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on Innovation |
| By: | Yusuf, Shahid; Nabeshima, Kaoru |
| Abstract: | China is increasing its outlay on research and development and seeking to build an innovation system that will deliver quick results not just in absorbing technology b ut also in pushing the technological envelope. China ' s spending on R & D rose from 1.1 percent of GDP in 2000 to 1.3 percent of GDP in 2005. On a purchasing power parity basis, China ' s research outlay was among the world ' s highest, far greater than that of Brazil, India, or Mexico. Chinese firms are active in the fields of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, alternative energy sources, and nanotechnology. This surge in spending has been parallel by a sharp increase in patent applications in China, with the bulk of the patents registered in the areas of electronics, information technology, and telecoms. However, of the almost 50,000 patents granted in China, nearly two-thirds were to nonresidents. This paper considers two questions that are especially important for China. First, how might China go about accelerating technology development? Second, what measures could most cost-effectively deliver the desired outcomes? It concludes that although the level of financing for R & D is certainly important, technological advance is closely keyed to absorptive capacity which is a function of the volume and quality of talent and the depth as well as the heterogeneity of research experience. It is also a function of how companies maximize the commercial benefits of research and development, and the coordination of research with production and marketing. |
| Keywords: | Technology Industry,Tertiary Education,E-Business,ICT Policy and Strategies,Agricultural Knowledge & Information Systems |
| Date: | 2007–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4309&r=ino |
| By: | Mary Benner; Joel Waldfogel |
| Abstract: | Patent data have been widely used in research on technological innovation to characterize firms' locations as well as the proximities among firms in knowledge space. Researchers could measure proximity among firms with a variety of measures based on patent class data, including Euclidean distance, correlation, and angle between firms' patent class distributions. Alternatively, one could measure proximity using overlap in cited patents. We point out that measures of proximity based on small numbers of patents are imprecisely measured random variables. Measures computed on samples with few patents generate both biased and imprecise measures of proximity. We explore the effects of larger sample sizes and coarser patent class breakdowns in mitigating these problems. Where possible, we suggest that researchers increase their sample sizes by aggregating years or using all of the listed patent classes on a patent, rather than just the first. |
| JEL: | O31 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13322&r=ino |
| By: | Wilhelmsson, Mats (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | Innovation networking has become both more feasible with improved telecommunication and more important as it usually produces research of higher quality. However, the spatial distribution of academic networks and innovative networks are not uniform. Despite overwhelming evidence on the benefits of collaboration, patent data from 1994-2001 in Sweden demonstrate that innovation networks are not very common. In addition, the pattern of innovative networks is very fragmented. Our results indicate that innovation networks are more likely to exist in densely populated areas with a diversified industry. Face-to-face contacts in such areas seem to promote networking. Moreover, science-oriented industries appear to benefit more from proximity to universities when it comes to collaboration. However, the size of the market does not matter at all when it comes to collaboration, more important is the density and diversity of the market. |
| Keywords: | innovation; networks; patent; collaboration |
| JEL: | N34 O31 R11 |
| Date: | 2007–08–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0091&r=ino |
| By: | Tseveen Gantumur; Andreas Stephan |
| Abstract: | In response to global market forces such as deregulation and globalization, technological change and digital convergence, the telecommunications in the 1990s witnessed an enormous worldwide round of Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A). Given both M&A and Innovation a major means of today’s competitive strategy development, this paper examines the innovation determinants of M&A activity and the consequences of M&A transactions on the technological potential and the innovation performance. We examine the telecommunications equipment industry over the period 1988-2002 using a newly constructed data set with firm-level data on M&A and innovation activity as well as financial characteristics. By implementing a counterfactual technique based on a matching propensity score procedure, the analysis not only controls for merger endogeneity and ex-ante observable firms characteristics but also takes account of unobserved heterogeneity. The study provides evidence that M&A realize significantly positive changes to the firm’s post-merger innovation performance. The effects of M&A on innovation performance are in turn driven by both the success in Research and Development (R&D) activity and the deterioration in internal technological capabilities at acquiring firms prior to a merger. |
| Keywords: | Mergers & Acquisitions, Innovation Performance, Telecommunications Equipment Industry. |
| JEL: | L63 O30 L10 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2007-051&r=ino |
