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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2016‒07‒23
eleven papers chosen by Laura Ştefănescu Centrul European de Studii Manageriale în Administrarea Afacerilor |
| By: | Bob Fox (University of New South Wales) |
| Abstract: | Pressures to adopt new technology-based online solutions to enable increased flexibility in delivering higher education have accelerated in pace. The primary reasons for this growth concern ongoing debates about costs of residential on-campus courses and resulting economies of scale; demands for more student-centred and flexible approaches, providing students with more choices in learning; technology ubiquity, portability and their affordances providing solutions to identified student needs; and the impact of MOOC experiences and lessons learnt, rolling back into mainstream open and on-campus teaching. Based on case study analysis, this paper examines experiences in developing open and blended learning solutions for predominantly campus-based education and identifies longer-term impacts on changing core practices. The first case explores the impact of distance and open education courses and course resources and activities re-purposed to replace conventional on-campus teaching; the second a re-engineered continuing professional education course converted to distance and blended learning; the third describes how a conventional course structure, quality assurance and sustainable improvements were made through the introduction of blended and online solutions; and the forth case explores the impact of an institution’s use of MOOCs as a catalyst to effect changes in mainstream courses and programs. Arising from the cases described, the paper identifies key concepts that support improved opportunities for success in adopting open and blended learning. The paper concludes by outlining a curriculum design framework, based on recent research and practice that facilitates sustainable and transferable improvements to learning and teaching in universities adopting open and blended learning strategies. |
| Keywords: | online learning; blended learning, technology affordance, curriculum design |
| JEL: | I29 O33 I23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:itepro:3905704&r=knm |
| By: | Veronica Mies (Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile); Matias Tapia (Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile); Ignacio Loeser (Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile) |
| Abstract: | We use census micro data aggregated at the state level data for US cohorts born between 1915 and 1939 to test the impact of secondary and tertiary schooling in the US at the state-cohort level on R&D and TFP growth across industries in 1970. We instrument our measures of schooling by using the variation in compulsory schooling laws and differences in mobilization rates in WWII, which we relate to the education benefits provided by the GI Bill Act (1944). This novel instrument provides a clean source of variation in the costs of attending college. Two-stage least squared regressions find no effect of the share of population with secondary schooling on outcomes such as n R\&D per worker or TFP growth. On the other hand, the share of population with tertiary education has a significant effect on both R&D per worker or TFP growth. |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed016:102&r=knm |
| By: | Ju-Chuan Wu (Department of Business Administration, Feng Chia University); Chih-Jou Chen (Department of Marketing and Logistics Management, National Penghu University of Science and Technology) |
| Abstract: | Due to progression of modern medication and technology, the average life span is extending, pursuing high-quality, healthy and long life growing to an old age is more desirable than ever. Taiwan is one of the fastest growing aging countries in Asia, in addition to the problem of an aging population; birth rate is also very low, nursing and elderly care might affect our financial and economic development. This research aims to explore the current situation of aging society, the gap between user’s attitude toward aging and the ICT needs for better performance of ICT innovative products and (or) service. In this study, the proposed model is composed the concepts of attitude toward aging, Innovation Diffusion Theory, and User’s Informational-Based Readiness. The research findings show that be helpful to the further application, cross-field cooperation, and long-term development between ICT and elderly service industry. |
| Keywords: | Aging in Place, Attitude toward aging, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Service Innovation, Innovation Diffusion Theory Technology Readiness, User’s Informational-Based Readiness |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:4006572&r=knm |
| By: | Petrakis, Emmanuel; Moreno, Diego; Manasakis, C.; Cabolis, C. |
