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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2011‒01‒30
seven papers chosen by Laura Stefanescu European Research Centre of Managerial Studies in Business Administration |
| By: | Rani Jeanne Dang (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - CNRS : UMR6227 - Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis); Christian Longhi (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - CNRS : UMR6227 - Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis); Catherine Thomas (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - CNRS : UMR6227 - Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis) |
| Abstract: | The paper is concerned with the process of SMEs' insertion into innovation projects within regional clusters. The objective is to contribute to a better understanding of this process by examining the underlying mechanisms of territorial innovation dynamics. A particular attention is given to the interplay between the features of territorial dynamics of innovation identified, and SMEs' capacity to participate to collaborative innovation projects. In this perspective, the article analyse the front-end process of territorial inter-organizational innovation, the early stage during which partners negotiate and establish collaborative innovation projects. Rather than investigating how clusters facilitate the access to new resources and knowledge, the crucial question here is how clusters allow the combination of different component of knowledge among heterogeneous actors. First, our findings reveal the key underlying role of architectural knowledge in local innovation processes. Second, they suggest that the nature of architectural knowledge inside the cluster influences the capacity and the motivation of SMEs to participate to local innovation projects. These findings contribute to theory by developing a grounded model of territorial dynamics of innovation and of SMEs integration into localised innovation projects |
| Keywords: | clusters; SMEs; architectural innovation; knowledge; local innovation projects |
| Date: | 2010–06–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00504079&r=knm |
| By: | Benjamin Montmartin (GATE Lyon Saint-Etienne - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - CNRS : UMR5824 - Université Lumière - Lyon II - Ecole Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines) |
| Abstract: | Innovation policies are strategic tools for reinforcing long-term economic growth. If the literature highlights the need for coordination among national R&D policies, the need for transnational policies appears to be less clear. Using a model à la Martin and Ottaviano (1999), we conduct a welfare analysis in order to judge the effect of a centralized R&D subsidy policy. If theoretical results suggest that this policy can improve efficiency and equity, our welfare analysis shows that when there are few knowledge spillovers between countries, then the policy leads to a conflict of interest. In the case of strong international knowledge spillovers however, the conflict of interest disappears suggesting that innovation policies should first focus on the development of knowledge flows between countries. |
| Keywords: | agglomeration and growth models; innovation policy; welfare criteria |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00557484&r=knm |
| By: | Tani, Massimiliano (Macquarie University, Sydney) |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to existing work on innovation by studying the determinants of various types of interaction between a firm and its external environment. In particular, it focuses on face-to-face interactions carried out through international business visits. The results indicate that accessing external knowledge is a key determinant of the decision to interact, regardless of the chosen form of interaction. Conferences and trade fairs are the interactions with the highest probability of knowledge gain, while visits to new customers and suppliers are those with the lowest. The likelihood of accessing external knowledge is also affected by the type of employer and functional unit involved, and the characteristics of the employee carrying the visit out. The results support that labour mobility aimed at interacting can add to an organisation's efficient use of human resources. As a result, it highlights that cutting travelling budgets to reduce financial expenditures also reduces opportunities to interact and, with it, the access to external knowledge. |
| Keywords: | external knowledge, face-to-face interactions, international business visits |
| JEL: | F2 J6 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5436&r=knm |
| By: | Parpandel, Denisa Elena |
| Abstract: | Abstract Contemporary society is marked by a defining feature, namely the change, which manifests itself at all levels of human activity. Indirectly affects the activities of organizations often forced to reorganize, to continually adapt to meet changes in their products and their environment and determined action in the main scientific and technical knowledge, manifested by acute competition in the national and global change in people's needs and tastes and trends in the economy and society. Organizations and organizational development issues are a topic of great interest for both theorists field and for those directly involved in their operation. |
| Keywords: | Keywords: change; organization; economic crisis; strategic management |
| JEL: | D21 O1 |
| Date: | 2011–01–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:28171&r=knm |
| By: | Giovanni Dosi; Marco Faillo; Luigi Marengo; Daniele Moschella |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a critical overview of some recent attempts at building formal models of organizations as information-processing and problem-solving entities. We distinguish between two classes of models according to two distinct objects of analysis. The first class includes models mainly addressing information processing and learning; the second class includes models focusing upon the relationship between the division of cognitive labor and search process in some problem-solving space. The results begin to highlight important comparative properties regarding the impact on problem-solving efficiency and learning of different forms of hierarchical governance, the dangers of lock-in associated with specific forms of adaptive learning, the relative role of "online" vs. "offline" learning, the impact of the "cognitive maps" which organizations embody, the possible trade-offs between accuracy and speed of convergence associated with different "decomposition schemes", the (ambiguous) role of organizational memory in changing environments. We argue that these are important formal tools towards the development of a comparative institutional analysis focusing on the distinct properties of different forms of organization and accumulation of knowledge |
| Keywords: | Information processing, Problem-solving, Organizational structure |
| JEL: | D23 D83 L22 |
| Date: | 2010–01–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2011/04&r=knm |
| By: | Umberto Garfagnini; Bruno Strulovici |
| Abstract: | We analyze social learning and innovation in an overlapping generations model in which available technologies have correlated payoffs. Each generation experiments within a set of policies whose payoffs are initially unknown and drawn from the path of a Brownian motion with drift. Marginal innovation consists in choosing a technology within the convex hull of policies already explored and entails no direct cost. Radical innovation consists in experimenting beyond the frontier of that interval, and entails a cost that increases with the distance from the frontier, and may decrease with the best technology currently available. We study how successive generations alternate between radical and marginal innovation, in a pattern reminiscent of Schumpeterian cycles. Even when the underlying Brownian motion has a positive drift, radical innovation stops in finite time. New generations then fine-tune policies in search of a local optimum, converging to a single technology. Our analysis thus suggests that sustaining radical innovation in the long-run requires external intervention. |
| Keywords: | Schumpeter cycles, experimentation, social learning, R&D, intergenerational externalities JEL Classification Numbers: D83, D92, O3, O4 |
| Date: | 2010–12–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nwu:cmsems:1516&r=knm |
| By: | Giovanni B. Ramello |
| Abstract: | Drawing from Coase’s methodological lesson, this article discusses the specific case of knowledge, which was for a long time chiefly governed by exchange mechanisms lying outside the market, and has only recently been brought into the market. Its recent, heavy “colonization” by the property paradigm has progressively elicited criticism from commentators who, for various reasons, believe that the market can play only a limited role in pursuing efficiency in the knowledge domain. The article agrees with the enounced thesis and tries to provide an explanation of it that relates to the fact that in specific circumstances property-rights can produce distinct market failures that affect the social cost and can consequently prevent attainment of social welfare. In particular, the arguments set forth here concern three distinct externalities that arise when enforcing a property rights system over knowledge. First, the existence of a property right may itself alter individual preferences and social norms, thus causing specific changes in individuals' behaviour. Second, the idiosyncratic nature of knowledge, as a collective and inherently indivisible entity, means that its full propertization can be expected to produce significant harm. Third, property rights can cause endogenous drifts in the market structure arising from the exclusive power granted to the right holder: though generally intended as a necessary mechanism for extracting a price from the consumer, in the knowledge domain property rights can become a device for extracting rents from the market. |
| Keywords: | property rights, knowledge, invention, indivisibility, externalities, efficiency |
| JEL: | D23 K11 O31 D62 O34 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:icr:wpicer:02-2011&r=knm |