Persistence of innovation and firm’s growth: evidence from a panel of SME and large Spanish manufacturing firms

This paper estimates the effect of persistence of innovation on employment in Spanish manufacturing firms during the period 1990–2008. Using GMM-system estimations, we study the importance of persistence of product and process innovation on employment growth according to the size of the firms. The results support that process innovation shows a positive effect on employment, especially for SMEs, while the effect of product innovation is not significant. The study also distinguishes that this effect appears in the contemporaneous year but it increases with the number of lags. This result confirms that compensation effects of process innovation may appear with a certain delay justifying the importance for SMEs of being persistent in innovation strategies to make them compatible with employment growth.     

Corporate strategy as a source of ideas

This paper looks at a number of others which bear on the interface between Corporate Strategy and R&D Planning to see if a more systematic approach can suggest a sequence to be followed so that Corporate Strategy can be seen as a source of ideas for R&D.
The purpose of R&D is defined in terms of contributing to the competitiveness of the Company or Business Unit being served. The areas of competition or threats from the external environment are then explored using a model taken from Porter's book 'Competitive Strategy'. Each area of competition is considered in turn and strategies identified which might enable the company to maintain its competitive edge. Sub-objectives for the R&D function can then be determined allocating resources and time for their completion.
It is the performance of the R&D function inj fulfilling these sub-objectives which can be the basis of measuring the effectiveness of R&D.     

Developing an expert system on project evaluation: Part 1: Structuring the expertise

This paper reports interim results obtained from research on the development of an expert system originally intended to be advisory to managers at all levels of R&D on the selection of projects. Whilst diversity had been expected, when the 'Experts' were consulted, there was a total absence of agreement as to how projects were selected.
This led to a shift in objectives. The first shift was from project selection to project evaluation which was identified as the real activity which managers undertook in conditions where the number of projects was likely to exceed the resources available. The second was to try to classify projects such that projects in one class might have similar criteria for evaluation
In pursuit of these new objectives, the rigorous thinking necessary to structure the guidance of the 'Experts' into an expert system gave new insights into the nature of projects themselves and their management in support of corporate strategy. This paper sets these out and will be followed by Pt. II which will report on structuring the actual Expert System, and Pt. Ill giving the details of the managerial approach and the decision support process of the actual expert system     

Digital insurance brokers—old wine in new bottles? How digital brokers create value

This article analyzes digital brokers in the countries of the DACH region, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, from a business model perspective. We argue that the potential to create new value for insurance customers has not yet been fully realized. Our analysis has identified two strategic action areas. The first concerns the exploitation of the wealth of customer data available. Those digital brokers who will succeed in generating new content and services using data analytics have the potential to take customer centricity and individuality to new bounds. The second centers around introducing aspects of community, such as connecting peers and enabling them to interact. The critical success factors are volume, a high degree of automation as well as leveraging the infrastructure and data to delivering new, value-adding content and services that go beyond traditional intermediation.     

The impact of coercive and non-coercive forms of influence on trust, commitment, and compliance in supply chains

A major premise in managing channel relationships is encouraging cooperation to achieve the aims of the relational partners. This often requires a balancing act between utilization of influence across the supply chain to motivate decisions, while employing tactics that do not damage the future of the relationship. This paper builds and tests a model of how influence strategies affect relational elements, specifically trust and commitment, which both promote strong inter-firm relationships and act as mediators of joint action, specifically cooperation and compliance across channel partners. Results suggest that coercive strategies are counterproductive in encouraging cooperation and compliance either directly or through relational intermediaries, while non-coercive influence produces positive outcomes and effects on intermediaries. Low levels of coercive influence do appear to generate positive outcomes. Managerial implications and future research based on these results conclude the paper.     

Mutual funds as monitors: Evidence from mutual fund voting

We address how mutual funds vote on shareholder proposals and identify factors that help determine support of wealth-increasing shareholder proposals. We examine 213,579 voting decisions made by 1799 mutual funds from 94 fund families for 1047 shareholder proposals voted on between July 2003 and June 2005. In an analysis of voting across funds within the same fund family, we find significant divergence in voting within families, emphasizing the importance of focusing on voting by individual funds. We also find that, in general, mutual funds vote more affirmatively for potentially wealth-increasing proposals and funds' voting approval rates for these beneficial resolutions are significantly higher than those of other investors. Our results suggest that funds tend to support proposals targeting firms with weaker governance. We also find that funds with lower turnover ratios and social funds are more likely to support shareholder proposals. Finally, fund voting approval rates significantly impact whether a proposal passes and whether one is implemented.