|
on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
|
Issue of 2014‒05‒09
eleven papers chosen by Laura Stefanescu European Research Centre of Managerial Studies in Business Administration |
| By: | Segarra Blasco, Agustí, 1958-; Teruel, Mercedes |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the effect of R&D investment on firm growth. We use an extensive sample of Spanish manufacturing and service firms. The database comprises diverse waves of Spanish Community Innovation Survey and covers the period 2004–2008. First, a probit model corrected for sample selection analyses the role of innovation on the probability of being a high-growth firm (HGF). Second, a quantile regression technique is applied to explore the determinants of firm growth. Our database shows that a small number of firms experience fast growth rates in terms of sales or employees. Our results reveal that R&D investments positively affect the probability of becoming a HGF. However, differences appear between manufacturing and service firms. Finally, when we study the impact of R&D investment on firm growth, quantile estimations show that internal R&D presents a significant positive impact for the upper quantiles, while external R&D shows a significant positive impact up to the median. Keywords : High-growth firms, Firm growth, Innovation activity. JEL Classifications : L11, L25, L26, O30 |
| Keywords: | Empreses -- Creixement, Innovacions tecnològiques, Emprenedoria, Investigació industrial, 33 - Economia, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:urv:wpaper:2072/228402&r=knm |
| By: | Nedon, Verena; Herstatt, Cornelius |
| Abstract: | The existing literature on open innovation strongly emphasizes on the organizational level, while neglecting the people side and especially the perspective of employees working in OIprojects. This study analyzes determinants of R&D employees' knowledge exchange in OIprojects by means of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and a literature review regarding motivational factors influencing individuals' attitude toward knowledge exchange. An online survey amongst 133 R&D employees was conducted and data was analyzed through variancebased structural equation modeling (PLS). In our sample, subjective norm had by far the strongest impact on employees' intention to exchange their knowledge in OI-projects, although attitude and perceived behavioral control also showed highly significant and positive effects on intention. From all five identified motivational factors, enjoyment in helping was found to have the strongest influence on attitude, followed by intrinsic rewards and sense of self-worth. Extrinsic rewards and reciprocity did not show any effect on attitude. -- |
| Keywords: | open innovation,interorganizational cooperation,R&D partnerships,knowledge exchange,knowledge sharing,R&D employees,theory of planned behavior,TPB,motivation,structural equation modeling |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuhtim:83&r=knm |
| By: | Krenz, Astrid |
| Abstract: | We investigate the effects of job-specific knowledge for individual labor earnings of workers in the German economy. The results indicate a positive effect for earnings stemming in particular from high-knowledge in the areas of sales and marketing, computers and electronics, mathematics, biology and law and government. Investigating the geographical concentration of employment reveals, for example, that workers with highknowledge in the field of communication and media are concentrated in just a few places whereas workers with high-knowledge in law and government and administration and management are far more dispersed over the regions. These patterns of geographical localization of employment give evidence for differences in the dissemination of knowledge across peers and customers. -- |
| Keywords: | agglomeration,knowledge,growth,German regional planning units,wages,Heckman selection,Krugman index |
| JEL: | J31 J61 R11 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cegedp:206&r=knm |
| By: | Raffaello Bronzini (Bank of Italy); Paolo Piselli (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the impact of an R&D subsidy program implemented in a region of northern Italy on innovation by beneficiary firms. In order to verify whether the subsidies enabled firms to increase patenting activity, we exploit the mechanism used to allot the funds. Since only projects that scored above a certain threshold received the subsidy, we use a sharp regression discontinuity design to compare the number of patent applications, and the probability of submitting one, of subsidized firms with those of unsubsidized firms close to the cut-off. We find that the program had a significant impact on the number of patents, more markedly in the case of smaller firms. Our results show that the program was also successful in increasing the probability of applying for a patent, but only in the case of smaller firms. |
| Keywords: | research and development, investment incentives, regression discontinuity design, patents |
| JEL: | R0 H2 L10 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_960_14&r=knm |
| By: | Juan Luis Santos; Tomás Mancha; Jagoda Anna Kaszowska |
| Abstract: | In this work we analyze the importance of service innovation in the entrepreneurial and business activity in five countries that represent a 65 percent of the population of the Middle East. We study the characteristics of the owners of firms in the service sector according to the Standard Industrial Classification. We highlight the differences between services and industries with respect to innovation. Then we analyze the determinants of service innovation in this set of countries during the period 2001-2008 and the role of individual characteristics such as gender, age, skills and perception of business owners’ status. We estimate the most important factors for innovation in services sector and we compare them with the ones of manufacturing. |
