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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2009‒01‒24
six papers chosen by Laura Stefanescu European Research Centre of Managerial Studies in Business Administration |
| By: | Johansson, Börje (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology); Lööf, Hans (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | This paper applies a CDM-model framework to depict the successive links (correlations) between (i) innovation expenditure, (ii) innovation output, and (iii) firm productivity. The CDM model has become popular in many countries among scholars using data from the Community Innovation Survey (CIS). First, the study contrasts a general structural OECD version of the model against a model with country-specific design. Second, the study examines the gains from separating the labour force into ordinary and knowledge labour – as a means to avoid double counting of R&D investments. Third, the paper examines the difference between recognising a firm as a member of an unspecified company group versus a multinational group. Fourth, the paper explores how well sales per employee serves as a proxy for labour productivity proper. Fifth, the paper scrutinises the quality of CIS information by comparing key variables from the voluntary CIS survey with the same variables (for the same firms) recorded in the compulsory and audited register data in Sweden. |
| Keywords: | Productivity; Innovation; R&D; CDM-model |
| JEL: | O31 O32 |
| Date: | 2009–01–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0159&r=knm |
| By: | Consoli, Davide; Ramlogan, Ronnie |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to analyse the dynamics of networks in which new knowledge emerges and through which it is exchanged. Our conjecture is that the structure of a network cannot be divorced from the dynamics of the knowledge underpinning its activities. In so doing we look beyond studies based on the assumption of exogenous networks and delve into the mechanisms that stimulate their creation and transformation. In the first part the paper adopts a functional perspective and views networks as constructs aimed at the coordination of knowledge; accordingly, network structure is an emerging property that reflects the employment of an agreed strategy to achieve a collective scope. In the second part these themes are articulated in relation to the dynamics of medical innovation and enriched by an empirical study on the long-term evolution of medical research in Ophthalmology. This exercise highlights the connection between changes in scientific and practical knowledge and the reconfigurations of the epistemic network over a forty-year period. By mapping different network structures we capture variety in the gateways of knowledge creation – that is, the network participants – as well as in the pathways – that is, the inter-organisational collaborations. Our goal is to analyse how these patterns of interaction emerge and transform over time. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; Network analysis; Inter-organizational Relationships |
| JEL: | D83 O33 D85 O31 |
| Date: | 2009–01–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:12791&r=knm |
| By: | Roberto Patuelli (University of Lugano, Switzerland and The Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis, Italy); Andrea Vaona (University of Lugano, Switzerland and Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Germany); Christoph Grimpe (ZEW Centre for European Economic Research, Germany and Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium and University of Zurich, Switzerland) |
| Abstract: | Research and development (R&D) in the field of nanomaterials is expected to be a major driver of innovation and economic growth. In this respect, many countries, as national systems of innovation, have established support programs offering subsidies for industry- and government-funded R&D. Consequently, it is of great interest to understand which factors facilitate the creation of new technological knowledge. The existing literature has typically addressed this question by employing a knowledge production function based on firm-, regional- or even country-level data. Estimating the effects for the entire national system of innovation, however, implicitly assumes poolability of regional data. We apply our reasoning to Germany, which has well-known – and wide – regional disparities, for example between the former East and West. Based on analyses at the level of NUTS-3 regions, we find different knowledge production functions for the East and the West. Moreover, we investigate how our results are affected by the adoption of alternative aggregation levels. Our findings have implications for further research in the field, that is, a careful evaluation of poolability and aggregation is required before estimating knowledge production functions at the regional level. Policy considerations are offered as well. |
| Keywords: | nanotechnology, patents, poolability, Germany, spatial autocorrelation |
| JEL: | L60 O32 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2008–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rim:rimwps:40-08&r=knm |
| By: | Erik Stam (Tjalling Koopmans Institute, Utrecht School of Economics, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Centre for Technology Management, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom; Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), The Hague, The Netherlands; Max Planck Institute of Economics - Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy group, Jena, Germany); Karl Wennberg (Centre for Entrepreneurship and Business Creation, Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm, Sweden.) |
