nep-ent 2005-06-27 papers

on Entrepreneurship

Issue of 2005‒06‒27
two papers chosen by
Marcus Dejardin
Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix

CORPORATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP: A STRATEGIC AND STRUCTURAL PERSPECTIVE By João Ferreira
Social Capital, R&D and Industrial Districts By Massimiliano Mazzanti; Giulio Cainelli; Susanna Mancinelli

CORPORATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP: A STRATEGIC AND STRUCTURAL PERSPECTIVE

By:	João Ferreira (Universidade da Beira Interior)
Abstract:	Recently there has been a growing interest in the use of corporate entrepreneurship as a means for corporations to enhance the innovative abilities of their employees and, at the same time, increase corporate success through the creation of new corporate ventures. However, the creation of corporate activity is difficult since it involves radically changing internal organisational behaviour patterns. Researchers have attempted to understand the factors that stimulate or impede corporate entrepreneurship. They examined the effect of a firm’s strategy, organisation and external environment. It appears that the environment plays a profound role is influencing corporate entrepreneurship whereas there is consensus that the external environment is an important antecedent of corporate entrepreneurship. Focus on the environment, the literature highlights two research questions that deserve examination. First, how do firms that compete in different environments vary in the corporate entrepreneurship activities? Second, which corporate entrepreneurship activities are conductive to superior performance in different environments? This paper develops the theoretical foundation of theses questions and focuses on the relationship between corporate entrepreneurship and strategic management in a integrating model of corporate entrepreneurship, giving special attention to the strategic behaviour, corporate context and organisational types.
Keywords:	Corporate Entrepreneurship, Strategy
JEL:	M0 M1 M13
Date:	2005–06–15
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpio:0506008&r=ent

Social Capital, R&D and Industrial Districts

By:	Massimiliano Mazzanti (University of Ferrara); Giulio Cainelli (University of Bari and CERIS-CNR); Susanna Mancinelli (University of Ferrara)
Abstract:	The main idea behind this paper is that social capital is not, as generally suggested by the socio-economic literature, an individual attitude towards something which does not imply privately appropriable economic benefits. Actually, SC might and should be interpreted as a public component of an investment which implies private and public benefits entangled with each other. In order to put forward this idea, a dynamic theoretical model that assumes social capital as the public component of the impure public good R&D is developed. It shows that the ‘civic culture’ of the district area in which the firm works is not sufficient as an incentive to increase its investment in social capital, because this investment strictly depends on the economic convenience of investing in the impure public good. Social capital /networking dynamics might positively and complementarily evolve only if the opportunity cost of investing in innovation is sufficiently low. We consequently focus our attention on a specialized industrial district located in the Emilia Romagna region – the biomedical district of Mirandola (Modena) – characterised by a strong pattern of innovative activity. Using a proxy for innovative activity as dependant variable, we observe that R&D and networking/social capital arise as complementary driving forces for innovation outputs. When empirical evidence confirms that this complementarity plays a key role, and consequently strong links exist between market and non-market dynamics relating to firms, the role for policy actions targeted to social capital is larger. The policy effort should be targeted toward both market and non-market characteristics taken together, rather than solely to the production of (local) public goods (social capital) or innovation inputs as independent elements of firm processes. The input of SC alone is not sufficient to ensure innovation and growth: economic incentives matter. On the other hand, whenever SC dynamics are crucial for R&D private investments, the effect of economic incentives depends on the presence and degree of their complementarity.
Keywords:	Social capital, R&D, Technological innovation, Industrial districts
JEL:	O32 D92 H49
Date:	2005–06
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2005.84&r=ent

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