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on Economics of Strategic Management |
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Issue of 2017‒08‒20
five papers chosen by João José de Matos Ferreira Universidade da Beira Interior |
| By: | Capriati, Michele; Divella, Marialuisa |
| Abstract: | By using firm-level data provided by the fourth round of the (Italian) Community Innovation Survey (CIS 2012), this paper explores whether the implementation of specific changes in work organisation within a firm influences its innovation performance, not only directly, but also via reinforcing the link between human capital resources and innovation. The authors also analyse the overall effect of human capital and work organisation, which enables them to identify which combination of these variables leads to the highest level of firms’ technological capabilities. Main findings confirm that not only the acquisition of new skills through the hiring of qualified personnel, but also how personnel management affects individual employees on the work floor should be considered to the development of firms’ innovation capacity: indeed, work organisation as well as strong positive complementarities or synergy effects between human capital and work organisation have been found to give firms a clear competitive advantage vis à vis both noninnovating firms and firms unable to internally generate new products and processes (i.e. entirely or at least partly by themselves). These positive effects are present and relevant in both manufacturing and service firms, whilst a more differentiated impact has emerged between firms in high-tech and low-tech sectors of the economy. On the whole, the contribution raises some relevant issues about the Italian lack of innovation in work organisation, which requires particular attention by the human resources management of firms and the industrial policy of governments. |
| Keywords: | work organisation,human capital,technological capabilities,innovation generation,firms,industries |
| JEL: | O30 O31 O32 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:97&r=cse |
| By: | Fons-Rosen, Christian; Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem; Sørensen, Bent E; Villegas-Sanchez, Carolina; Volosovych, Vadym |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on total factor productivity (TFP) of domestic firms using a new, representative firm-level data set spanning six countries. A novel finding is that firm-level spillovers from foreign firms to domestic companies can be significantly positive, non-existent, or even negative, depending on which sectors receive FDI. When foreign firms produce in the same narrow sector as domestic firms, the latter are negatively affected by increasing competition and positively affected by knowledge spillovers. We find that the positive spillovers dominate if foreign firms enter sectors where firms are "technologically close,'' controlling for the endogeneity of their entry decision into such sectors. Positive technology spillovers also affect firms in other sectors, if those sectors are technologically close to the sectors receiving FDI. Increasing FDI in sectors that are technologically close to other sectors boosts TFP of domestic firms by twice as much as increasing FDI by the same amount across all sectors. |
| Keywords: | competition; FDI; multinationals; selection; technology; TFP |
| JEL: | E32 F15 F36 O16 |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12205&r=cse |
| By: | EDAMURA Kazuma; INUI Tomohiko; YAMAUCHI Isamu |
| Abstract: | Using plant- and half-year-level micro data for the period 2007-2011, this paper analyzes the location decision of a research and development (R&D) facility on a plant in Japan. We control the effects of the characteristics of the plant, the population, labor cost, industry agglomeration, and other fixed effects of the prefecture in which it is located. The results by logit model show that firms tend to locate their R&D facility on plants near universities or national research institutes with comparatively large research expenditures and a greater number of researchers. |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:rdpsjp:17048&r=cse |
| By: | Lee, Sang-Ho; Chen, Zhao; Xu, Wei |
| Abstract: | Using firm-level data from Changzhou, one of the representative prefectural cities in the Yangzi River Delta in China, we investigate the performances of both internal and external R&D in high-tech firms. We find that, on average, high-tech firms with more internal R&D expenditure apply for more patents in terms of both the total number of patents and the number of invention patents. Internal R&D is the most efficient in foreign firms, followed by private firms and then followed by SOEs (state-owned enterprises). These findings highlight the importance of privatizing high-tech firms in China if the Chinese government intends to accelerate industrial upgrading and convert the pattern of “Made in China” into “Created in China.” |
| Keywords: | internal R&D; external R&D; high-tech firms; R&D performances |
| JEL: | D22 H76 L25 |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:80734&r=cse |
| By: | Paolo Zeppini; Evangelos Evangelou; Emanuele Pugliese; Lorenzo Napolitano; Graham Room |
| Abstract: | We search an autocatalytic structure in networks of technological fields and evaluate its significance for technological change. To this aim we define a technology network based on the International Patents Classification, and we study if autocatalytic structures in the network foster innovation as measured by the rate of production of patents. The network is identified through patenting activity of geographical regions in different technology fields. Through our analysis we show how the technological landscape of the patents database evolves as a self-organising autocatalytic structure that grows in size, and arrives to cover the most part of the technology network. Technology classes in the core of the autocatalytic structure perform better in terms of their innovativeness, as measured by the rate of growth of the number of patents. Finally, the links between classes that define the autocatalytic structure of the technology network break the hierarchical structure of the database, and indicate that recombinant innovation and its autocatalytic patterns are an important stylised fact of technological change. |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1708.03511&r=cse |