| Abstract: | We study a homogenous good triopoly in which firms first choose their cost-reducing R&D investments and consider alternative merger proposals, and then compete à la Cournot in the ensuing industry. We identify conditions under which both horizontal mergers and non integration are sustained by Coalition-Proof Nash equilibria (CPNE). These conditions involve the effectiveness of the R&D technology, as well as the distribution of the bargaining power between the acquirer and the acquiree, which determine the allocation of the incremental profits generated by the merger. We show that whether firms follow duplicative or complementary research paths, sustaining a merger generally requires a sufficiently effective R&D technology that creates endogenous cost asymmetries and renders the merger profitable, and a moderate distribution of bargaining power that allows to spread the benefits of the merger. We examine the welfare effects of mergers and obtain clear policy guidelines. |
| Keywords: | Coalition-Proof Nash Equilibrium; Antitrust; Endogenous Efficiency Gains; Cost-Reducing Innovation; Horizontal Mergers |
| Date: | 2016–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:23280&r=knm |
| By: | Alexander Coad (European Commission – JRC); Sara Amoroso (European Commission – JRC); Nicola Grassano (European Commission – JRC) |
| Abstract: | Although diversity between team members may bring benefits of new perspectives, nevertheless, what holds a team together is similarity. We theorise that diversity in one dimension is traded off against diversity in another. Our analysis of collaborative research teams that received FP7 funding presents robust results that indicators of diversity in several dimensions (diversity of organizational form (universities, firms, etc.), diversity in nationality, and inequality in project funding share) are negatively correlated with each other. |
| Keywords: | diversity, collaborative teams, FP7 research funding |
| JEL: | O30 M14 O19 |
| Date: | 2016–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:wpaper:201604&r=knm |
| By: | Kamal Saggi (Vanderbilt University) |
| Abstract: | This paper surveys the literature on international trade and the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the global economy. The discussion is organized around the major questions in the field. How does openness to trade affect national incentives for patent protection? What is the rationale for international coordination over patent policies? Given that countries are highly asymmetric with respect to their technological capabilities, what incentives do lagging countries have for enforcing IPRs and what are the consequences of requiring them to do so? To what extent do empirical studies support the major arguments for and against the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)? Finally, can the structure of TRIPS -- both in terms of the core obligations it imposes on WTO members and the flexibilities that it provides them with respect to exhaustion policies and the use of compulsory licensing -- be reconciled with existing models of IPR protection in the global economy? |
| Keywords: | intellectual property rights, TRIPS, WTO, innovation, trade, foreign direct investment, imitation, patent protection, welfare, exhaustion policies, compulsory licensing. |
| JEL: | F1 O3 |
| Date: | 2016–07–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:van:wpaper:vuecon-sub-16-00014&r=knm |
| By: | Jan Zabojnik (Queen's University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies a repeated-game model in which firms can build a reputation for rewarding innovative employees. In any Pareto efficient equilibrium, low-value innovations get developed in established firms, while high-value innovations get developed in startups. The threshold level can be discontinuous, so otherwise similar firms may exhibit very different levels of innovation. The paper also shows that the optimal incentive contract for innovative employees has an option-like form, and that a firm may want to worsen the distribution of possible innovations. The model's predictions are consistent with a broad set of observed regularities regarding the creation of employee startups. |
| Keywords: | Startups, innovation, reputation, venture capital |
| JEL: | L14 L26 O31 O34 M13 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qed:wpaper:1362&r=knm |
| By: | Córcoles, David; Triguero, Ángela; Cuerva, María Carmen |
| Abstract: | The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of previous experience and learning capabilities on survival in product and process innovation for Spanish manufacturing firms in the period 1990-2010. The authors find past and path dependence and confirm the important effect of R&D effort in both types of innovation. Nevertheless, for product innovation, the level of appropriability and the fact of operating in a high-tech sector are crucial for persistence in comparison with process innovation. |
| Keywords: | persistence in innovation,product innovation,process innovation,discrete-time duration models,panel-data |
| JEL: | O31 O32 L22 L60 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201634&r=knm |