| Keywords: | Middle East, Service innovation, Innovative entrepreneur, Service sector |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uae:sermed:24&r=knm |
| By: | Fatima Arib |
| Abstract: | Le Maroc est confronté à des défis complexes. L’économie verte pourrait lui offrir un nouveau cadre pour repenser son développement économique de manière stratégique et durable. Cette économie incite à utiliser la contrainte environnementale comme levier pour le développement durable, à travers notamment la relance de l'activité économique et de l'emploi, l'amélioration du bien-être des individus et la réduction des inégalités sociales. Cet article s’appuie sur le cas du Maroc, pour analyser les opportunités des éco-activités en général, et des éco services en particulier en termes de création d’emploi. Nous discutons également les différentes opportunités d’innovation qu’offrent ces services, pour promouvoir les interactions sociales, écologiques et économiques, dont l’objectif est le développement d’une économie verte. Nous nous attardons sur les conditions de mobilisation de ces opportunités pour en tirer profit dans la création de richesses et d’emplois au Maroc. |
| Keywords: | Maroc, économie verte, services, environnement, emploi, innovation. |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uae:sermed:29&r=knm |
| By: | Arusha Cooray (University of Wollongong); Marcella Lucchetta (Ca’ Foscari Univeristy, Venice (Italy), Department of Economics); Antonio Paradiso |
| Abstract: | We estimate, employing a “knowledge economy” approach, the steady state growth rate for the Nordic countries. An endogenous growth framework is developed, in which total factor productivity is a function of human capital (measured by average years of education), trade openness, research and development, and investment ratio. We identify the key variables having a significant level and growth effects within this framework. We find that education plays an important role on the long-run growth rates of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark; trade openness, instead, has growth effects in Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The investment ratio is able to explain patterns of growth only in Finland. Surprisingly, research and development has no level or growth effects in any of the Nordic countries. This may be attributable to the fact that research and development are driven by openness and education. Policy measures are identified to improve the long-run growth rates for these countries. |
| Keywords: | Endogenous growth models, Trade openness, human capital, investment ratio, Steady state growth rate, Nordic countries |
| JEL: | C22 O52 O40 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uow:depec1:wp13-06&r=knm |
| By: | Störmer, Niclas; Herstatt, Cornelius |
| Abstract: | In this study we examine the effects of exogenous vs. endogenous governance rules on a virtual community handling an innovative task. Specifically we investigate the relationship between the two modes (exogenous vs. endogenous) and factors such as motivation, conflict and justice. We conducted an experiment with 70 students, divided into teams of five. We manipulated procedural legitimacy by allowing one group to choose a set of rules and giving the other group the same rules exogenously. Our study indicates, that letting a team choose its own governance rules leads to increasing level of conflict negatively impacting motivation. -- |
| Keywords: | Governance,Collaborative Innovation Communities |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuhtim:82&r=knm |
| By: | Strulik, Holger; Werner, Katharina |
| Abstract: | For most of human history there existed a well-educated and innovative elite whereas mass education, market R&D, and high growth are phenomena of the modern period. In order to explain these phenomena we propose an innovation-driven growth model for the very long run in which the individual-specific return to education is conceptualized as an compound of cognitive ability and family background. This allows us to establish a locally stable steady state at which family background determines whether an individual experiences education and a locally stable steady state at which education is determined by cognitive ability. Compulsory schooling can move society from elite education to mass education. An interaction between education and life expectancy explains why the education period gets longer with ongoing economic development. Embedding this household behavior into a macro-economy we can explain different paths to modern growth: According to the Prussian way, compulsory education is implemented first and triggers later on the onset of market R&D and modern growth. According to the British way, market R&D and the take off to growth is initiated without mass education, which is triggered later by technical progress and economic development. -- |
| Keywords: | long-run growth,elite education,compulsory education,longevity,R&D |
| JEL: | I24 J24 O30 O40 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cegedp:205&r=knm |
| By: | Pasqualino Montanaro (Bank of Italy); Roberto Torrini (Bank of Italy and ANVUR) |
| Abstract: | Investment in public research in Italy is below the European average as a percentage of GDP. Nevertheless, in relation to expenditure and the number of researchers, the output is high, and the quality of research, conducted in universities and research organizations, is close to that of such countries as France, albeit with lags in the most advanced levels. The Italian system, highly diversified and fragmented in its actors and funding sources, suffers from a scant capacity to apply research findings and to collaborate with firms, which in their turn spend little on research and have problems in linking their own research activity to the inputs supplied by public research entities. The system also suffers from the lack of a comprehensive strategy that sets objectives, designs missions and organizational frameworks for public research entities consistently with those objectives, and determines the necessary resources. The much-needed relaunching of Italy’s innovative capacity cannot be achieved without adequate financing and efficient governance of the public research system. |
