|
on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
|
Issue of 2014‒11‒22
eleven papers chosen by Laura Ştefănescu Centrul European de Studii Manageriale în Administrarea Afacerilor |
| By: | Borrás , Susana (Department of Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School, and CIRCLE, Lund University); Edquist , Charles (CIRCLE, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | Who produces scientific and technical knowledge these days? What type of knowledge is being produced and for what purposes? Why are firms and governments funding research and development? This chapter studies the role of knowledge production (especially R&D activities) in the innovation process from an innovation system perspective. It examines how governments and public agencies in different countries and at different times have actually approached the issue of building, maintaining and using knowledge production in their innovation systems. It also examines the critical and most important issues at stake from the point of view of innovation policy, looking in particular at the unresolved tensions and systemic unbalances related to knowledge production and last but not least, it elaborates a set of overall criteria for the selection and design of relevant policy instruments and addresses those tensions and unbalances. This chapter suggests that innovation policy develops a portfolio approach to the public investment in R&D and knowledge production. |
| Keywords: | Innovation system; innovation policy; knowledge production; R&D; universities; innovation policy instruments |
| JEL: | L38 M38 O25 O31 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2014–10–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2014_021&r=knm |
| By: | Sanchez, Juana |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a novel empirical study of innovation practices of U.S. companies and their relation to productivity levels using new business micro data from the Business Research and Development and Innovation Survey (BRDIS) for the years 2008-2011. The paper follows the work of Frenz and Lambert, who use factor analysis to reduce a set of inputs and outputs of innovation activities into four latent unobserved innovation modes or practices for OECD countries using Community Innovation Surveys (CIS). Patterns obtained with BRDIS data are very similar to those found by those authors in some OECD countries. Companies are grouped according to their scores across the four factors to see that in large, small and medium companies more than one mode of innovation practices prevails. The next step in the analysis links different types of innovation practices to levels of productivity using regression analysis. The four innovation modes have a statistically signifcant positive relation with the level of productivity, other things constant. The paper demonstrates the possibility of taking into account the multidimensionality of innovation without the use of composite indicators. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, R&D, Productivity, Cluster, Latent Modes, Regression |
| JEL: | O31 O32 O33 O34 O4 |
| Date: | 2014–09–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:58719&r=knm |
| By: | Attila Havas (Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences) |
| Abstract: | Business-academia (B-A) collaborations have been analysed by an extensive body of literature, taking many different angles, and using various sources and types of information (patent statistics, the Community Innovation Survey data, evidence from specific surveys, interviews, or case studies), but usually a given paper is relying on a single method, addressing one or two major research questions. In contrast, this paper tackles both R&D and innovation collaborations among businesses and academia relying on information from different statistics and interviews. The latter source also allows exploring motivations for, and major features of, business-academia co-operation. The paper argues that mapping B-A collaborations by using multiple methods and multiple sources of information can significantly improve the reliability and richness of our understanding, and can offer insights on dynamics and qualitative features of these co-operation processes. Interviews conducted in Hungary – in line with other research findings – have also confirmed that (i) motivations, incentives for, and norms of, conducting R&D and innovation activities diametrically differ in business and academia; and (ii) different types of firms have different needs. Thus, more refined policy measures are to be devised to promote B-A collaboration more efficiently, better tuned to the needs of the actors, based on a relevant taxonomy of their co-operations. Evaluation criteria for academics should also be revised to remove some major obstacles, currently blocking more effective B-A co-operation. Several findings presented in this paper can be generalised beyond the cases considered, but the research design to analyse B-A collaborations and the concomitant policy recommendations always need to be tailored to the innovation systems in question. |
| Keywords: | Types of knowledge; Business-academia collaboration; Multiple methods to map business-academia collaborations; STI policy implications |
| JEL: | O38 O33 |