| By: | Pietro Moncada-Paternò-Castello (European Commission – JRC) |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes with new findings to the literature on corporate research and development (R&D) intensity decomposition by examining the effects of several parameters on R&D intensity and investigating its comparative distribution among top R&D firms, sectors and world regions/countries. It draws on a longitudinal company-level micro-dataset from 2005 to 2013, and uses both descriptive statistics and decomposition computation methods. The results confirm the structural nature of the EU R&D intensity gap. In the last decade the gap between the EU and the US has widened, whereas the EU gap with Japan and Switzerland has remained relatively stable. The study also uncovers differences in R&D intensity between EU and US companies operating in the sectors more responsible for the aggregate R&D intensity gap. In contrast, the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and Asian Tiger countries (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) R&D intensity gap compared to the EU has remained relatively stable, while companies from the rest of the world are considerably reducing such gap. Finally, the study shows a high concentration -sustained over time- of R&D investment in a few countries, sectors and firms, but in the EU there are fewer smaller top R&D firms that invest more intensively in R&D, than in the most closed competing countries. |
| Keywords: | corporate R&D; decomposition; EU R&D intensity gap, EU R&D policy |
| JEL: | O30 O32 O38 O57 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:wpaper:201605&r=knm |
| By: | Iritié, B. G. Jean Jacques |
| Abstract: | Criticisms vis-à-vis cluster policy are numerous, often confusing and really unhelpful; while some authors systematically question the merits, others on the contrary play a genuine role of counsel in his favour. This paper attempts to refocus the debate and analyses the economic issues, impacts and implications of the innovation clusters policy. To do this, we take a critical view of the literature on clusters, focusing on analysis of the effects of three industrial dynamics in perpetual movement within clusters, especially research and development, industrial location and technology cooperation. We assume that innovation cluster "potentiates", by a synergistic action, the beneficial effect of each of these three industrial dynamics in favour of localised firms. However, it appears from the analysis that the hopes and expectations invested in cluster policy must be reconsidered and relativised. So the reasons for the rising power of cluster policies must be sought elsewhere than in a necessarily consensual and tangible evidence of positive impacts of clusters. |
| Keywords: | cluster,innovation,competitiveness pole,research and development,industrial location,technology cooperation,localised knowledge spillovers,LKS,epistemic communities |
| JEL: | O25 O30 R10 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:142746&r=knm |
| By: | Eka Chokheli (Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University); Nugzar Paichadze (Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University); Giuli Keshelashvili (Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University); Manana Kharkheli (Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University); Shorena Tielidze (Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University); Giorgi Tchuradze (Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University) |
| Abstract: | Work deals with the issues of public sector reformation and development of the effective public administration system. Georgia has implemented numerous reforms in this area, including: internal institutional changes – reduction of the government administration and public sector staff, for the purpose of improvement of effectiveness and flexibility, formation of the new organizational system and restructuring of the executive departments, reassessment of the public sector functions for improvement of services provided to the citizens, implementation of public-private projects. Certain steps were made for formation of the competitive public service, implying qualification tests for the public servants, adoption of the new organizational policies of promotion and motivation.The work demonstrates that after parliamentary elections of 2012, orientation of reforms in Georgia have changed to certain extent and the issue of necessity of development of the new public service conception was put on agenda and non-governmental sector, academic circles and international organizations took part in this. Currently, the process of reformation has not completed yet and numerous problems still persist in the public sector. They must be analyzed and solved for successful implementation of the reformation process formation of the effective state institutes.Performed researches showed that general qualification level of Georgian public sector employees is mostly incompliant with the qualification requirements, staffing and HR management departments cannot ensure adequate management of public servants and their function is mostly limited to contracts with the staff members. Regarding domestic and foreign experience of work with the personnel, with due regard of socioeconomic factors and Georgian mentality, there were determined such approaches to personnel management that would be suitable to current socioeconomic development in Georgia and help the managers to make their HR management work more effective. |
| Keywords: | human resources, public sector, qualification level, socioeconomic development, efficient state institutes. |
| JEL: | J24 M19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:4006630&r=knm |