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on Economics of Strategic Management |
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Issue of 2010‒11‒27
sixteen papers chosen by Joao Jose de Matos Ferreira University of the Beira Interior |
| By: | Daniela Baglieri (University of Messina - University of Messina); Maria Cristina Cinici (University of Catania - University of Catania); Vincent Mangematin (MTS - Management Technologique et Strategique - Grenoble Ecole de Management) |
| Abstract: | This article investigates how anchor firms sustain high tech clusters rejuvenation by means of technological pre-adaptation. Based on evidences are drawn from the comparison of the evolution of two nano-electronics clusters, i.e., Grenoble (France) and Catania (Italy) clusters which are sharing the same anchor tenant firm STMicroelectronics. Cluster rejuvenation comes from pre-adaptation of actors (scientific and technological diversity), competition amongst anchor tenant firms, competition and overlap amongst networks and the mobilization of sleeping anchors tenant organizations to renew actors and technologies. As soon as the process of specialization (asset specificity, network specificity, technology speciation) starts, it is important to stimulate pre-adaptation to avoid lock-in of the cluster on one technological trajectory |
| Keywords: | rejuvenation; cluster growth; industry life cycle; anchor tenant firm, pre-adaptation |
| Date: | 2010–11–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00536195_v1&r=cse |
| By: | Guido Bünstorf (University of Kassel, Department of Economics,); Michael Fritsch (School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena); Luis F. Medrano (School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the emergence and spatial evolution of the German laser systems industry. Regional knowledge in the related field of laser sources, as well as the presence of universities with physics or engineering departments, is conducive to the emergence of laser systems suppliers. The regional presence of source producers is also positively related to entry into laser systems. One important mechanism behind regional entry is the diversification of upstream laser source producers into the downstream systems market. Entry into the materials processing submarket appears to be unrelated to academic knowledge in the region, but the presence of laser source producers and the regional stock of laser knowledge are still highly predictive in this submarket. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, regional knowledge, laser technology, emerging industries, diversification |
| JEL: | L22 L69 R11 O52 |
| Date: | 2010–11–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2010-079&r=cse |
| By: | Le, Viet; Harvie, Charles (University of Wollongong) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the performance of domestic non-state manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam. Specifically, it evaluates firm level technical efficiency and identifies the determinants of technical efficiency of these SMEs. The paper uses an econometric approach based on a stochastic frontier production function to analyse 5,204 observations of SMEs from three surveys conducted in 2002, 2005 and 2007. The results from the estimations reveal that manufacturing SMEs in Vietnam have relatively high average technical efficiency ranging from 84.2 percent to 92.5 percent. The paper further examines the factors influencing efficiency. It finds that firm age, size, location, ownership, cooperation with a foreign partner, subcontracting, product innovation, competition, and government assistance are significantly related to technical efficiency, albeit with varying degrees and directions. Exporting does not appear to influence technical efficiency. The paper offers some evidence-based policy recommendations to improve the technical efficiency and competitiveness of manufacturing SMEs. |
| Keywords: | manufacturing small and medium enterprises, firm performance, technical efficiency, stochastic frontier production function, Vietnam. |
| JEL: | L1 L6 O1 O12 O14 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uow:depec1:wp10-04&r=cse |
| By: | Gerald A. Carlino; Jake Carr; Robert M. Hunt; Tony E. Smith |
| Abstract: | The authors document the spatial concentration of more than 1,000 research and development (R&D) labs located in the Northeast corridor of the U.S. using point pattern methods. These methods allow systematic examination of clustering at different spatial scales. In particular, Monte Carlo tests based on Ripley's (1976) K-functions are used to identify clusters of labs — at varying spatial scales — that represent statistically significant departures from random locations reflecting the underlying distribution of economic activity (employment). Using global K-functions, they first identify significant clustering of R&D labs at two different spatial scales. This clustering is by far most significant at very small spatial scales (a quarter of a mile), with significance attenuating rapidly during the first half mile. The authors also observe statistically significant clustering at distances of about 40 miles. This corresponds roughly to the size of the four major R&D clusters identified in the second stage of their analysis — one each in Boston, New York-Northern New Jersey, Philadelphia-Wilmington, and