Stimulating innovation in large companies: Observations and recommendations for Belgium

This article summarizes the results of a large scale research which was conducted in 41 large Belgian companies. One hundred thirty-one innovation projects were studied in order to bring to light the factors encouraging or inhibiting the innovation process in large companies.
A stage-model of the innovation process is proposed, including the following phases: perception of the idea, conceptualization, development and operationalization. Favourable and unfavourable factors are emphasized at each stage. On the basis of these conclusions, recommendations are drawn which are aimed at managers, the public authorities, the universities and the trades unions. These recommendations concern three areas: increasing the technical-economic forecasting capacity of the companies and of the economic community at large; stimulating the research efforts inside and outside the firm; organizing the innovation development process within the firm.     

Betriebsunterbrechungsversicherung bei kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen

The business interruption caused by a property claim is an existential risk both for large industrial companies and for small to medium enterprises (SME). It is especially relevant for companies working on a more complex sales and production infrastructure. Statistics show that in case of a large property claim the cost of the accompanying business interruption claim frequently exceeds the property claim. In Germany, however, the share of companies opting for business interruption insurance is much smaller than those opting for property insurance. This is especially true for SME that can hardly cover the risk themselves. The goal of this paper is to analyze the insurance decision for a business interruption policy with a special focus on SME. As a database we use the results of a representative survey among 1802 German SME with up to 100 employees. Our results show that the decision for a business interruption policy is not only dependent on hard factors such as company size and industry, but also driven by the so-called “insurance mentality”, which includes risk aversion, insurance know-how and price-sensitivity.     

Motivation Gaps and Implementation Traps: The Paradoxical and Time-Varying Effects of Family Ownership on Firm Absorptive Capacity

We present a theoretical framework of family ownership as a driver of the heterogeneity (between-firm differences) and variability (within-firm differences over time) of absorptive capacity (AC). Building on our analysis of the multiple dimensions of family ownership influence on firm behavior and the mechanisms that can shape the firm willingness and ability to acquire, assimilate, transform, and exploit external knowledge, we introduce the concepts of motivation gap and implementation gap to explain why, paradoxically, family ownership can cause both upward and downward divergences in AC. Our contingency framework identifies conditions under which the positive and negative effects of family ownership on AC are likely to prevail and adds a temporal perspective suggesting that AC varies depending on the duration of family ownership and ownership succession.     

Leveraging open innovation to improve society: past achievements and future trajectories

Open innovation (OI) is an approach which describes a purposive attempt to draw together knowledge from different contributors to develop and exploit innovation. It has become clear that OI directly benefits organisations' economic performance and resilience, but researchers, practitioners, and policy makers became also convinced that OI might be the way forward to tackle the world’s most pressing societal challenges, representing unresolved Grand Challenges, which can only be weathered by diverse sets of collaborative partners that join forces. Although anecdotal evidence points at how OI practices can be employed to achieve societal impact not only in private firms but also in public organisations, very little understanding exists ‐beyond anecdotal‐ to link OI to societal impact. This special issue has the ambition to start the discussion and establish a framework as the stepping stone to tackle this complex research gap.     

Exploring the impact of open innovation on national systems of innovation — A theoretical analysis

This paper investigates the impact of open innovation on national systems of innovation. The open innovation concept has become widely established among scholars and practitioners. However, an overview of its impact on national innovation systems is still lacking. Given that the innovating firm is at the core of national innovation systems, a better understanding of shifting innovation strategies at the firm level is of fundamental importance to the actions of policy-makers within the national innovation systems framework. Based on the main analytical approaches of national innovation systems and the current state of open innovation research, we argue that open innovation practices have at least three critical effects on national systems of innovation: (a) they reinforce its importance; (b) they improve its effectiveness; and (c) they diversify its networks.     

Risk management using index-linked catastrophic loss instruments

One way for insurance companies to ensure against high losses due to catastrophic events is the purchase of index-based catastrophic loss instruments. The payoff of these instruments is strongly related to the development of an index, which implies that the degree and type of dependence between the insurer’s losses and the index is crucial for their hedging effectiveness. In addition, management strategies on the asset side play an important role for risk management. In this paper, effects of investment decisions and index-based risk transfer instruments on an insurer’s solvency capital requirements are investigated with special focus on the impact of the degree and type of dependence between relevant processes.     

On the risk situation of financial conglomerates: does diversification matter?

In general, conglomeration leads to diversification of risk (the diversification benefit) and a decrease in shareholder value (the conglomerate discount). Diversification benefits in financial conglomerates are typically derived without explicitly accounting for reduced shareholder value. However, a comprehensive analysis requires competitive conditions within the conglomerate, i.e., shareholders and debt holders should receive risk-adequate returns on their investment. In this paper, we contribute to the literature on this topic by comparing the diversification effect in conglomerates with and without accounting for altered shareholder value. We derive results for a holding company, a parent-subsidiary structure, and an integrated model. In addition, we consider different types of capital and risk transfer instruments in the parent-subsidiary model, including intragroup retrocession and guarantees. We conclude that under competitive conditions, diversification does not matter to the extent frequently emphasized in the literature. The analysis contributes to the ongoing discussion on group solvency regulation and enterprise risk management, which is of relevance to insurance groups and other financial conglomerates.     

International debt shifting and multinational firms in developing economies

We present empirical evidence suggesting that the effect of the host country corporate tax rate on the debt ratio of multinational affiliates in developing economies is positive and larger than the same effect for affiliates in developed economies.     

Ecosystems for smart cities: tracing the evolution of governance structures in a dutch smart city initiative

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - Smart cities use integrated information and communication technology in order to help their citizens and organizations deal with the...     

A note on Musgrave asymmetrical trend-cycle filters

In this paper, we derive the implicit forecasts in the asymmetrical trend-cycle averages used in the X-11 seasonal adjustment method. We give an algorithm to calculate them, and we study their statistical properties. We express the forecasts as Stein estimators. We derive expressions for their bias, variance, covariances and prediction mean squared errors. We show that the prediction mean squared errors of the implied predictors are always smaller or equal to those obtained using the least squares predictors. Finally, we derive the prior distributions under which the implied predictors are Bayes estimators.