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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2011‒03‒12
five papers chosen by Laura Stefanescu European Research Centre of Managerial Studies in Business Administration |
| By: | A. Blasco |
| Abstract: | Recent models of multi-stage R&D have shown that a system of weak intellectual property rights may lead to faster innovation by inducing firms to share intermediate technological knowledge. In this article I introduce a distinction between plain and sophisticated technological knowledge, which has not been noticed so far but plays a crucial role in determining how different appropriability rules affect the incentives to innovate. I argue that the positive effect of weak intellectual property regimes on the sharing of intermediate technological knowledge vanishes when technological knowledge is sophisticated, as is likely to be the case in many high tech industries. |
| JEL: | L10 O30 |
| Date: | 2011–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp733&r=knm |
| By: | Spyros Arvanitis (KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich, Switzerland); Barbara Fuchs (KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich, Switzerland); Martin Woerter (University of Liechtenstein, Liechtenstein) |
| Abstract: | Research about users as a source of innovation has been largely restricted to case studies exploring specific innovation projects at the firm level. This study assesses empirically the relationship between external end users’ knowledge as an input factor to innovation and firms’ innovation success. The results strongly support the hypotheses: (i) that external end users have the potential to essentially improve the innovative performance of firms; (ii) that the technique of interaction during the innovation process and the characteristics of involved external users matter as well. The more firms make use of emphatic design and select specific users to acquire hard-to-articulate customer needs, the stronger is the relationship between access to external end users’ knowledge and firm innovation success measured in sales of innovative products. |
| Keywords: | user innovation, user interaction, lead user, innovation performance |
| JEL: | O31 |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kof:wpskof:11-276&r=knm |
| By: | Barge-Gil, Andrés; López, Alberto |
| Abstract: | R&D is considered to be the main source of innovation. We argue that R&D is too broad a measure, including activities differing in purposes, culture, people, management and other features. However, empirical studies have not analyzed them separately, mainly due to the lack of data. Using firm-level data, the aim of this paper is to estimate the differentiated effect of research and development on different innovation outputs. Results show that both research and development activities are important. However, we find that development activities are more important for product innovation, while the effect of research activities is higher on process innovation. Moreover, we analyze differences by technological intensity of the sector. When analyzing product and process innovations, we find evidence supporting the existence of higher payoffs to development and, especially to research in low-tech sectors when compared with high-tech ones. |
| Keywords: | R&D, patents, product innovation, process innovation, impact |
| JEL: | O3 L60 |
| Date: | 2011–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:29083&r=knm |
| By: | Mario Cimoli; Giovanni Dosi; Roberto Mazzoleni; Bhaven Sampat |
| Abstract: | An essential aspect of "catching up" by developing countries is the emulation of technological leaders and the rapid accumulation by individuals and organizations of the knowledge and capabilities needed in order to sustain processes of technical learning. The rates and patterns of development of such capabilities are fundamentally shaped by the opportunities that indigenous organizations have to enter and operate in particular markets and technology areas. However, knowledge accumulation is also influenced by the governance of intellectual property rights (IPRs). The purpose of this work - prepared for a volume of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University, Intellectual and Property Rights Taskforce - is to offer an assessment of such influences in the long term, beginning with the early episodes of industrialization all the way to the present regime. The historical record is indeed quite diverse and variegated. However if there is a robust historical fact, it is the laxity or sheer absence of intellectual property rights in nearly all instances of successful catching up. We begin by reviewing a few theoretical arguments that economists have formulated on the effects of a system of patent protection. We will then review the historical evidence on the roles of patents in economic development. Next we discuss the changes in the IPR regime that have taken place roughly over the last third of a century in the United States. The reason for focusing on the United States is that doing so will outline the broad template of patent policy reform that has been adopted by policy makers in many other countries as a result of a varying mix of external pressures, myopia, corruption and ideological blindness. The final part of this essay, explores the likely impact of harmonization of international patent laws - including TRIPS - on developing countries. |
| Keywords: | Intellectual Property Rights, Catching-up, Imitation, Development, TRIPS |
| Date: | 2011–02–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2011/06&r=knm |
| By: | Karlsson, Charlie (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | An extensive amount of studies have been devoted to the importance of the creative process. Creativity is critical to research and in particular to innovation, a key feature of economic competitiveness. Most of the previous studies have dealt with the creativity of individuals, the creativity of teams and the importance of the organisational context. This chapter, however, emphasises the role of the characteristics of the local and regional economic milieu where the creative process takes place and the local and non-local networks of such milieus. Both the local ‘buzz’ related to interaction and learning opportunities, and non-local networks associated with integration of different milieus, offer special but different advantages for creative activities. The milieu will play an important role in creativity by supplying both a large number of incompatible ideas and good conditions for bringing them together in order to gain new, profound insights. Local accessibility, i.e. clustering, of incompatible ideas and the interregional accessibility to incompatible ideas in other regions are a function of the network characteristics of the local milieu. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the spatial concentration of creativity and the role of clustering and networks in stimulating creative regional economic milieus. One of the arguments of the chapter highlights how clustering of creative agents and creative processes in specific locations generates creative advantages that stimulate creativity and the in-migration of creative agents. Furthermore, the chapter stresses the idea that a better connected economic milieu to other economic milieus via networks transmitting new ideas, information knowledge, etc., will generate higher creative potential of that economic milieu. |
| Keywords: | creativity; creative process; clusters; artistic clusters; network theory; regional economics; local milieu; local and non-local interaction; innovation |
| JEL: | O31 R11 |
| Date: | 2010–10–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0235&r=knm |