The cognitive and the action-oriented elements of competence along the innovation process – evidence from R&D teams in the medical equipment sector

Abstract

Organizations are constantly searching for ways to enhance their innovative capacity and to sustain their competitive advantage. Much of the literature focuses on knowledge as the key driver for this pursuit. Unlike other studies, we define experience and knowledge as two basic elements of competence by borrowing from the experiential and cognitive learning theories and contrast their impact on the innovativeness of R&D teams. Building on the competence based perspective, we posit that the differences in competence inputs explain variations in team innovation performance along the innovation process. To test our assumptions, we analyzed the aggregated knowledge and experience levels for different technology competences of 868 employees in 49 R&D teams in a large contract-engineering corporation in the medical equipment sector. The findings reveal that technology experience is particularly fruitful within innovation implementation and is a driver for successful market introduction. The research contributes to the understanding when competence elements are especially important.     

Political budget cycles revisited: Testing the signalling process

A widespread view in the ‘political budget cycles’ literature is that incumbent politicians seek to influence voters’ perceptions of their competence and/or preferences by using the composition of the fiscal budget as a signalling tool. However, little is known about whether voters actually receive and perceive the signal in that way. To empirically assess the relevance of the signalling channel at the municipal level, we conducted a survey among 2000 representative German citizens in 2018. Only a small fraction of voters feel well-informed about the fiscal budget signal and use the information it contains to decide whether to vote for the incumbent politician. Persons paying more attention to the signal sent by local politicians live in smaller municipalities, are more satisfied with their economic situation, are more educated, and do not feel that they are being electorally manipulated. Our analysis raises doubt about the relevance of budget composition as a signalling mechanism for voters at the local level.     

Waste of money or growth opportunity: The causal effect of EU subsidies on Hungarian SMEs

Although EU subsidies aiming at economic development play a pivotal role not only for Hungary but for the entire European Union as well, there is a debate regarding their effectiveness in the literature. This paper investigates the impact of direct economic development subsidies extended in the context of Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund as part of the 2007–2013 programming period of the European Union on Hungarian micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. Based on a micro database, we evaluate the impact of corporates’ first subsidies on various performance indicators, using a combination of propensity score matching and fixed effects panel regression. According to our results, economic development funds had a significant positive effect on the number of employees, sales revenue, gross value added and, in some cases, operating profit. However, the labour productivity of enterprises was not significantly affected by any of the support schemes. Furthermore, by explicitly comparing non-refundable subsidies (grants) and refundable assistance (financial instruments), we find that there is no significant difference in the effectiveness of the two types of subsidy.     

The effects of slack resource of R&D professionals on firm performance: evidence from traditional manufacturing firms in an emerging economy

Abstract

As an important component of organizational human resource slack (HR slack), the slack of research-and-development (R&D) professionals has been studied by several authors. However, it remains unclear whether and how this small component of general HR slack, i.e. the slack of research-and-development professionals (RHR slack), may affect overall firm performance in an emerging economy without much R&D tradition or pro-R&D institutions. Based on two organizational theories, i.e. institutional theory and the resource-based view of the firm (RBV), we propose competing hypotheses on the relationship between RHR slack and firms’ accounting performance. We also examine whether the relationship between RHR slack and firm performance should be linear or curvilinear. Finally, we also test the relationship between RHR slack and other dimensions of firm performance. Several interesting findings have been obtained. For instance, neither the perspective based on institutional theory nor that based on RBV can fully predict all types of RHR slack-performance relationships, be these relationships linear or curvilinear.     

