one form of cognitive social capital (reciprocal trust). Based on the survey data administered from April to June 2000 to 440 manufacturing firms of diverse industries in a region in the southwest of Montréal, we have found that 68.5% of the firms have developed product or process innovations during the 3 years preceding the survey. Assuming that innovation is not a discrete event but a complex process, we have modeled the decision to innovate as a two-stage decision-making process: in the first stage, the firms deal with the decision about whether to innovate or not whereas, at the second stage, the firms that have decided to innovate must make a decision about the degree of radicalness of the innovation to undertake. In a context where empirical investigations regarding the relations between social capital and innovation are still scanty, this paper makes contributions to the advancement of knowledge in providing new evidence regarding the impact and the extent of social capital on innovation at the two decision-making stages considered in this study. Regarding the decision to innovate or not that firms must initially make, we have provided strong evidence that diverse forms of social capital influence this decision and, more importantly, that marginal increases in social capital, especially in social capital taking the forms of participation assets and relational assets, contribute more than any other explanatory variable to increase the likelihood of innovation of firms. As for the decision to be made at the second stage concerning the magnitude of radicalness to bring in the development of new product or process innovations, this paper contributes to the advancement of knowledge by supplying the strongest evidence that diverse forms of social capital determine the radicalness of innovation, and more importantly, that social capital taking the form of research network assets contributes more than any other explanatory variable to explain the radicalness of innovation. The second variable that exerts the strongest impact on the radicalness of innovation is the number of different advanced technologies employed by firms for production.