| Date: | 2014–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:has:discpr:1419&r=knm |
| By: | Antoine Dechezleprêtre; Ralf Martin; Myra Mohnen |
| Abstract: | How much should governments subsidize the development of new clean technologies? We use patent citation data to investigate the relative intensity of knowledge spillovers in clean and dirty technologies in two technological fields: energy production and transportation. We introduce a new methodology that takes into account the whole history of patent citations to capture the indirect knowledge spillovers generated by patents. We find that conditional on a wide range of potential confounding factors clean patents receive on average 43% more citations than dirty patents. Knowledge spillovers from clean technologies are comparable in scale to those observed in the IT sector. The radical novelty of clean technologies relative to more incremental dirty inventions seems to account for their superiority. Our results can support public support for clean R&D. They also suggest that green policies might be able to boost economic growth through induced knowledge spillovers. |
| Keywords: | Innovation spill-overs, Climate Change, Growth, Patents, Clean technology, Optimal climate policy |
| JEL: | O30 O44 Q54 Q55 Q58 H23 |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1300&r=knm |
| By: | Waters, James |
| Abstract: | Financing innovation presents informational and control problems for the financier, and different solutions are used for funding of US companies and universities. In this paper we examine how funding characteristics influenced the change in innovation during the 2007-8 financial crisis for both. We extend prior theories of external financing’s effect on company performance during crises, firstly to university performance, and secondly to show the influence of time variation in aggregate funding. Empirical results are consistent with our theory: external dependence and asset intangibility had a limited effect on company innovation on entering the crisis, but increased university innovation. Overall, however, company patenting was more robust than university patenting, despite the out-performance being masked by respective portfolio characteristics. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; patenting; economic crisis; financing constraint |
| JEL: | G32 L14 O31 |
| Date: | 2014–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:59016&r=knm |
| By: | Basu, Sujata |
| Abstract: | An advanced economy relies on innovation activity for its further technology improvement. On the other hand a backward economy depends on both imitation from the world technology frontier and innovation activities - innovation being more skilled-intensive than imitation. In this paper I theoretically examine the impact of R & D outsourcing from an economy which is in the innovation-only regime to an imitation-innovation regime. I show that dependence on imitation activities rises and as a consequence of which share of skilled human capital falls and both skilled and unskilled human capital shifts from innovation to imitation activities in the backward economy. As a result proportion of outsourcing from advanced economy to backward economy falls. Thus, growth rate of the backward economy declines as time progresses. In the long run backward economy will get into a trap and gap from the world technology frontier rises, even if it falls in the initial period. |
| Keywords: | R & D activity, outsourcing, economic growth, imitation-innovation, convergence |
| JEL: | I24 O3 O43 |
| Date: | 2014–10–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:59107&r=knm |
| By: | Alberdi Pons , Xabier (Deusto Business School (DBS), Universidad de Deusto); Gibaja Martíns, Juan José (Deusto Business School (DBS), Universidad de Deusto); Parrilli, Mario Davide (Deusto Business School (DBS), Universidad de Deusto and DBS and Orkestra-Basque Institute of Competitiveness) |
| Abstract: | Interaction is a central feature of well-functioning and integrated Regional Innovation Systems. However, it does not necessarily occur in an automatic fashion, denoting the existence of various system problems that may block learning and other crucial innovation processes. “Intermediaries” are organizations that encompass an increasing role in overcoming these problems. Still, they have not been adequately framed and assessed. The paper meets this need and presents a number of developments. First, we identify and categorize intermediaries according to some specific Innovation System problems they tap into, while we also include them in a novel intermediary component. Second, we operationalize sets of quantitative variables that permit new preliminary assessments. This methodology also permits new empirical insights that help framing more specific policy tools. The empirical analysis roots on an ad hoc data exploitation stemming from various surveys conducted by the Spanish Official Statistical Institute (INE) and the Spanish Venture Capital Association (ASCRI). We conduct multivariate techniques such as Multiple Factor and Cluster Analysis. The methodology creates a new typology that sorts Spanish regions according to the presence -or absence- of intermediaries when dealing with system problems. We find dissimilar outputs across regions. The latter might demand that their intermediary components are provided with strategic recommendations in response to specific system requirements. |