Virginia (including the District of Columbia). In this second stage of the analysis, explicit clusters are identified by a new procedure based on local K-functions, which they designate as the multiscale core-cluster approach. This new approach yields a natural nesting of clusters at different scales. The authors' global finding of clustering at two spatial scales suggests the possibility of two distinct forms of spillovers. First, the rapid attenuation of significant clustering at small spatial scales is consistent with the view that knowledge spillovers are highly localized. Second, the scale at which larger clusters are found is roughly comparable to that of local labor markets, suggesting that such markets may be the source of additional spillovers (e.g., input sharing or labor market matching externalities). |
| Keywords: | Research and development ; Cities and towns ; Industrial location |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:10-33&r=cse |
| By: | Magali A. Delmas (University of California, Los Angeles); Michael W. Toffel (Harvard Business School, Technology and Operations Management Unit) |
| Abstract: | A broad literature has emerged over the past decades demonstrating that firms' environmental strategies and practices are influenced by stakeholders and institutional pressures. Such findings are consistent with institutional sociology, which emphasizes the importance of regulatory, normative and cognitive factors in shaping firms' decisions to adopt specific organizational practices, above and beyond their technical efficiency. Similarly, institutional theory emphasizes legitimation processes and the tendency for institutionalized organizational structures and procedures to be taken for granted, regardless of their efficiency implications. However, the institutional perspective does not address the fundamental issue of business strategy necessary to explain the persistence of substantially different strategies among firms that are subjected to comparable levels of institutional pressures. In this chapter, we present current research arguing that such firms adopt heterogeneous sets of environmental management practices despite facing common institutional pressures because organizational characteristics lead managers to interpret these pressures differently. |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbs:wpaper:11-050&r=cse |
| By: | Charles HARVIE (Centre for Small Business and Regional Research School of Economics, University of Wollongong, Australia); Dionisius NARJOKO (Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)); Sothea OUM (Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides an empirical analysis of small and medium enterprise (SME) participation in production networks. It gauges firm characteristic determinants of SME participation in production networks. The empirical investigation utilizes results obtained from an ERIA Survey on SME Participation in Production Networks, conducted over a three month period at the end 2009 in most ASEAN countries (i.e., Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos PDR) and China. The results suggest that productivity, foreign ownership, financial characteristics, innovation efforts, and managerial/entrepreneurial attitudes are the important firm characteristics that determine SME participation in production networks. The paper extends the analysis to identify the determinants that allow SMEs to move from low to high quality or value adding participation in production networks. The results suggest that size, productivity, foreign ownership, and, to some extent, innovation efforts and managerial attitudes, are the important firm characteristics needed by SMEs to upgrade their positions in production networks. The finding suggests that SMEs really exploit competitiveness from economies of scale only when they are able to engage in production networks. |
| Date: | 2010–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:era:wpaper:dp-2010-11&r=cse |
| By: | Catarina Roseira (Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto); Carlos Brito (Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto); Stephan C. Henneberg (Manchester Business School, University of Manchester) |
| Abstract: | Cooperation and collaboration between companies represents a key issue within the conceptual framework developed by the IMP Group. However, little attention has been paid to a phenomenon which can result from such collaboration, i.e. collective action. This involves cooperative activities undertaken by a significant number of actors sharing a common aim. This research uses the concept of issue-based net to open new avenues to understand collective action in the context of innovation activities, specifically by analyzing a case study of an innovation-based net in the automotive industry. Two main objectives are addressed in this study: Related to this discussion of different development paths of collective actors, the case study analysis focuses on how issue-based nets emerge and evolve in situations of innovation, specifically, what kind of structure and process issues characterize a heterarchization development path. Furthermore, the analysis addressed how issue-based nets change the positioning of individual member firms, a well as that of the collective actor within the overall network. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, collective actor, issue-based nets, heterarchization, case study, automotive industry |
