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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2009‒01‒17
five papers chosen by Laura Stefanescu European Research Centre of Managerial Studies in Business Administration |
| By: | Elad Harison; Heli Koski |
| Abstract: | ABSTRACT : We use the data compiled from the USPTO patent and patent citations concerning the patented knowledge intensive technologies in three areas : cryptography, image analysis and data processing/software. The data is restricted to those patents between the years 1980-2003 that have two or more assignees, i.e. we consider only joint patents. We find some evidence that technological or product market proximity of partners in R&D alliance matters but whether the closeness generates more or less valuable innovations depends on the technology field. Our data further suggest that the most valuable innovations are generated when there is a certain level of prior patenting experience of the individual innovation partners. Interestingly, the prior patenting experience of the pairs of firms filing the joint patent does not seem to matter. It thus seems that learning from the prior joint patenting that creates more value for innovations is rather firm-specific than alliance-specific. Our findings on prior joint patenting experience generally hint that not only strategic benefits, and those benefits related to the management of joint patenting, can be gained from the R&D alliance experience. |
| Date: | 2009–01–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rif:dpaper:1175&r=knm |
| By: | William D. Nordhaus |
| Abstract: | Learning or experience curves are widely used to estimate cost functions in manufacturing modeling. They have recently been introduced in policy models of energy and global warming economics to make the process of technological change endogenous. It is not widely appreciated that this is a dangerous modeling strategy. The present note has three points. First, it shows that there is a fundamental statistical identification problem in trying to separate learning from exogenous technological change and that the estimated learning coefficient will generally be biased upwards. Second, we present two empirical tests that illustrate the potential bias in practice and show that learning parameters are not robust to alternative specifications. Finally, we show that an overestimate of the learning coefficient will provide incorrect estimates of the total marginal cost of output and will therefore bias optimization models to tilt toward technologies that are incorrectly specified as having high learning coefficients. |
| JEL: | D83 O13 O3 |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14638&r=knm |
| By: | Filip De Beule; Ilke Van Beveren |
| Abstract: | Using the cluster definitions of the European Cluster Observatory, this paper investigates the link between cluster membership and firm-level product innovation and renewal,using data from the Community Innovation Survey for Belgium. Clustered firms account for 71 percent of total product renewal generated in 2004 and for 53 percent of product innovators; compared to 29 and 47 percent for non-clustered firms, respectivily. Furthermore, cluster membership is shown to be conducive to firm-level product innovation and renewal once firm size, export intensity and reseach inputs are taken into account. Foreign firms are not more prone to carry out product innovation, except for subsidiaries in clusters. |
| Keywords: | Product Innovation, Clusters, Community Innovation Survey, Multinational Firms |
| JEL: | D21 F23 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lic:licosd:22708&r=knm |
| By: | Andrea Caragliu (Politecnico di Milano); Peter Nijkamp (VU University Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | We design a conceptual framework for linking two approaches: the literature on absorptive capacity and the literature on spatial knowledge spillovers. Regions produce new knowledge, but only part of it is efficiently adopted in the economy; the share of efficiently adopted technology depends on territorial capital. Our data set is based on a panel of European regions over the period 1999-2005, combining data from EUROSTAT and the European Values Study (EVS); we test the hypothesis that insufficient levels of territorial capital hamper the capability of regions to grasp and fully exploit new knowledge. Results show that a lower regional absorptive capacity increases knowledge spillovers towards surrounding areas, hampering the regions’ capability to understand, decode and efficiently exploit new knowledge, both locally produced and originating from outside. |
| Keywords: | Absorptive capacity; knowledge spillovers; total factor productivity; spatial econometrics |
| JEL: | O33 R11 |
| Date: | 2008–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20080119&r=knm |
| By: | Irina Jormanainen (Department of International Business, Helsinki School of Economics.); Rajneesh Narula (School of Management, University of Reading) |
| Abstract: | Despite a well-developed science and technology base and considerable industrial capacity during the soviet era, Russia has largely failed to create a competitive industrial sector despite two decades of transition. This paper seeks to understand why Russia has not succeeded despite having relatively favourable initial conditions. We develop an understanding of its innovation system and the interplay between the firm and the nonfirm sector. We argue that – in any economy - when political and economic regimes were rapidly reformed, there is considerable structural inertia associated with complex interdependencies between the state, domestic firms and the formal and informal institutions that bind them together. In the case of Russia, this inertia has resulted in a system-wide lock-in, and industrial enterprises continued to engage in routines that generated a suboptimal outcome. Market forces did not result in the western-style innovation system, but a hybrid one, with numerous features of the soviet system. A significant segment of industry maintains a Soviet-style dependence on ‘top-down’ supply-driven allocation of resources and a reliance on external (but domestic) network of sources for innovation and capital. At the same time, ‘new’ firms and industries have also evolved which undertake their own R&D, and utilise foreign sources of capital and technology, and at least partly determine their production and innovative activities on the basis on market forces. |
| Keywords: | innovation systems, R&D, Russia, inertia, institutions, lock-in, transition, competitiveness |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2008-70&r=knm |