How and where to offshore: a productivity comparison at the firm level

Using recent survey data on South Korean firms’ strategies for sourcing intermediate goods from abroad, we investigate whether there exists a productivity premium of offshoring by considering organizational forms (insourcing versus outsourcing) and the income level of offshored countries (North versus South) altogether. Thus, we consider the following four offshoring types: outsourcing from South, insourcing from South, outsourcing from North and insourcing from North. Unlike previous studies, we give particular attention to the comparison between outsourcing from North and insourcing from South and find that firms outsourcing from North are more productive than firms sourcing from their own affiliates in South. We offer three critical conditions to incorporate our empirical findings into the standard firm heterogeneity model: the fixed cost is higher for insourcing than for outsourcing and is higher in North than in South, the headquarters receive a larger share of the final revenue through insourcing than through outsourcing, and sourcing from North guarantees better profitability (or a bigger share) in the market for the headquarters than sourcing from South. Thus, this article contributes to the literature by identifying a new productivity order.     

Quality-oriented growth: a new trend for Chinese firms

ABSTRACT

Based on data from the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES), this study analyses the actual effect of quality-driven growth on firms’ performances in the economic transition of recent years. The results show positive and significant effects between the firms’ performance and quality-oriented growth, which is defined as a strategy that supports the spirit of greater entrepreneurial innovation, the advancement of input quality, and corporate governance improvement. Using a quality-driven growth mode, firms can effectively relieve the adverse effect of downward macroeconomic growth pressure on performance. This study proposes that China’s macroeconomic policy should shift from demand-oriented management to supply-oriented management, with a particular focus on quality development strategy. Moreover, firms should establish a quality-driven development strategy, facilitating a spirit of entrepreneurial innovation, advancing input quality, and improving corporate governance. This strategy will increase the firm’s performance, and effectively relieve the macroeconomic downward pressure.

Abbreviations: CEES: China Employer-Employee Survey, TFP: Total factor productivity     

Relationship lending and innovation: empirical evidence on a sample of European firms

This paper investigates the impact of relationship lending on innovation (the probability to innovate and the intensity of innovation). Using a unique dataset providing detailed information on bank–firm relationships across European firms, we relate different proxies of relationship lending (soft information, long-lasting relationships, number of banks and share of the main bank) to innovation. We find a very strong and robust positive effect of ‘soft-information-intensive’ relationships, a less robust positive effect of long-lasting relationships and a negative effect of credit concentration as measured by the number of banking relationships. We also find that ‘soft-information-intensive’ relationships reduce credit rationing for innovative firms, while long-lasting relationships seem to favour innovation via other relational channels. These results raise some concern on the impact of screening processes based on automatic procedures, as those suggested by the Basel rules, on firms' capability to finance innovative activities in Europe.     

Corporate entrepreneurship and sustainability transitions: resource redeployment of oil and gas industry firms in floating wind power

ABSTRACT

It has been recently argued that the vast resources of established firms can potentially accelerate sustainability transitions. This paper contributes to the study of such possibilities by investigating the resource redeployment of three Norwegian oil and gas industry firms in corporate ventures in floating wind power technologies. Using interview and document data, the findings show that the opportunity to use existing firm resources was a key motivation for established firms to engage in entrepreneurship in such technologies. The firms could redeploy their specialised and general-purpose resources in these entrepreneurial ventures, and develop new technologies on the basis of their existing resources. However, also challenges and controversies were observed. This paper thus suggests that the process of resource redeployment can help to explain why, and describe how, established firms may engage in cleantech innovation through corporate entrepreneurship.     

