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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2014‒02‒08
four papers chosen by Laura Stefanescu European Research Centre of Managerial Studies in Business Administration |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu (Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Ufuk Akcigit (Department of Economic, University of Pennsylvania); Murat Alp Celik (Department of Economic, University of Pennsylvania) |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that openness to new, unconventional and disruptive ideas has a .first-order impact on creative innovations - innovations that break new ground in terms of knowledge creation. After presenting a motivating model focusing on the choice between incremental and radical innovation, and on how managers of different ages and human capital are sorted across different types of .firms, we provide cross-country, firm-level and patent-level evidence consistent with this pattern. Our measures of creative innovations proxy for innovation quality (average number of citations per patent) and creativity (fraction of superstar innovators, the likelihood of a very high number of citations, and generality of patents). Our main proxy for openness to disruption is manager age. This variable is based on the idea that only companies or societies open to such disruption will allow the young to rise up within the hierarchy. Using this proxy at the country, .firm or patent level, we present robust evidence that openness to disruption is associated with more creative innovations. |
| Keywords: | corporate culture, creative destruction, creativity, economic growth, entrepreneurship, individualism, innovation, openness to disruption |
| JEL: | O40 O43 O33 P10 P16 Z1 |
| Date: | 2014–02–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pen:papers:14-004&r=knm |
| By: | Afandi, Elvin; Kermani, Majid |
| Abstract: | By employing a rich sample of firm-level data in seven Eastern Europe and Central Asian countries from Europe and Central Asia, our paper investigates core as well as some specific determinants of firm innovation. We find that the likelihood of engaging in innovation for a firm increases with its core socio-economic characteristics such as size, age, capacity utilization, domestic competition and foreign ownership. In addition to the estimates of these socio-economic covariates, the ultimate purpose of our study is to obtain more in-depth knowledge about the policy implacable factors for firm innovation that the countries could focus on. These policy-related factors are: (i) access to finance, (ii) human capital, and (iii) foreign trade. In this respect, our study finds that firm’s innovation increases with better financial inclusion, greater human capital and engagement in foreign trade. We argue that these analysis and results, coupled with inclusive and targeted policies, can be used to enrich the process of private sector innovation in the region’s countries. |
| Keywords: | Firm innovation, access to finance, human capital, foreign trade |
| JEL: | G0 J24 O31 P33 |
| Date: | 2013–02–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:53255&r=knm |
| By: | Chakraborty, Lekha (National Institute of Public Finance and Policy) |
| Abstract: | Gender responsive budgeting (GRB) is a fiscal innovation. Innovation is defined as a way of transforming a new concept into tangible processes, resources and institutional mechanisms in which a benefit meets identified problems. GRB is a fiscal innovation in that it translates the gender commitments into fiscal commitments through applying a `gender lens' to the identified processes, resources and institutional mechanisms; and arrives at a desirable benefit incidence. Theoretical treatment of gender budgeting as fiscal innovation is not incorporated, as the scope of this paper is broadly on the processes. GRB as an innovation has four specific components: knowledge processes and networking; institutional mechanisms; learning processes and building capacities; and public accountability and benefit incidence. This paper analyses these four components of GRB in the context of India. National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) has been the pioneer on gender budgeting in India, and also played a significant role in institutionalizing gender budgeting within Ministry of Finance, Government of India in 2005. The Expert Committee Group on `Classification of Budgetary Transactions" recommendations on gender budgeting (Ashok Lahiri Committee recommendations) led to the institutionalization process, integrating the analytical matrices of fiscal data through a gender lens and also the institutional innovations for GRB. Revisiting to the 2004 Lahiri recommendations and revamping the process of GRB in India is inevitable, at ex-ante and ex-post levels. |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:npf:wpaper:14/128&r=knm |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu; Mohamed Mostagir; Asuman Ozdaglar |
| Abstract: | Crowdsourcing is an emerging technology where innovation and production are sourced out to the public through an open call. At the center of crowdsourcing is a resource allocation problem: there is an abundance of workers but a scarcity of high skills, and an easy task assigned to a high-skill worker is a waste of resources. This problem is complicated by the fact that the exact difficulties of innovation tasks may not be known in advance, so tasks that require high-skill labor cannot be identified and allocated ahead of time. We show that the solution to this problem takes the form of a skill hierarchy, where tasks are first attempted by low-skill labor, and high-skill workers only engage with a task if less skilled workers are unable to finish it. This hierarchy can be constructed and implemented in a decentralized manner even though neither the difficulties of the tasks nor the skills of the candidate workers are known. We provide a dynamic pricing mechanism that achieves this implementation by inducing workers to self select into different layers. The mechanism is simple: each time a task is attempted and not finished, its price (reward upon completion) goes up. |
| JEL: | D20 D83 L22 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19852&r=knm |