nep-knm New Economics Papers
on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy
Issue of 2017‒08‒20
four papers chosen by
Laura Ştefănescu
Centrul European de Studii Manageriale în Administrarea Afacerilor

  1. Foreign Investment and Domestic Productivity: Identifying Knowledge Spillovers and Competition Effects By Fons-Rosen, Christian; Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem; Sørensen, Bent E; Villegas-Sanchez, Carolina; Volosovych, Vadym
  2. Work organisation, human capital and innovation strategies: new evidence from firm-level Italian data By Capriati, Michele; Divella, Marialuisa
  3. The impacts of intellectual property rights protection on cross-border M&As By Hasan, Iftekhar; Khalil, Fahad; Sun, Xian
  4. Technology networks: the autocatalytic origins of innovation By Paolo Zeppini; Evangelos Evangelou; Emanuele Pugliese; Lorenzo Napolitano; Graham Room

  1. By: Fons-Rosen, Christian; Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem; Sørensen, Bent E; Villegas-Sanchez, Carolina; Volosovych, Vadym
    Abstract: We study the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on total factor productivity (TFP) of domestic firms using a new, representative firm-level data set spanning six countries. A novel finding is that firm-level spillovers from foreign firms to domestic companies can be significantly positive, non-existent, or even negative, depending on which sectors receive FDI. When foreign firms produce in the same narrow sector as domestic firms, the latter are negatively affected by increasing competition and positively affected by knowledge spillovers. We find that the positive spillovers dominate if foreign firms enter sectors where firms are "technologically close,'' controlling for the endogeneity of their entry decision into such sectors. Positive technology spillovers also affect firms in other sectors, if those sectors are technologically close to the sectors receiving FDI. Increasing FDI in sectors that are technologically close to other sectors boosts TFP of domestic firms by twice as much as increasing FDI by the same amount across all sectors.
    Keywords: competition; FDI; multinationals; selection; technology; TFP
    JEL: E32 F15 F36 O16
    Date: 2017–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12205&r=knm
  2. By: Capriati, Michele; Divella, Marialuisa
    Abstract: By using firm-level data provided by the fourth round of the (Italian) Community Innovation Survey (CIS 2012), this paper explores whether the implementation of specific changes in work organisation within a firm influences its innovation performance, not only directly, but also via reinforcing the link between human capital resources and innovation. The authors also analyse the overall effect of human capital and work organisation, which enables them to identify which combination of these variables leads to the highest level of firms’ technological capabilities. Main findings confirm that not only the acquisition of new skills through the hiring of qualified personnel, but also how personnel management affects individual employees on the work floor should be considered to the development of firms’ innovation capacity: indeed, work organisation as well as strong positive complementarities or synergy effects between human capital and work organisation have been found to give firms a clear competitive advantage vis à vis both non­innovating firms and firms unable to internally generate new products and processes (i.e. entirely or at least partly by themselves). These positive effects are present and relevant in both manufacturing and service firms, whilst a more differentiated impact has emerged between firms in high-tech and low-tech sectors of the economy. On the whole, the contribution raises some relevant issues about the Italian lack of innovation in work organisation, which requires particular attention by the human resources management of firms and the industrial policy of governments.
    Keywords: work organisation,human capital,technological capabilities,innovation generation,firms,industries
    JEL: O30 O31 O32
    Date: 2017
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:97&r=knm
  3. By: Hasan, Iftekhar; Khalil, Fahad; Sun, Xian
    Abstract: We investigate the impacts of improved intellectual property rights (IPR) protection on cross-border M&A performance. Using multiple measures of IPR protection and based on generalized difference-in-differences estimates, we find that countries with better IPR protection attract significantly more hi-tech cross-border M&A activity, particularly in developing economies. Moreover, acquirers pay higher premiums for companies in countries with better IPR protection, and there is a significantly higher acquirer announcement effect associated with these hi-tech transactions.
    JEL: G32 G34 O31 O34 F43 C23
    Date: 2017–08–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bof:bofrdp:2017_017&r=knm
  4. By: Paolo Zeppini; Evangelos Evangelou; Emanuele Pugliese; Lorenzo Napolitano; Graham Room
    Abstract: We search an autocatalytic structure in networks of technological fields and evaluate its significance for technological change. To this aim we define a technology network based on the International Patents Classification, and we study if autocatalytic structures in the network foster innovation as measured by the rate of production of patents. The network is identified through patenting activity of geographical regions in different technology fields. Through our analysis we show how the technological landscape of the patents database evolves as a self-organising autocatalytic structure that grows in size, and arrives to cover the most part of the technology network. Technology classes in the core of the autocatalytic structure perform better in terms of their innovativeness, as measured by the rate of growth of the number of patents. Finally, the links between classes that define the autocatalytic structure of the technology network break the hierarchical structure of the database, and indicate that recombinant innovation and its autocatalytic patterns are an important stylised fact of technological change.
    Date: 2017–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1708.03511&r=knm

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