Patent citations as determinants of grant and opposition: case of European wind power industry

The grant of a patent and filing of an opposition are important events in the lifecycle of a patent. This paper tests the influence of backward citations on the likelihood of a patent grant and, if any, an opposition. Since all citations are not alike, detailed analysis is done by assessing type, nature and origin of citations in European search reports and, where needed, international search reports. The nature of citations, blocking or non-blocking, is found to have a significant impact on the likelihood of a patent being granted. The effect of citations originating during different stages of patent pendency is also explored in this study. For practitioners, the study provides a landscape of the European wind industry that is characterised by popularity of the PCT route, dearth of non-patent citations and dominance of bigger actors. For academics, the study offers novel opportunities to utilise citation based indicators.     

Growth opportunities and trade credit: evidence from Chinese listed firms

Private firms in China have led the explosive growth of the country’s economy, but with restricted or no access to formal financing. It is puzzling that these firms use relatively less trade credit than their counterparts in developed countries. We argue that firms with more growth opportunities should rely mainly on internal financing owing to high asymmetric information, especially in a financial market environment biased towards state-owned enterprises (SOEs) such as China. To explore growth opportunities, these firms may reduce their level of trade credit in the trade-off they face in deciding where to invest. Using panel data of Chinese non-financial listed firms for the period 2003–2013, we find that the relationship between growth opportunities and trade credit (both accounts receivable and payable) is significantly negative and is more pronounced in private firms than in SOEs. Furthermore, we also find that subsequent to the new receivable pledge policy being introduced, Chinese firms with more growth opportunities have higher accounts receivable, but similar levels of accounts payable.     

International knowledge spillovers in the wind power industry: evidence from the European Union

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the presence of international knowledge spillovers in the wind power sector. Specifically, the paper investigates whether successful invention efforts in one country, measured by way of granted wind power patent counts, have had positive effects on the neighboring countries’ abilities to generate patents of the same category. Data on the number of patents granted at the European Patent Office during the period 1978–2008 are used for the eight national technological leaders in the western European wind power sector. The few comprehensive wind power studies that exist have only found limited evidence of international knowledge spillovers. However, in this paper, we find that international spillovers are statistically significant determinants of a country’s wind power patenting outcomes. Geographical distance is also taken into consideration, and the knowledge spillover effects are shown to become stronger with decreases in this distance. The results should have important policy implications, for example, for a national government when it comes to applying an investment strategy in wind power or, alternatively, free-riding on other countries’ invention efforts.     

Political connections, financing and firm performance: Evidence from Chinese private firms

This paper examines the role of affiliation with the ruling Communist Party in the operation of private enterprises in China. Using a nationwide survey of private firms, we find that the Party membership of private entrepreneurs has a positive effect on the performance of their firms when human capital and other relevant variables are controlled. We further find that Party membership helps private entrepreneurs to obtain loans from banks or other state institutions, and affords them more confidence in the legal system. Finally, we find Party membership to be more important to firm performance in regions with weaker market institutions and weaker legal protection.     

Corporate governance,human capital,and productivity: evidence from Chinese non-listed firms

This article analyses the effects of corporate governance (CG) and human capital on productivity by using the 1999–2006 data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBSC). The findings of this study are twofold. First, CG and human capital generate significant positive effects on the productivity of both state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-SOEs. Second, CG has significantly different moderate and mediate effects on the relationship between human capital and productivity. Our results are robust to different specifications and alternative measures. This study provides clear policy implications by suggesting that the firms in emerging markets, especially SOEs, must improve their CG and their allocation of human capital for them to enhance their productivity.     

Sources of technological innovation: Radical and incremental innovation problem-driven to support competitive advantage of firms

A fundamental problem in the field of management of technology is how firms develop radical and incremental innovations that sustain the competitive advantage in markets. Current frameworks provide some explanations but the general sources of major and minor technological breakthroughs are hardly known. The study here confronts this problem by developing a conceptual framework of problem-driven innovation. The inductive study of the pharmaceutical industry (focusing on ground-breaking drugs for lung cancer treatment) seems to show that the co-evolution of consequential problems and their solutions induce the emergence and development of radical innovations. In fact, firms have a strong incentive to find innovative solutions to unsolved problems in order to achieve the prospect of a (temporary) profit monopoly and competitive advantage in markets characterised by technological dynamisms. The theoretical framework of this study can be generalised to explain one of the sources of innovation that supports technological and industrial change in a Schumpeterian world of innovation-based competition.     

