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on Economics of Strategic Management |
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Issue of 2017‒05‒21
twelve papers chosen by João José de Matos Ferreira Universidade da Beira Interior |
| By: | Bouhari, Mohamed; Khabbouchi, Rafika; Mathlouthi, Yamina |
| Abstract: | This paper gives purpose to identify the factors of the constitution of "the Tunisian cluster" in an environment open to competition. It is a contribution to the debate on the importance of clusters for competitiveness of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to make more innovative and competitive regions and to promote strategically important sectors in technology. Approaches based on the knowledge economy grew by better integrating forms of proximity, organizational, institutional and geographical, (Torre and Rallet 2005) and relational (Boshma, 2005). An empirical study was conducted on a sample of Information and Communication Technologies ICTs’companies. The results show that the lack of attractiveness of ICT Tunisian companies to form clusters is not due to a lack of suitable infrastructure but to the absence of relations involved in a partnership approach or localized nature between higher education, research centers, industry training and organization, enabling to carry out scientific and technical projects. |
| Keywords: | Clusters, technology centers, geographical proximity, organized proximity |
| JEL: | R11 R12 R13 |
| Date: | 2016–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:79110&r=cse |
| By: | XU Peng |
| Abstract: | This paper empirically investigates the effect of banks' soft information on small business innovations. Using data from a sample of Japanese small and medium enterprises (SMEs), we find that multiple banking prevails. Moreover, besides the main bank, the sub bank also acquires soft information for a number of multiple banking firms. Nonetheless, there coexists no bank information: the main bank's information monopoly and multiple bank information competition. Importantly, such information competition in multiple banking is positively related to both product and process innovation while the main bank's information monopoly has no significant effects on innovation. Also, we offer additional consistent evidence that information competition decreases the likelihood of worsening of the lending attitude of the main bank during the financial crisis. For single banking firms, bank information monopolies have a negative effect on product and process innovation. |
| Date: | 2017–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:17062&r=cse |
| By: | Loet Leydesdorff (University of Amsterdam); Henry Etzkowitz (International Triple Helix Institute (ITHI),); Inga Ivanova (Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge, National Research University Higher School of Economics (NRU HSE),); Martin Meyer (Kent Business School,) |
| Abstract: | In university-industry-government relations, one not only exchanges information, but can also share meanings provided from partially overlapping perspectives. Such sharing of meanings invokes different codes of communication and generates redundancies. Redundancy can be measured as the number of options not yet realized in a system of innovations. The generation of new options is probably more important for the quality of knowledge-based innovation systems than prior achievements. Three levels of communication can be distinguished: the communication of information in networks of relations, the sharing of meaning among differently positioned agents in a multi-dimensional vector space, and codes of communication (“horizons of meaning”) which “structurate” meaning processing among reflexive agents. Scientometricians have mainly studied the communication of information; new options, however, are generated and entertained discursively in the knowledge base. The Triple-Helix synergy indicator enables us to measure the generation of redundancy as feedback on historical trajectories. In a number of studies of national systems of innovation (e.g., Sweden, Germany, Spain, China), this measure was used to indicate niches (e.g., regions) in which uncertainty is reduced. Reduction of uncertainty improves the entrepreneurial climate for innovation. The quality of an innovation system can thus be quantified at different geographical scales and in terms of different sectors, such as high- and medium-tech manufacturing or knowledge-intensive services. |
| Keywords: | Triple Helix; Non-linear Dynamics; University-Industry-Government Relations; Redundancy; Innovation Systems; Knowledge Base |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sru:ssewps:2017-08&r=cse |
| By: | Daniel Nepelski (European Commission - JRC); Marc Bogdanowicz; Federico Biagi (European Commission - JRC); Paul Desruelle (European Commission - JRC); Giuditta De Prato (European Commission - JRC); Garry Gabison (European Commission - JRC); Giuseppe Piroli; Annarosa Pesole (European Commission - JRC); Nikolaus Thumm (European Commission - JRC); Vincent Van Roy (European Commission - JRC) |
| Abstract: | This report attempts to summarise findings and conclusions of over 30 studies published within the EURIPIDIS project (European Innovation Policies for the Digital Shift). The objective of EURIPIDIS was to better understand how digital innovation and entrepreneurship work; to assess the EU's digital innovation and entrepreneurship performance; and to suggest how policy makers could make digital innovation and entrepreneurship in the EU work better. Because digital technologies facilitate the modernization of firms and economies, digital innovation and entrepreneurship requires a comprehensive policy response. The current report focuses on 7 issues. (1) Digital innovation and entrepreneurship require skills and capabilities ranging from technical, managerial and financial; entrepreneurial culture; failure acceptance; large funding and innovation-friendly regulatory environment. Capacity building and specific policies are needed in all those fields. (2) Resisting digital disruption and protecting the status quo is likely to be a short-term strategy. Negative social and economic effects need to be mitigated. (3) The ecosystem of digital innovation and entrepreneurship consists of a wide range of different players. Policy responses need to address this heterogeneity. (4) Digital innovation and entrepreneurship takes place through collaborative interactions between various players. To facilitate collaboration, knowledge flow and spillovers need to become a more central focus of public policies. (5) In addition to increasing funding for innovation, closer attention needs to be paid to the availability of funding for scaling-up of digital enterprises. (6) To guarantee technological interoperability and create technology-related network effects, coordination between various players to, for example, set technological standards is needed. (7) Technological complexity combined with the cumulativeness of digital innovation requires a balance between two conflicting goals: the provision of incentives to create new products and the stimulation of knowledge dissemination. |