| By: | Andersson, Martin (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology); Johansson, Börje (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on how characteristics of regions pertaining to local information about product varieties and markets as well as networks for the transmission of information about innovation opportunities influence the arrival of innovation ideas to existing and potential entrepreneurs. We formulate a model where entrepreneurs or innovating firms introduce new products in a quasi-temporal setting. Market conditions are characterized by monopolistic competition between varieties belonging to the same product group, in which there is entry and exit of varieties. Firms innovate in response to the arrival of innovation ideas. To realize these ideas firms have to make an R&D investment and a firm’s decision to export a variety to a new market is associated with a market channel investment. The theoretical model is used as a reference when formulating two regression models, with which we estimate factors that can explain the introduction of new export varieties by firms in different regional milieus. In one model we examine the emergence of new export firms, and in the second model we investigate the appearance of new export varieties. Results are consistent with the assumption that knowledge and information flows have a positive influence on the frequency of arrival of innovation ideas to firms. |
| Keywords: | innovation ideas; exports; entrepreneurship; location; knowledge spillovers |
| JEL: | O31 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2007–08–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0095&r=ino |
| By: | Andrea Fosfuri (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid); Thomas Rønde (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen) |
| Abstract: | We study a situation in which an R&D department promotes the introduction of an innovation that results in costly re-adjustments for a production department. In response, the production department tries to resist change by improving the existing technology. We show that firms balancing the strengths of the two departments perform better. As a negative effect, resistance to change might distort the R&D department’s effort away from radical innovations. The firm can solve this problem by implementing the so-called skunk works model of innovation where the R&D department is isolated from the rest of the organization. Several implications for managing resistance to change and for the optimal design of R&D activities are derived. |
| Keywords: | resistance to change; innovation; skunk works model; contest |
| JEL: | L2 M12 M54 O31 O32 |
| Date: | 2005–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kuieci:2007-10&r=ino |
| By: | Gilles Koléda |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a two-countries dynamic model of Schumpeterian growth with two innovative R&D sectors in each country: a vertical R&D sector that improves the quality of existing differentiated products and a horizontal R&D sector that creates new differentiated products. The two countries exchange differentiated products and beneficiate from knowledge spillovers, possibly from the other country. We opt for an endogenous growth without scale effect specification à la Howitt (1999) and explore the consequence on home research and production of an increase of research capacities in foreign country (possibly impulsed by R&D subsidies). |
| Keywords: | Endogenous growth without scale effect, innovation, Trade, spillovers, R&D subsidies |
| JEL: | F43 O31 O34 O40 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:deg:conpap:c012_009&r=ino |
| By: | Ngai, Liwa Rachel; Samaniego, Roberto |
| Abstract: | We develop a multi-sector general equilibrium model in which productivity growth is driven by the generation of knowledge. In the model, firms allocate resources towards the production of goods and the production of new knowledge, in response to industry-specific factors of demand and technology. In equilibrium, we find that long run differences in research intensity and productivity growth are primarily driven by the parameters of the production function for knowledge -- particularly the extent to which the production of new knowledge benefits from prior knowledge, which we term receptivity. Conditional on receptivity, whether the production of knowledge relies on prior knowledge that is internally generated by the firm or whether it instead "spills over" from its competitors does not appear to be quantitatively important. The results are consistent with a number of empirical findings on the relationship between research intensity and rates of technical change. |
| Keywords: | Multi-sector growth; R&D Intensity; Technological Opportunity; Total Factor Productivity |
| JEL: | D24 O31 O41 O47 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6408&r=ino |
| By: | Ueki, Yasushi |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to analyze innovations and the innovation system and its dynamics in the ethanol sector in the State of São Paulo. More specifically, this paper focuses on the development process in the sector, the public policies taken to promote the sector, and the organizations and key players involved in these policies and their responses to unforeseeable changes in economic, social and technological environments. To this end, this paper takes an historical perspective and reviews data on the cultivation of sugar cane, the production of ethanol, and on sugar cane yields as indicators of the innovations achieved in the sector. The geographical distribution of these indicators is also examined. Next, several cases in Piracicaba and Campinas in the State of São Paulo are presented; these give us a more concrete idea of the processes involved in innovation and technology transfer. Based on these observations, the ethanol cluster and the innovation system of the State of São Paulo are discussed from the viewpoint of the flowchart approach to industrial cluster policy. |