Public acceptance of and heterogeneity in behavioral beach trip responses to offshore wind farm development in Catalonia (Spain)

A combined travel cost – contingent behaviour survey of residents and tourists in Catalonia is conducted on-site to examine the effects on beach recreational demand of developing an offshore wind farm (OWF) project. The survey considers four potential OWF scenarios with different degrees of visual impact. We allow for heterogeneity in trip preferences among individuals and control for on-site sampling through the use of a random parameters negative binomial (RPNB) model and a Multivariate Poisson log-normal (MPLN) model, respectively. The welfare measures derived from the RPNB model relate to the current beach users only, whereas those from the MPLN model refer to the general population of residents and tourists in Catalonia. The results show the importance of the specific place of location of the OWF project and how the installation of wind turbines would significantly decrease the demand for trips, depending on their degree of visual impacts, leading to a substantial welfare loss. However, the results also show that the project mainly would cause a displacement of trips to other beaches within Catalonia rather than outside Catalonia and that the welfare per trip measures generated by the RPNB and MPLN models substantially differ. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.     

Political connections,ownership structure and private-equity placement decision: evidence from Chinese listed firms

In contrast with many other countries, Chinese listed firms must obtain approval to make private-equity placements (PEPs) from the Chinese Security Regulatory Commission (CSRC), a state bureau that regulates capital market financing. We analyse the role of political connection (PC) and ownership structures when accessing private equity (PE) market, while investigating the mechanisms through which political ties operate within the regulatory process of PEPs. The findings suggest that PCs do not contribute to the firm’s decision to apply for PEPs, but firms with state-ownership demonstrate a higher propensity to apply for PEPs. PC and state-ownership appear to help firms to obtain approval from the CSRC, and these firms are treated more favourably than their rivals without such connections. Politically connected firms spend less time in managing bureaucracy, but PC and state-ownership negatively affect proceeds from the PE market in China. Firms with politically connected directors with professional business backgrounds tend to spend less time managing the CSRC, and these professionals positively affect proceeds from the PE market in China. This study provides important insights for policy-makers, investors, PE issuing firms and security market regulators.     

Open innovation and intellectual property strategy: the catch-up processes of two Chinese pharmaceutical firms

We explore the interaction of open innovation and intellectual property (IP) in two Chinese latecomer pharmaceutical firms in their catch-up process. Studying archival data, documentation, and interviews, we found that the two firms exhibited five periods that were characterised by different open innovation activities and R&D capabilities. In their early stages, the two firms lacked R&D functions; thus, they imported technologies and pursued production-oriented strategies. As they gradually entered into collaborations and established their R&D departments, open innovation and IP protection played important and dynamic roles in this process. Thus, a catch-up process involves not only acquiring technological capabilities and innovative competencies but also transforming a firm's capacity to strategies.     

Regional innovation environment and innovation efficiency: the Chinese case

The main goal of this paper is to analyse the connotation of ‘regional innovation environment’ and explore the relationships between the regional innovation environmental components and innovation efficiency (IE). Three regional environmental factors were extracted, namely, economic infrastructure (EI), the quality and structure of innovators (QSI) and regional openness (RO). The relationships between the regional innovation environmental components and innovation efficiency present a chain structure as RO–EI–QSI–IE. Only the QSI component affects IE directly, and all of the effects are positive. Based on these results, the characteristics of Chinese regional innovation systems were analysed, and the implications on science & technology policy were discussed.     