| Abstract: | Innovative start-ups are an important driver of economic growth. This article presents empirical evidence on the effects of R&D on new product development, inter-firm alliances and employment growth during the early life course of firms. We use a dataset that contains a sample of new firms that is representative for the whole population of start-ups. This dataset covers the first six years of the life course of firms. R&D reveals to play several roles during the early life course of high tech as well as high growth firms. The effect of initial R&D on high tech firm growth runs via increasing levels of inter-firm alliances in the first post-entry years. R&D efforts enable the exploitation of external knowledge. Initial R&D also stimulates new product development later on in the life course of high tech firms, but this does not seem to affect firm growth. R&D does not affect the growth rate of new low tech firms, which seems to be driven mainly by the growth ambitions of the founding entrepreneur. The results show that R&D matters for a limited but important set of new high tech and high growth firms, which are key in innovation and entrepreneurship policies. |
| Keywords: | New Firms, Innovation, R&D, firm growth, alliances, product development |
| JEL: | D21 L23 L25 L26 M13 |
| Date: | 2009–01–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2009-004&r=knm |
| By: | Frédéric Rychen (LEST - Laboratoire d'économie et de sociologie du travail - CNRS : UMR6123 - Université de Provence - Aix-Marseille I - Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II, IDEP - Institut d'Économie Publique - GREQAM); Jean-Benoît Zimmermann (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II - Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille III - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales - CNRS : UMR6579) |
| Abstract: | During the recent years, clusters have been at the heart of a vast literature supposed to bring new arguments and perspectives to local development preoccupations. Two complementary factors are stressing for firms and territories the importance of governing the interactions of industrial actors: the globalisation of the economy and the technology and the emergence of a knowledge based economy. In local systems, agents are mostly connected with agents situated in their spatial proximity, while these local networks, as open systems, benefit from the long distance connections that some of their members are able to activate. Co-location of actors in a geographical proximity by itself is not a sufficient condition for co-ordination but can contribute to its efficiency, provided the existence of other shared dimensions among agents: organic level, representations, projects, ... As far as efficiency and performances of "classical" clusters are not only the result of the intensity and quality of internal but also external interactions and coordination, into which extent can we still consider the relevance of interaction structures restricted to bounded geographical areas? In this paper we turn our attention to the way industrial actors take into account the question of the local-global articulation for the strategic building of their own ego-network, that is the set of links they may build in order to achieve efficient interactions with partners and competitors. Thus interfaces between local and global relationships are a key feature that can be achieved through different approaches. To this aim we introduce the two concepts of knowledge gatekeeper and temporary proximity that appear as providing alternative approaches of actors partnering, likely to provide a better flexibility in the local-global trade-off. We will then present the basic form of the ego-networks on which the individual firm is able to build her relational neighbourhood. This raises the question of the combination of individual ego-networks into a consistent networked structure into which local networks are articulated by the way of local-global interfaces. On this basis we present a typology of the basic new forms of clustering where time and space can be alternatively and complementarily combined in order to achieve more flexibility and costs reduction of the localisation game. |
| Keywords: | Industry ; territory ; globalisation ; knowledge based economy ; local-global ; knowledge gatekeeper ; temporary proximity ; clusters ; network ; structure |
| Date: | 2009–01–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00353425_v1&r=knm |
| By: | Wiberg, Daniel (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | Economic theory tells us that abnormal industry and firm profits will not persist for any length of time. Any industry or firm making profits in excess of the normal rate of return will attract entrants and this competitive process will erode profits. A substantial amount of research however, has found evidence of persistent profits above the norm. Barriers to entry and exit are often put forward as explanation to this anomaly. In the absence of, or with low barriers to entry and exit, this reasoning provides little help in explaining why these above-norm profits arise and persist. In this paper the association between profits and the systematic search for knowledge is investigated. The results show that by investing in research and development firms may succeed in creating products or services that are preferred by the market and/or find a more cost efficient method of production. Corporations that systematically invest in research and development are, by doing so, offsetting the erosion of profits and thereby have profits which persistently diverge from the competitive return. It is argued that even in the absence of significant barriers to entry and exit profits may persist. This can be accredited to a systematic search for knowledge through research and development. |
| Keywords: | Persistence of profits; research and development; industrial organization |
| JEL: | L00 L22 L25 O32 |
| Date: | 2009–01–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0161&r=knm |