| Keywords: | regions; innovation systems; system problems; intermediaries; Spain; multiple factor analysis |
| JEL: | O18 R15 R50 R58 |
| Date: | 2014–10–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2014_020&r=knm |
| By: | Aristovnik, Aleksander |
| Abstract: | The main aim of the paper is to measure the relative efficiency of the R&D sector in the EU-27 at the regional level. For this purpose, the paper applies a non-parametric approach, i.e. data envelopment analysis (DEA), to assess the relative technical efficiency of R&D activities across selected EU (NUTS-2) regions. The empirical analysis integrates available inputs (R&D expenditures, researchers and employment in high-tech sectors) and outputs (patent and high-tech patent applications) over the 2005–2010 period. The empirical results show that among regions with a high intensity of R&D activities the most efficient performers are Noord-Brabant (Netherlands), Stuttgart (Germany) and Tirol (Austria). In contrast, a wide range of NUTS-2 regions from the Baltics, Eastern and Southern Europe is characterized by an extremely low rate of knowledge production and its efficiency, particularly in Poland (Mazowieckie), Lithuania (Lietuva), Latvia (Latvija), Romania (Bucuresti-Ilfov), Bulgaria (Yugozapaden), Slovakia (Západné Slovensko), Greece (Attiki), Spain (Canarias) and Italy (Sardegna). |
| Keywords: | Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA); Efficiency; EU; NUTS-2 regions; R&D |
| JEL: | C61 O3 R1 |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:59081&r=knm |
| By: | Driouchi, Ahmed |
| Abstract: | Abstract This paper focuses on testing if natural resources constituted a blessing or a curse to the progress of knowledge economy in Arab countries. Some of these economies are based on natural resources and mainly oil and gas that are major sources of economic rents. The attained results from all the sample of Arab countries, show how knowledge variables are negatively related to the rents from natural resources. Natural resources appear thus as a curse to the expansion of knowledge economy in the overall set of countries. But, when taken country by country as in the literature, natural resources as blessing are shown over some economies. Transformation of curse to a sustainable blessings is the promising economic and social direction of change that could increase further inclusive growth in the Arab economies. |
| Keywords: | Keywords: Rents, natural resources, curse, blessing, sovereign funds, inclusion. |
| JEL: | O11 Q2 Q3 |
| Date: | 2014–09–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:58598&r=knm |
| By: | Dominique Foray (College of Management, EPFL, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland); Julio Raffo (World Intellectual Property Organization, Economics and Statistics Division, Geneva, Switzerland) |
| Abstract: | The paper addresses two issues. One concerns the general conditions and procedures involved in the emergence of a tool industry. Tool industries emerge and evolve as a collection of capital goods and tool inventors and manufacturers. One of our goals is to use some of the works on historical cases to build a heuristic framework concerning the main conditions for the emergence and development of tool industries. The other issue is more factual and involves the question whether a tool industry is today emerging in the area of education. The paper describes the emergence of a population of firms specialised in developing and commercialising educational tools and instructional technologies and discusses whether this trend can be seen as part of the solution to the innovation deficit and cost disease problems in this sector? |
| Keywords: | tool industry, educational tool, innovation in education |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wip:wpaper:19&r=knm |
| By: | Asian Development Bank (ADB); (South Asia Department, ADB); ; |
| Abstract: | This publication highlights priorities and strategies in meeting current and emerging needs for skills development in South Asia. The report is in line with the Asian Development Bank’s effort to support its developing member countries’ priorities toward global competitiveness, increased productivity, and inclusive growth. It also identifies key issues, constraints and areas of improvement in making skills training more responsive to emerging labor market needs in South Asia as an important factor in sustaining high economic growth. The report was completed in 2012 under the Australian AID-supported Phase 1 of Subproject 11 (Innovative Strategies for Accelerated Human Resource Development) of RETA 6337 (Development Partnership Program for South Asia). |
| Keywords: | education, technical skills, vocational skills, labor market, gender inequality, human resources, human capital, innovation, knowledge, skills, human development index, secondary education, labor force, skilling, upskilling, TVET, skills development, training programs, higher education, youth, strategies and innovations |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:asd:wpaper:rpt136125&r=knm |