| Keywords: | Industrial Agglomeration, Innovation, Sugar Cane, Sugar, Ethanol, Brazil, Technological innovations, Fuel, Research & development, Technology transfer |
| JEL: | Q16 Q42 R12 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper109&r=ino |
| By: | Annamaria Conti (Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation, Collège du Management de la Technologie, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne); Patrick Gaulé (Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation, Collège du Management de la Technologie, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne); Dominique Foray (Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation, Collège du Management de la Technologie, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) |
| Abstract: | This paper is an empirical analysis of the impact that different organisational forms of the Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) in Europe have on their licensing activity. Given the great diversity of organization forms prevailing across European TTOs, our paper attempts to shed more light on which of those forms might be more efficient. We use as a measure of efficiency and as dependent variable of our model the number of license agreements concluded. Controlling for staff, invention disclosures, quality of the academic institution, life science orientation and demand for technology, we find evidence for the importance of personnel with a PhD in science in the TTO to facilitate communication between academics and the TTO. We find that the age of the TTO has a significant but negative effect. We do not find a positive effect for private organization of the TTO. Our data is derived from the 2004-2005 survey on TTO activities by the Association of European Science and Technology Professionals (ASTP) and information collected from TTO web sites. |
| Keywords: | technology transfer offices, technology licensing, university licensing |
| JEL: | L3 O31 O32 O38 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmi:wpaper:cemi-workingpaper-2007-001&r=ino |
| By: | Fulvio Castellacci (Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Oslo.) |
| Abstract: | This paper seeks to shed new light on sectoral patterns of innovation in Norway in a European perspective. It puts forward a theoretical framework based on a new sectoral taxonomy that combines manufacturing and services within the same framework. It then analyses innovative activities in Norway and compare them to other European countries by making use of data from the Fourth Community Innovation Survey (CIS4). Finally, it studies the recent evolution and current characteristics of the industrial structure in Norway and points out its peculiarities vis-a-vis other European economies. The results of this work point to a contrasting pattern. On the one hand, Norwegian sectoral systems appear to be very innovative, often above the European average and, for some of the CIS4 indicators and some of the sectoral groups, they indeed emerge as the most innovative in Europe. This pattern is in fact more evident for those technologically advanced groups that the new sectoral taxonomy points out as the most progressive industries of the ICT-based age. On the other hand, these sectoral groups are relatively small in Norway, accounting for a much lower share of production than their European counterparts. In a nutshell, by focusing on the sectoral characteristics of the Norwegian economy and by analysing them in a European perspective, the paper sheds new light on the so-called Norwegian paradox, according to which Norway is characterized by a peculiar combination of low innovation and high economic performance. The commonly made statement that innovation is low in Norway does in fact hide the contrasting pattern outlined above. The problem is not with innovative activities, as frequently asserted, but it has rather to do with the sectoral composition of the economy. |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tik:inowpp:20070609&r=ino |
| By: | Edquist, Harald (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates labor productivity growth and the contribution to labor productivity growth in Swedish manufacturing during electrification and the ICT revolution. The paper distinguishes between technology-producing, intensive and less intensive technology-using industries during these technological breakthroughs. The results show that labor productivity growth and the overall contribution to labor productivity growth was considerably higher in technology-producing industries following the ICT revolution. Moreover, the results presented here show no evidence that industries that were early adopters of electric motors and ICT, on average would have contributed more to productivity growth in Swedish manufacturing. |
| Keywords: | Electrification; ICT Revolution; Productivity Growth; Technological Change |
| JEL: | N64 O33 O47 |
| Date: | 2007–08–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0714&r=ino |
| By: | Stuart, Graham; Matthew, Higgins |
| Abstract: | Since Comanor and Scherer (1969), researchers have been using patents as a proxy for new product development. In this paper, we reevaluate this relationship by using novel new data. We demonstrate that the relationship between patenting and new FDA-approved product introductions has diminished considerably since the 1950s, and in fact no longer holds. Moreover, we also find that the relationship between R&D expenditures and new product introductions is considerably smaller than previously reported. While measures of patenting remain important in predicting the arrival of product introductions, the most important predictor is the loss of exclusivity protection on a current product. Our evidence suggests that pharmaceutical firms are acting strategically with respect to new product introductions. Finally, we find no relationship between firm size and new product introductions. |