Venture capital,innovation, and growth: evidence from Chinese metropolitan data

Using panel data from 282 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2015, we estimate the impact of venture capital (VC) on innovation, employment, and payroll in metropolitan areas. Controlling for endogeneity, VC investments are significantly positively related to metropolitan innovation, employment, and payroll in a fixed effects panel regression and dynamic GMM estimation. Using the number of IPOs (Initial public offerings) in the city as an instrumental variable to again control for endogeneity, VC remains significant. Our results show that VC is significantly contributing to the metropolitan economy as a whole by supporting innovation, creating jobs, and generating wealth in the local cities.     

Stock price synchronicity to oil shocks across quantiles: Evidence from Chinese oil firms

This paper investigates behaviour of stock price synchronicity to oil shocks across quantiles for Chinese oil firms. The spillover effects of the oil market on a firm are segregated into firm-specific and market-wide information. First, our results report a higher level of synchronicity by dynamic conditional correlations than by R-square since the former better captures dynamic linear dependence. Second, we find strong evidence of size effect. In particular, stock price synchronicity is generally higher in large-cap firms than in small-cap ones. Oil shocks affect synchronicity in the upper quantiles differently based on firm size. Third, we also find that synchronicity responds to oil shocks significantly in extreme low quantiles, implying that shocks in the oil market are transmitted to Chinese oil firms via firm-specific information. Finally, we determine that oil shocks have little or no immediate impact on stock price synchronicity; instead, cumulative lagged effect is evident. This evidence highlights the lagging effect of spillover of oil shocks on Chinese oil firms.     

How and when entrepreneurs’ passion lead to firms’ radical innovation: moderated mediation model

ABSTRACT

The extant literature affirms that passion is important for entrepreneurs’ success. However, the related studies have failed to explain how and when entrepreneurial passion (EP) affects firms’ radical innovation (RI). The current study explores the connections between EP and firms’ RI and mediation of exploratory learning (EL) in this relationship. Moreover, we investigate the moderating role of the Zhong–Yong thinking (ZYT) of Chinese entrepreneurs. Findings from 310 new Chinese enterprises demonstrate that EP directly influences RI and indirectly through EL. ZYT of entrepreneurs can likewise reinforce the connection between their EP and RI via EL. Lastly, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.     

Inward FDI spillovers and innovation capabilities in Chinese business: exploring the moderating role of local industrial externalities

It is generally believed foreign direct investment (FDI) has spillover effects which can affect the innovation capabilities of local firms in host countries. Comparatively little, however, is known about the contingent local contextual factors that influence how these FDI spillovers can be captured. Integrating the literature on FDI knowledge spillovers with that on inter- and intra-industrial externalities, we explore how local industrial agglomeration moderates the effect of FDI knowledge spillovers on innovation in the emerging market context of China. Empirical estimates, based on panel data of 1610 listed indigenous Chinese firms recorded between 2000 and 2010, indicate that such spillovers are more easily captured in industrially diverse settings. By contrast, industrial specialisation negatively moderates this relationship. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

How enterprise strategies are related to innovation and productivity change: an empirical study of Japanese manufacturing firms

This study analyzes the total factor productivity of 1067 Japanese manufacturing firms. In production estimation, we employ the directional distance function and Luenberger productivity indicator. Research and development strategy survey data are used to analyze the determinant factors related to improvements in innovation and productivity. Our results indicate that increasing technology and knowledge through a ‘black box’ process is related to an increase in productivity. Furthermore, the protection and management of production knowledge and expertise is a valid method of increasing global technical change.     

The brighter side of being socially responsible: CSR ratings and financial distress among Chinese state and non-state owned firms

We examine the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) quality ratings on the financial distress levels of Chinese enterprises by using the previously unexplored new China-specific Altman ‘Z_China Score’ in the context of CSR and data from 749 firms over the 2009–2014 period. First, we find that CSR quality ratings significantly reduce Chinese firms’ distress levels. Second, we find that the ability of CSR to reduce distress levels in non-state-owned Chinese firms is higher than state-owned ones. Finally, we find similar results when we divide the data into high-low CSR ratings and levels of distress. Our results are robust to potential endogeneities.