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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2011‒10‒09
three papers chosen by Laura Stefanescu European Research Centre of Managerial Studies in Business Administration |
| By: | Maria Comune (University of Siena and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei); Alireza Naghavi (University of Bologna and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei); Giovanni Prarolo (University of Bologna and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei) |
| Abstract: | With the rise of the knowledge economy, delivering sound innovation policies requires a thorough understanding of how knowledge is produced and diffused. This paper takes a step to analyze a new form of globalization, the so-called system of Global Innovation Networks (GINs), to shed light on how the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) influences their creation and development. We focus on the role of IPR protection in fostering international innovative activities in emerging economies (South), such as China and India, and more generally, how IPRs affect the development of GINs between newly industrialized countries and OECD countries. Using both survey-based firm-level and country-level global data, we find IPRs to be an important determinant of participation in GINS from a Southern perspective. We find IPR protection at home and its harmonization across county pairs foster South-North formation of GINs. We also find that a stringent regime in the destination country discourages foreign international innovative activities that originate in NICs. Both levels of our analysis confirm the ICT industry, particularly the hardware segment, to rely on IPRs when engaging in the international outsourcing and offshoring of innovation or in patenting activities abroad. |
| Keywords: | Gravity Model, Information Communication Technology, Innovation, Intellectual Property Rights, International collaborations, Networks |
| JEL: | D23 F53 O34 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2011.59&r=knm |
| By: | Waheed, Abdul (UNU-MERIT) |
| Abstract: | The impact of size and competition on firm-level innovative activities has obtained considerable attention in developed countries, but the focus is still lacking in developing world. This paper is an attempt to contribute in this direction by including 14 Latin American countries, and by using Enterprise Survey data of the World Bank. We consider both input and output innovation to observe the influence of firm size and of market concentration on innovative activities, and to interrogate the differences in influences of innovation determinants in different size classes and competition statuses. Our analysis reveals that employment increases the likelihood of R&D and product innovation, and its influence on R&D expenditures is positive but at less than proportionate rate. We find that product market competition increases the probability of both R&D decision and innovation output, but it has no influence on R&D intensity. We observe no relationship between R&D expenditures per employee and product innovation. Country and industry differences also contribute substantially towards firm-level R&D activities and product innovation. Moreover, large or small firms do no tend to be advantageous for employment and competition in order to influence R&D activities; however, for product innovation, competition is a more significant stimulus for large firms compared to small ones. Our results suggest that firms' R&D productivity is independent of size classes and competition environments. All of the determinants (of innovation) are jointly observed to have different effects, for large and small firms, as explanatory factors of both R&D intensity and product innovation, and for different competition environments only for product innovation. |
| Keywords: | R&D, Product innovation, Firm size, market competition |
| JEL: | L11 L12 L13 O32 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:unumer:2011052&r=knm |
| By: | Salzberger, Eli (University of Haifa) |
| Abstract: | The term "intellectual property" is a relatively a modern term, first used in its current meaning when the UN established the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 1967. Beforehand laws around the world protected various aspects of informational goods - inventions and creations - using separate legal concepts, such as copyright, patents and trademarks, which were not perceived as property rights. This linguistic aspect is by no means anecdotal or marginal as it can be argued that the term "intellectual property" constituted its contemporary meaning including the economic analysis of informational goods and services, as can be demonstrated by the recent call to treat trade secrets not as a contractual agreement but as intellectual property (Epstein, 2005). This paper focuses on the normative analysis of IP rights and criticizes the implicit shift in economic analysis of IP from the incentives paradigm, which is founded upon the public good analysis of neo-classical micro-economic theory, to the new propriety paradigm, which is intellectually founded upon the tragedy of the commons literature. It further criticizes the dominant contemporary Law and Economics writings in this field as pre-assuming information to be an object of property, overlooking its fundamental differences from physical property and thus focusing on its management and maximization of value for its "owners" rather than on its initial justifications and its social value and contribution to innovation, growth and progress. |
| Keywords: | Law; intellectual property; growth; incentives |
| JEL: | K11 O31 O34 O43 |
| Date: | 2011–09–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ratioi:0177&r=knm |