| Keywords: | Patenting; Pharmaceutical industry; New product management; Research productivity |
| JEL: | O30 |
| Date: | 2007–08–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:4574&r=ino |
| By: | Wendy Dobson; A. E. Safarian (Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto) |
| Abstract: | We examine evidence on whether and how the Chinese economy will make the transition from imitation and labor intensive production to innovation as the source of sustained long term growth. We note the risk of obstacles to innovation such as outdated institutions and incentive systems that cause the “disequilibrium trap” in which growth slows down. We review existing literatures that focus on macroeconomic indicators, institutions and the behavior of firms and which suggests that China can make the transition, but progress depends on addressing significant institutional weaknesses including the weak legal system, continued reliance on imitation and on international rather than domestic supply chains, and partial linkages between the growing public science and technology base and industry. Much depends on the behavior of firms. We study such behavior in our results of a firm-level survey. Interviews with privately-owned SME producers in five industries designated as “high tech” shed light on how they are learning by examining three main inputs to their innovation processes: learning with respect to organizational, marketing, sourcing or production processes; education and skills development; and changes in the quantity and types of R&D. Most of the firms are less than 20 years old and focus on the domestic product market, adapting and learning as a result of intense competitive pressures, demanding customers, interaction with research institutes and the use of international linkages, foreign acquisitions or foreign partners. |
| Keywords: | China. Technological capabilities of firms. Catchup. Transition to innovation economy. |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ttp:itpwps:0704&r=ino |
| By: | Testsugen Haruyama; Ken-ichi Hashimoto |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a dynamic general equilibrium model of North-South trade and economic growth in a world economy with a continuum of countries. Countries are different in research productivity. Innovation, imitation and the relative wage between countries are endogenously determined as well as the number of the country that specialize in innovative or imitative R&D. We investigate how equilibrium is affected by globalization, intellectual property right protection, industrial policy, competition and migration. The model is also extended to introduce foreign direct investment. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, imitation, growth, trade, North, South |
| JEL: | O11 O14 O31 F12 F43 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:deg:conpap:c012_010&r=ino |
| By: | Rachel Griffith; Sokbae Lee; John Van Reenen |
| Abstract: | We examine the home bias of international knowledge spillovers as measured by the speed of patent citations (i.e. knowledge spreads slowly over international boundaries). We present the first compelling econometric evidence that the geographical localization of knowledge spillovers has fallen over time, as we would expect from the dramatic fall in communication and travel costs. Our proposed estimator controls for correlated fixed effects and censoring in duration models and we apply it to data on over two million citations between 1975 and 1999. Home bias declines substantially when we control for fixed effects: there is practically no home bias for the more modern sectors such as pharmaceuticals and information/communication technologies. |
| JEL: | F23 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13338&r=ino |
| By: | Gilles Koléda |
| Abstract: | We study the incentive that governments have to protect IPR in a trading world economy, focusing on the patent novelty requirement and its effect on growth and trade. We consider a world economy with ongoing innovation in two regions. The North is assumed to have a higher wage than the South and a greater capacity for innovation, the South is assumed to have a larger population than the North. We introduce heterogeneity in innovation size together with the obligation, imposed by Patent Office inside each region, that innovation size must be higher than the patent novelty requirement. This patent characteristic stands to be a useable instrument to promote innovation and growth, and also a strategic trade policy instrument. We numerically determine the Nash equilibrium of the strategic game that results of the patent novelty requirement setting by each regional authority. We then compare, in terms of welfare, the non-cooperative equilibrium with the equilibrium that results from the patent novelty requirement harmonization, when the level of this common patent novelty requirement is set by a supra-regional organization. |
| Keywords: | patent novelty requirement, innovation, growth, quality ladders, harmonization, North and South |
| JEL: | O34 O40 F43 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:deg:conpap:c012_011&r=ino |
| By: | Andrew Atkeson; Ariel Burstein |