| Keywords: | public research, university, research organizations JEL Classification: H52, I23, I28, O38 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_219_14&r=knm |
| By: | Scott, Penelope; Odukoya, Dennis; von Unger, Hella |
| Abstract: | This paper reflects on the classification and social categorization of ethnically diverse populations as a discursive practice in the production of knowledge by state institutions in the field of public health. It begins by providing an overview of the terms migrant and ethnicity in public health reporting and by comparing examples of ethnicity and migration-related categories used in tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/AIDS health reporting classification systems in the United Kingdom and Germany. It reviews sociology of knowledge studies focusing on classification and the social construction of medical knowledge to highlight why a sociological perspective on the categories used in public health classifications is a productive line of enquiry. In this regard, an aim of the paper is to discuss the theoretical underpinnings of the DFG-funded project Changing Categories: Migrants in epidemiological, preventive and legal discourses on HIV and tuberculosis - A discourse analysis comparing Germany and the UK. The paper creates a context for understanding the socio-historical processes implicit in the construction of public health classification systems and their constituent categories by dis-cussing, from a Foucauldian perspective, how the classification and social categorization of migrants are implicated in the governmentality of immigration. More specifically, it will consider the biopolitical function of public health and the exclusionary/inclusionary paradox in public health discourses on migrants and communicable diseases. The paper then discusses classification, identification and categorization as social processes to draw attention to the complexity of classification work and the constructedness of categories as knowledge practices. The final section of the paper draws on the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse Analysis (Keller 2013) to show how this research programme offers useful methodological tools to reconstruct processes and practices associated with meaning and knowledge production in an institutional field such as public health. By referring to the UK and German health reporting examples, it further reflects on how classification produces knowledge claims that are grounded in prevailing socio-historical conditions but which are potentially unstable and open to contestation by other actors. -- [Die Klassifikation von 'Migrant/innen' als diskursive Praxis in Public-Health-Diskursen: Eine wissenssoziologische Betrachtung] Das vorliegende Diskussionspapier befasst sich mit Klassifikation und sozialer Kategorisierung als diskursiven Praktiken der Wissensproduktion von staatlichen Institutionen. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei die Frage, wie Migrantinnen und Migranten im Public-Health-Bereich als eine besondere Gruppe konstruiert und erfasst werden, die sich vom Rest der Bevölkerung unterscheidet. Zunächst wird ein Überblick zur Verwendung der Begriffe Migrant/in und Ethnizität in der Gesundheitsberichterstattung gegeben. Es werden Beispiele für ethnizitäts- bzw. migrationsbezogene Kategorien in der Berichterstattung zu Tuberkulose und HIV/Aids aus Deutschland und dem Vereinigten Königreich angeführt. Daraufhin wird gezeigt, wie sich eine wissenssoziologische Perspektive auf diese Kategorien darstellt und welche Anknüpfungspunkte bestehende soziologische Arbeiten zu Klassifikation und sozialer Konstruktion medizinischen Wissens bereithalten. Ziel dieses Beitrags ist es, einige theoretische Vorannahmen des von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) geförderten Projekts Kategorien im Wandel: Migrant/innen in epidemiologischen, präventiven und rechtlichen Diskursen zu HIV und Tuberkulose. Ein Ländervergleich (D/GB). zur Diskussion zu stellen. Dieser Beitrag möchte den Blick für die sozio-historischen Prozesse schärfen, die der Konstruktion von Public-Health-Klassifikationssystemen zu Grunde liegen. Dabei werden Klassifikation und soziale Kategorisierung von Migrant/innen mit Michel Foucault als gouvernementale Praktiken im Umgang mit Migration begriffen. Insbesondere werden die bio-politische Funktion von Public-Health und das Exklusion/Inklusion-Paradox in Public-Health-Diskursen zu Migration und übertragbaren Infektionskrankheiten diskutiert. Die theoretische Rahmung von Klassifikation, Identifikation und Kategorisierung als sozialen Prozessen lässt die Komplexität von Kategorisierungsarbeit nachvollziehbar werden und erlaubt es die soziale Konstruktion von Kategorien als diskursive Praktik der Wissensproduktion zu begreifen. Im letzten Abschnitt wird ein durch die Wissenssoziologische Diskursanalyse (Keller 2013) informierter Zugang vorgestellt, wobei gezeigt wird, wie sich die methodologische Herangehensweise dieses Forschungsprogramms zur Rekonstruktion von Praktiken der Bedeutungs- und Wissensproduktion im Public-Health-Bereich als hilfreich erweist. Unter Bezugnahme auf die Gesundheitsberichterstattung in Deutschland und dem Vereinigten Königreich wird schließlich davon ausgegangen, dass Klassifikation Wissen erzeugt, das in spezifischen sozio-historischen Voraussetzungen begründet ist, gleichzeitig jedoch stets nur vorläufig und um-stritten ist, d.h. von verschiedenen Akteuren in Frage gestellt wird. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wzbsps:spiii2014601&r=knm |