| JEL: | M19 M39 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:fepwps:392&r=cse |
| By: | Chiara Balderi (Lab. MaIn – Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa); Andrea Piccaluga (Lab. MaIn – Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to contribute to the current debate about the growth patterns of academic spin-offs by focusing on the Italian context. In order to identify some growth determinants, we study the initial resource base, the firms’ market strategy and their network of relationships with the parent Public Research Organisations (PROs), by controlling for industry, competitive forces, local context, firms’ age and size. In consideration of the complexity of growth phenomena, we study three growth measures, namely employment, revenues and total asset growth. Our multivariate analysis shows that the bundle of initial assets lying at the heart of the firms’ growth prospects include the formal involvement of an industrial shareholder, the targeting of a large and broadly-defined market and the availability of a strong network of formal relationships with the parent PROs. On the contrary, the volume of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) portfolio, the experience previously ripened by the promoting partners in R&D and production functions and the availability of informal support mechanisms from the parent PROs do impact negatively and significantly on growth processes with regard to total assets. Finally, the specific New Product Development (NPD) stage, the amount of the starting capital, the formal involvement of a Venture Capital (VC), the experience previously ripened by the promoting partners in commercial and managerial functions and the breadth of the target market do not significantly affect growth processes. |
| Date: | 2010–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sse:wpaper:201004&r=cse |
| By: | Jordi Jofre-Monseny (Universitat de Barcelona & IEB); Raquel Marín-López (Universitat de Barcelona & IEB); Elisabet Viladecans-Marsal (Universitat de Barcelona & IEB) |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to explore the relative importance of each of Marshall’s agglomeration mechanisms by examining the location of new manufacturing firms in Spain. In particular, we estimate the count of new firms by industry and location as a function of (pre-determined) local employment levels in industries that: 1) use similar workers (labor market pooling); 2) have a customer-supplier relationship (input sharing); and 3) use similar technologies (knowledge spillovers). We examine the variation in the creation of new firms across cities and across municipalities within large cities to shed light on the geographical scope of each of the three agglomeration mechanisms. We find evidence of all three agglomeration mechanisms, although their incidence differs depending on the geographical scale of the analysis. |
| Keywords: | Agglomeration economies, coagglomeration, labor market pooling, input sharing, knowledge spillovers |
| JEL: | L25 L60 R12 R30 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ieb:wpaper:2010/11/doc2010-49&r=cse |
| By: | Carlos E. Laciana; Santiago L. Rovere |
| Abstract: | The well-known Ising model used in statistical physics was adapted to a social dynamics context to simulate the adoption of a technological innovation. The model explicitly combines (a) an individual's perception of the advantages of an innovation and (b) social influence from members of the decision-maker's social network. The micro-level adoption dynamics are embedded into an agent-based model that allows exploration of macro-level patterns of technology diffusion throughout systems with different configurations (number and distributions of early adopters, social network topologies). In the present work we carry out many numerical simulations. We find that when the gap between the individual's perception of the options is high, the adoption speed increases if the dispersion of early adopters grows. Another test was based on changing the network topology by means of stochastic connections to a common opinion reference (hub), which resulted in an increment in the adoption speed. Finally, we performed a simulation of competition between options for both regular and small world networks. |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1011.3834&r=cse |
| By: | Rainer Kattel; Erkki Karo |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes an analytical framework for analysing innovation policies in catching-up economies. The framework combines two dynamic trajectories that affect innovation policy . policy content and policy governance context . and builds an approach that looks at innovation policy governance through a multi-level concept of policy coordination. The paper argues that for understanding and analysing innovation-policy governance systems, the comprehension of the developments in the field of public-administration-and-management research and practice is as necessary as understanding developments in the field of innovation policy research and practice because the developments in the former partly condition what are the feasible models for increasing the effectiveness of innovation-policy governance. The paper applies the framework to two stylised case studies . Estonia and Brazil . and shows that the framework is useful for revealing the complexities of innovation-policy governance that are overlooked in narrow innovation policy analysis and shows that innovationpolicy governance challenges may be more complex than usually presumed. |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tth:wpaper:33&r=cse |