| Abstract: | We present a general equilibrium model of the decisions of firms to innovate and to engage in international trade. We use the model to analyze the impact of a reduction in international trade costs on firms' process and product innovative activity. We first show analytically that if all firms export with equal intensity, then a reduction in international trade costs has no impact at all, in steady-state, on firms' investments in process innovation. We then show that if only a subset of firms export, a decline in marginal trade costs raises process innovation in exporting firms relative to that of non-exporting firms. This reallocation of process innovation reinforces existing patterns of comparative advantage, and leads to an amplified response of trade volumes and output over time. In a quantitative version of the model, we show that the increase in process innovation is largely offset by a decline in product innovation. We find that, even if process innovation is very elastic and leads to a large dynamic response of trade, output, consumption, and the firm size distribution, the dynamic welfare gains are very similar to those in a model with inelastic process innovation. |
| JEL: | F1 L11 L16 O3 |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13326&r=ino |
| By: | Lederman, Daniel |
| Abstract: | A model of firm innovation illustrates the effects of the threat of imitation and product varieties on a representative firm ' s decision to invest in research and development to produce new product varieties. The model motivates two empirical questions: (1) Is research and developm ent partially correlated with firms ' propensity to introduce new products or product innovation in developing countries? (2) Do trade policies and the national investment climate affect firms ' propensity for product innovation? The econometric evidence suggests that the answers are yes and yes, but the investment climate affects product innovation in a manner that is consistent with the presence of market failures and state capture. National trade-policy distortions appear to reduce the probability of product innovation, and the density of exporting firms at the national level also seems to positively affect the propensity to introduce new products by individual firms. The paper discusses some policy implications. |
| Keywords: | E-Business,Innovation,Microfinance,Inequality,Economic Theory & Research |
| Date: | 2007–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4319&r=ino |
| By: | Kurt Hafner |
| Abstract: | I first present a New Economic Geography model and analyze the impact of R&D on economic development of integrating countries. I find that technology diffusion and skilled labor migration stimulates economic development through fix cost reduction on a firm level. As the inclusion of foreign technology matters for structurally backward countries, I second use time series data for Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland representing European integration during the 1980s and 1990s. In considering three different technology diffusion channels, estimates, however, reduces to Portugal as test procedures confirm nonstationarity and cointegration only for this country. I find empirical evidence for bilateral trade as a diffusion channel but not for FDI or foreign patents. |
| Keywords: | Economic Geography, Agglomeration, Technology Diffusion, Nonstationary Time Series |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:deg:conpap:c012_008&r=ino |
| By: | Rahel Falk; Werner Hölzl (WIFO); Hannes Leo (WIFO) |
| Abstract: | EU enlargement has increased the diversity of the European Union in a substantial way, in particular with respect to its capacities in the fields of science, technology and innovation (STI). The shares of both gross and business sector expenditures on R&D in GDP are increasingly diverging following EU enlargement pointing at quite different levels of technological opportunities and absorptive capacity. Against this background, this paper tries to disentangle the rationales for STI policies at an EU level. Starting from the different policy rationales we assign different STI policy fields to levels of governance. Our discussion suggests that the European Union plays two quite distinct roles in EU STI policy. The first role is closely related to the assignment of policy competences and establishes the fields where the EU should act as policy maker and program owner. But this alone is likely not enough when it comes to the managing and coordination of complex horizontal policy fields such as STI policy. Here the second role of the European Commission comes into place. This second role is not related to policy making but to the "right" to fuel discussions to find coordinated solutions. This role is essentially political and relates to the job to stimulate activities in areas where the Commission has no mandate (due to missing clear rationales) to act alone. |
| Keywords: | EU enlargement, science, technology and innovation (STI), policy rationales, subsidiarity, policy competences, coordination, horizontal policy fields |
| Date: | 2007–08–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wfo:wpaper:y:2007:i:299&r=ino |
| By: | Lucio Cassia; Alessandra Colombelli |