Energy efficiency promotion backfires under cap-and-trade

Major climate-cum-energy policies and respective impact projections rest on the widespread belief that increased energy efficiency can be equated with savings in energy use and emissions. This belief is flawed. Due to the rebound effect emissions savings from energy efficiency improvements will be generally less than what is technically feasible, or even be reversed. By means of an analytical general equilibrium model we demonstrate the latter to be true in a case that is both stark and relevant: if electricity generation is subject to a cap-and-trade scheme with partial coverage, increased efficiency of electric devices leads unambiguously to increased carbon emissions. The result implies that a proper distinction between the energy rebound and the carbon rebound is warranted, and that public policy must carefully consider the interactions between energy efficiency promotion and carbon pricing.     

What's on the Menu? Policies to Reduce Young People's Sugar Consumption

Young people in the UK consume far above the maximum recommended levels of added sugar. It is likely that neither they nor their parents fully take account of the future health, social and economic costs of this high sugar consumption. This provides a rationale for policy intervention. The majority of young people's added sugar consumption occurs in the home, where purchases are typically made by parents. This means that understanding the purchase decisions of adults is important for policy design, even if the policies aim to reduce the consumption of young people. We discuss the merits of popular policies, including taxes, advertising restrictions and restrictions on the availability of specific foods, and we identify promising avenues for future research.     

Seasonality and regional productivity in the Spanish accommodation sector

This study quantifies the impact of peak demand and seasonality on regional productivity in the Spanish accommodation sector. We then identify factors affecting seasonal fluctuations and their relative contributions to regional variations in seasonality. The results show that demand for accommodation in the peak season mainly determines productivity. Thus, improving a region's attractiveness as a tourist destination is most effective for tourism-based regional development. In addition, reducing seasonal variations has a non-negligible impact on productivity. A decomposition analysis reveals that providing climate-independent tourist attractions and attracting business travelers are effective in reducing seasonality.     

The effects of mega-events on perceived corruption

In recent decades, the media have covered many cases of corruption related to the celebration of mega-events around the globe. In most of these cases, politicians and other high officials are involved. This paper analyses the effect of hosting mega-events on the level of perceived corruption in 34 OECD countries, during 1996–2017. Summer and Winter Olympic Games, FIFA World Cups, and Universal Expositions are considered. Results show that, when we take the year of the celebration of the event as the turning point, there is no robust evidence in favour of a positive impact on perceived corruption. However, when we take the election date of the host country as the threshold, the magnitude of the effect is lasting, reaching its maximum value 1–2 years before the celebration itself, and increasing the perceived level of corruption by about 4%.     

Mass media and preferences for redistribution

This paper investigates how mass media potentially act on preferences for redistribution. Our hypothesis is that media contribute to shaping the value system of a person, which affects support for redistribution. A theoretical model is proposed which combines demand- and supply-driven media bias. On the demand side, the model considers two types of individuals: non-partisan, whose values are influenced by the media, and partisan, who have strong opinions not affected by the media. We assume that although partisan individuals prefer unbiased information, they hold beliefs that they like to be confirmed; therefore, they tend to consume media with an ideological position similar to theirs. On the supply side, we focus on interest groups’ pressure on media coverage. Our results suggest that the anti-equality lobby is willing to pay more than the competing lobby. Moreover, we show that media bias is a decreasing function of the advertising revenues and an increasing function of the relative weight of ideology vs pluralism in individuals’ demand for media. Adding a second media outlet reduces the likelihood of media bias but not its extent. Finally, if both lobbies are active, the two outlets’ ideological positions are polarised.     

Destruction and settlement norms as determinants of conflict: An evolutionary perspective

This paper studies conflict in a simple bargaining framework using an evolutionary game-theoretic approach. Our findings suggest that a player does not always regard the winning probability as an acceptable settlement rule. He accepts a division according to winning probability when the destruction caused to him in conflict is more than a threshold, which in turn depends on cost of conflict to the opponent and the size of the population. Further, our analysis shows that the norms with positive weight to disagreement payoff are effective against conflict, and incentivize peace. Contrary to the findings of extant studies carried out in finite population evolutionary game setting, the settlement possibility set is identical under both ESS and Nash equilibrium in our model with settlement norms.