| By: | Lin, H.E. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:tilbur:urn:nbn:nl:ui:12-4378354&r=cse |
| By: | Alexander Raskovich (Economic Analysis Group, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice); Nathan H. Miller |
| Abstract: | We model a “new economy” industry where innovation is sequential and monopoly is persistent but the incumbent turns over periodically. In this setting we analyze the effects of “extraction” (e.g., price discrimination that captures greater surplus) and “extension” (conduct that simply delays entry of the next incumbent) on steady-state equilibrium innovation, welfare and growth. We find that extraction invariably increases innovation and welfare growth rates, but extension causes harm under plausible conditions. This provides a rationale for the divergent treatment of single-firm conduct under U.S. law. Our analysis also suggests a rule-of-thumb, consistent with antitrust practice, that innovation proxies welfare. |
| Date: | 2010–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:doj:eagpap:201005&r=cse |
| By: | Li Shu (Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto); Aurora A.C. Teixeira (CEF.UP, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto; INESC Porto; OBEGEF) |
| Abstract: | Studies on the impact of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on the Chinese economy have essentially focused on the relationship between FDI, productivity and economic growth, revealing a tendency toward sectoral and macroeconomic empirical studies. This work aims to complement these approaches and contribute to the rather limited literature on the relationship between FDI, Human Capital and Innovation at a corporate level. Based on a set of large and innovative firms (national and foreign capital) located in China, we have concluded that: i) the direct impact of foreign capital on the level of human capital in firms is negative, that is, no evidence was found suggesting that FDI has a positive influence on their human capital; ii) in indirect terms, by means of investment in R&D activities, FDI has a positive impact on general human capital (i.e., formal education). These results suggest that for China to benefit from FDI, it is necessary to implement a selective policy to attract FDI, taking into account more technologically advanced projects. |
| Keywords: | Foreign Direct Investment; Multinational firms; Human Capital; R&D; China |
| JEL: | F21 F23 J24 O32 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:fepwps:391&r=cse |
| By: | Zhang, Haiyang; Sonobe, Tetsushi |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the association between the outcome of business incubation and the resources used by incubators, by using a small panel of science and technology business incubators (STBIs) in China. We find that while the number of firms graduating from an STBI is closely correlated with the infrastructure as well as the human and financial resources at the STBI's disposal, the graduates' firm sizes, in terms of employment and value added, as well as their labor productivity are unrelated to such resource inputs. We also find that the educational levels of incubator managers and the financial support given to their clients have significant impacts on the number of graduates. However, the number of graduates does not increase with the scale and diversity of the cities in which their STBIs are located or with the presence of foreign ventures and universities in the locality. We do not find that university-based and government-established STBIs differ significantly in their incubation performance. -- |
| Keywords: | business incubators,new firms,market failures,government policy,human resources,China |
| JEL: | M13 O31 O32 O38 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201025&r=cse |
| By: | Vincent FRIGANT (GREThA, UMR CNRS 5113); Jean-Bernard LAYAN (GREThA, UMR CNRS 5113) |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a new way for analysing the international trade of intermediaries good. We consider the case of automobile parts with the objective to cross analytic tools from international economics and industrial dynamics. Within the Economy of proximity framework, we propose a method for studying the international fragmentation of global value chain. We construct a typology for auto parts based on the modularity approach and we identify three types of parts: components, meso-components and macro-components. Then we study the evolution of trade for France and Germany for 20 parts during the period 2003/2008. Our main empirical conclusion is to stress that the situation of the German part industry is less favourable that we usually consider and that it is more and more dependant from eastern European countries. We conclude we some suggestions for improving this methodology. |
| Keywords: | modularity; international trade; global value chain; automobile; France; Germany |
| JEL: | F22 F23 L62 L24 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2010-17&r=cse |