| Abstract: | Entrepreneurship is more and more considered a key driver of economic performance. Recent works in the literature on this research area (see Saxenian, 1994; Audretsch and Keilbach, 2004; Cooke, 2004; Cassia, Fattore and Paleari, 2006) suggest that there is a positive link between entrepreneurship capital, regional economic performance and the creation of new firms and businesses. This kind of intangible assets promotes the spillover of knowledge, becoming crucial in building firms and regional innovation capability and strengthening learning capacities. Entrepreneurship is, thus, about change and innovation. In relation to these concepts, the aim of the paper is to highlight the entrepreneurial dimension behind the creation of firms formed around new business ideas in a knowledge-based economy, where value-relevant assets are expected to consist predominately of intangible and non-marketable assets. To this purpose, we focus on companies going public on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), a market dedicated to young and growing companies in both science and non-science based industries. The AIM was launched in 1995, allowing to a large number of SME to go public in the UK, and, today, is recognized as the most successful secondary market in Europe, brought forward as an example by other stock exchanges in mainland Europe. In the paper we investigate the post-IPO performance of listed firms, during the period going from 1995 to 2002, with the aim, first, to highlight the determinants shaping that performance and influencing the local milieu and, secondly, to underline the role of entrepreneurship. The results of this work have some policy implications both at national and regional level. At the national level, policy makers should take into account the relevance of an efficient financial system, in particular the emerging role of secondary markets, and try to remove financial constraints that hamper the the prospect of new businesses. At the regional level, political intervention should aim to promote entrepreneurial activities, which ease the regional process of change, for example, by encouraging the propensity to risk and facilitating the access to external capital. |
| Date: | 2006–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa06p627&r=ino |
| By: | Andreas P. Cornett; Nils Karl Soerensen |
| Abstract: | A recent study for the Danish government has identified innovation as one of the major drivers of regional competitiveness in Denmark. Innovation and the capacity to innovate are crucial factors in the development of a firm and its ability to adapt to changes in the external environment. In particular changes in the international production system with increasing out-sourcing of physical production from Western Europe has highlighted the need for an alternative economic base in many regions. As a consequence, attention has been on the role of innovation policy in economic policy in general and regional development in particular. The aim of this paper is to analyze the interaction between the actors in the innovative environment (i.e. the firm, advisory and research institution) and the external environment as a part of a broader network of innovative relations covering intra-firm as well as extra-firm relations and processes. The project covers the following aspects: • In the first part of the paper concepts and policies of innovation are discussed with regard to their ability to move the economy toward higher growth. • The second section provides a brief overview of regional convergence and disparities in Denmark in the last decade, and compares with the trends in a broader European perspective. • The next section summarizes the findings of a recent study of the regional system of innovation in Western Denmark, and provides a critical review of the role of innovation in the process of economic restructuring in the perspective of growing internationalization in many branches. Based on this assessment the future perspectives of regional policy in Denmark are discussed on the background of the ongoing reorganization of local and regional government in general, and the introduction of five regional growth-forums in particular. |
| Date: | 2006–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa06p102&r=ino |
| By: | CARDON, Dominique; AGUITON, Christophe |
| Abstract: | This paper examines some continuities and ruptures in the use of Web 2.0 such as blogs, social media, user-generated content services etc. vis-à-vis earlier web services. We hypothesize that one of the sociological characteristics of Web 2.0 services is that making personal production public creates a new articulation between individualism and solidarity, which reveals the strength of weak cooperation. Web 2.0 services allow individual contributors to experience cooperation ex post. The strength of the weak cooperation arises from the fact that it is not necessary for individuals to have an ex ante cooperative action plan or altruistic intention. They discover cooperative opportunities only by making public their individual production. The paper illustrates this phenomenon by analysing the uses of different services and by looking at the new process of innovation that appears through Barcamp and Coworking spaces. |
| Keywords: | Web 2.0; weak cooperation; BarCamp |
| JEL: | D62 D43 L96 K29 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:4581&r=ino |
| By: | Barbry, Eric |
| Abstract: | For some, Web 2.0 is a "simple" evolution of the current web; for others, Web 2.0 is a real revolution. Web 2.0 is, in fact, a "revolutionary evolution." Technically speaking, Web 2.0 is a "simple" evolution because it is not a technical "breakthrough," as it is essentially based on an aggregation of existing technologies. However, the impact of Web 2.0 is such that it can actually be described as an evolution that will shake our sociological, economic and legal bases. This paper addresses the legal aspects of Web 2.0 and tries to explain that while Web 2.0 is not a lawless domain, it is highly likely to create a legal tsunami. |
| Keywords: | Web 2.0; regulation; law; case law; blogs; liability; intellectual property; personal data; knowledge management; collaborative space and employment law. |
| JEL: | M50 C51 K21 L96 K29 C52 C10 O33 L32 K23 C23 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:4583&r=ino |