| Keywords: | ICT, digital economy, big data, innovation |
| Date: | 2017–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc104899&r=cse |
| By: | IINO Takashi; INOUE Hiroyasu; SAITO Yukiko; TODO Yasuyuki |
| Abstract: | Using worldwide patent data and considering co-assignment as collaboration between firms, we compare the characteristics of international collaboration. Then, we examine the effect of knowledge propagation through collaboration on the quality of innovation. Introducing indices proposed in network science to capture firms' status in networks is the feature of this paper. We found collaborations of Japanese firms are less internationalized compared to other countries while Japanese firms tend to collaborate more than others, i.e., they intensively collaborate within a country. However, intensive collaboration within the country doesn't necessary improve the quality of innovation. Instead, firms bridging firms in different groups and creating various connections produce high-quality innovation. This is contrary to U.S. firms which benefit from various type of connections, including intensity of networks. This implies that it is difficult to improve innovation quality by knowledge propagation through collaboration for firms in many countries including Japan. |
| Date: | 2017–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:rdpsjp:17034&r=cse |
| By: | Badulescu, Daniel; Cadar, Otilia |
| Abstract: | Entrepreneurship is considered an essential element for the development and prosperity of contemporary economies. The already known traits: creating jobs, boosting growth, revenues to the state budget, are supplemented by vitality and adaptability, and not least, a capacity for innovation. Thus, innovation became one of the most important factors in the companies’ activity. However, innovation doesn’t only mean new products and services. It is closely related to the capacity of entrepreneurs and managers to apply new business models, embedding an organizational culture capable to identify how new ideas could be converted into value for business and society. Innovation supports the efforts of ambitious entrepreneurs to pursue their objectives and stimulate other potential entrepreneurs to enter into businesses. Innovation generates, directly and indirectly, positive effects not only within a company but also within the national economy, as a whole. Despite this empirical evidence, the link between entrepreneurship and innovation is difficult to describe, to introduce it in strong theoretical models, in order to substantiate viable political programs. First, only a relatively small part of entrepreneurs really innovate. Secondly, researchers reveal deep, but subtle, ties between the entrepreneurs’ profile, availability for innovation and effects on states’ competitiveness and prosperity. Finally, the number (or proportion) of entrepreneurs isn’t the most relevant, but their availability to innovate, the type of innovation chosen and, especially, how entrepreneurial organizations stimulate innovative initiatives among their employees (intrapreneurship). From this point of view, Romania's situation is difficult and challenging. The importance and size of the sector, entrepreneurial motivations, or the share of early stage innovative entrepreneurs indicate an average position at a global or European Union (EU) level. However, Romania is a modest innovator, often ranked last in the EU for a several innovation indicators, and its innovation performance in 2014 is at a significantly lower level compared to 2007. The poorest relative performance has been registered for the Linkages & entrepreneurship indicator. Our research also performs a comparison between entrepreneurship and innovation indicators, for Romania and selected Central and Eastern European states, to better understand the gap regarding a reasonable performance in innovation. |
| Keywords: | innovation, entrepreneurship, competitiveness, EU, Romania |
| JEL: | L26 M21 O31 |
| Date: | 2016–05–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:78924&r=cse |
| By: | Pussep, Anton |
| Abstract: | Researchers have long focused on the determinants of firm success, which is of crucial interest to practitioners as well, since being successful is at the very heart of economic activity. Extant research emphasizes three levels of analysis at which determinants occur: firm, industry, and group level. Each level has been found to affect firm success. At group level, firms choose between a limited set of competitive approaches. The resulting groups are referred to as configurations. The analysis of configurations, their characteristics, and effects are the particular focus of configurational research and this thesis. Along with a multitude of other concepts, scholars have used industry-specific conceptualizations of firm strategy to derive configurations, referred to as strategic groups. Despite theoretical and methodological weaknesses in its beginnings, strategic group research has overcome initial challenges and produced a strong body of theoretical argument, methodology, and empirical evidence in the tradition of configurational research. More recently, business models have emerged as a topic of growing interest to researchers and practitioners. Though some methods from configurational research have been applied to business models, previous studies do not nearly grasp the full potential of configurational analysis. In addition to methodological shortcomings, business model research is still under criticism for theoretical and conceptual weaknesses. This thesis uses the theoretical and methodological body of knowledge from strategic group research and applies it to strategies and business models of software firms. The particular case of the software industry is chosen because of its dynamics, size, growth, and importance to other industries. In order to improve our understanding of strategies and business models in the software industry, a software-specific value chain is derived and used as the main theoretical foundation to both concepts. Building upon detailed conceptualizations, three empirical studies are presented, each using a unique dataset to analyze the concepts at hand. The empirical studies demonstrate the applicability of configurational analysis to software firms and provide insights into their characteristics and success factors. The results indicate that the most distinctive delineators of strategies and business models determine a firm’s product and market scope, such as firm size, share of international revenues, and the number of targeted industries. Strong empirical evidence suggests that broader scope is associated with higher success in terms of higher performance, higher risk-adjusted performance, and in some cases lower risk. Being consistent with the economic properties of software products and markets, such as network effects, the findings bear rich implications for researchers and practitioners, including decision makers, investors, analysts, and policy makers. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dar:wpaper:87252&r=cse |
| By: | Annalisa Caloffi (Department of Economics and Management, University of Padua, Italy); Federica Rossi (Department of Management, Birkbeck College, University of London); Margherita Russo (Department of Economics Marco Biagi, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy) |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:img:wpaper:38&r=cse |
| By: | Henrekson, Magnus (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)); Sanandaji, Tino (Institute for Economic and Business History Research (EHFF), Stockholm School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | We examine whether Europe has an “entrepreneurship deficit” compared to other industrialized regions. Cross-country comparisons are difficult due to the lack of standard empirical definitions of entrepreneurship. Measures focusing on small business activity and startup rates suggest that Europe has the same or higher rates of entrepreneurship than the U.S. and East Asia. However, most business activity is not entrepreneurial in the Schumpeterian sense. We rely on empirical measures that more closely tally Schumpeterian entrepreneurship. These include top global firms founded in recent decades, highly valued unicorn startups, venture capital investments as a share of GDP, and the number of self-made dollar billionaires per capita who earned their wealth by creating new firms. Western Europe is shown to underperform in all four measures of high-impact Schumpeterian entrepreneurship relative to the U.S. Once we account for Europe’s strong performance in technological innovation, an “entrepreneurship deficit” relative to China and East Asia becomes apparent. This underperformance is missed by most standard measures, but captured by the GEM measure China is found to perform surprisingly well in Schumpeterian entrepreneurship, especially compared to Eastern Europe. |
| Keywords: | Billionaire entrepreneurs; Entrepreneurship; Innovation; Institutions; Regulation; Self-employment |
| JEL: | L50 M13 O31 P14 |
| Date: | 2017–05–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1170&r=cse |
| By: | Alexey A. Egorov (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Oleg V. Leshukov (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Alexander D. Gromov (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the contribution of higher education institutions (HEI) in Russia to gross regional product (GRP) growth. We explore the relationship between higher education coverage and rates of economic growth based on longitudinal economic growth models which are pooled regression, fixed effects, and regression with simultaneous fixed and spatial effects. In addition to the influence of HEI on economic growth, the model specifications also allow an investigation of the relationship between the territory accessibility of higher education and GRP growth, and the significance of higher education in regions with different structures of GRP. The main policy outcome of the paper is that universities can be considered as fully-fledged economic agents which make positive contributions to GRP growth. The development of regional higher education systems would lead to a positive effect on regional economic development |
| Keywords: | higher education, economic growth, spatial effects, influence on GRP, regional economic development |
| JEL: | I21 I23 I25 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:41edu2017&r=cse |
| By: | ITF |
| Abstract: | This report reviews experiences with strategic infrastructure planning with a view to identifying international best practices. Governments play a critical role in providing the framework for investment in the transport, energy and water infrastructure on which economies depend. Long asset lives and large sunk costs make such investments particularly subject to risk and uncertainty. A long-term strategic plan that integrates specific projects reduces such risks by setting out a stable set of the priorities for future investment. This report is the product of a roundtable organised by the International Transport Forum at the OECD and the UK National Infrastructure Commission. This report is part of the International Transport Forum’s Case-Specific Policy Analysis series. These are topical studies on specific issues carried out by the ITF in agreement with local institutions. |
| Date: | 2017–03–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:itfaac:29-en&r=cse |
| By: | Era Dabla-Norris; Florian Misch; Duncan Cleary; Munawer Khwaja |
| Abstract: | Tax compliance costs tend to be disproportionately higher for small and young businesses. This paper examines how the quality of tax administration affects firm performance for a large sample of firms in emerging market and developing economies. We construct a novel, internationally comparable, and multidimensional index of tax administration quality (the TAQI) using information from the Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool. We show that better tax administration attenuates the productivity gap of small and young firms relative to larger and older firms, a result that is robust to controlling for other aspects of tax policy and of economic governance, alternative definitions of small and young firms, and measures of the quality of tax administration. From a policy perspective, we provide evidence that countries can reap growth and productivity dividends from improvements in tax administration that lower compliance costs faced by firms. |
| Date: | 2017–04–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:17/95&r=cse |