nep-knm New Economics Papers
on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy
Issue of 2018‒02‒26
six papers chosen by
Laura Ştefănescu
Centrul European de Studii Manageriale în Administrarea Afacerilor

  1. Teachers’ environmental knowledge and pro-environmental behavior: An application of CNS and EID scales By Halkos, George; Gkargkavouzi, Anastasia; Matsiori, Steriani
  2. Dinner Table Human Capital and Entrepreneurship By Hvide, Hans K.; Oyer, Paul
  3. Optimal paternalistic health and human capital policies By Arbex, Marcelo; Mattos, Enlinson
  4. The (Self-) Funding of Intangibles By Döttling, Robin; Ladika, Tomislav; Perotti, Enrico C
  5. "Brain gain" on Wikipedia: Immigrants return knowledge home By Slivko, Olga
  6. Knowing me, knowing you: Inventor mobility and the formation of technology-oriented alliances By Stefan Wagner; Martin C. Goossen

  1. By: Halkos, George; Gkargkavouzi, Anastasia; Matsiori, Steriani
    Abstract: Environmental education’s teachers are responsible to endow students with the knowledge, values, attitudes and skills necessary to protect and sustain the environment. The current study investigates Greek teachers’ environmental attitudes, behavior and knowledge via Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS) and Environmental Identity (EID) Scale. The approach combines applied methodological research like item analysis and Factor Analysis. Teachers’ derived scores in both scales were high confirming their positive attitudes in terms of the environment. Furthermore, teachers have positive environmental attitudes, showing pro-environmental behavior but also a moderate level of environmental knowledge.
    Keywords: Environmental attitudes; pro-environmental behavior; teachers; CNS; EID scale.
    JEL: I29 Q56 Q57
    Date: 2018–02–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:84505&r=knm
  2. By: Hvide, Hans K. (University of Bergen); Oyer, Paul (Stanford University)
    Abstract: We document three new facts about entrepreneurship. First, a majority of male entrepreneurs start a firm in the same or a closely related industry as their fathers' industry of employment. Second, this tendency is correlated with intelligence: higher-IQ entrepreneurs are less likely to follow their fathers. Third, an entrepreneur that starts a firm in the same 5-digit industry as where his father was employed tends to outperform entrepreneurs in the same industry whose fathers did not work in that industry. We consider various explanations for these facts and conclude that "dinner table human capital", where children obtain industry knowledge through their parents, is an important factor behind what type of firm is started and how well it performs.
    Keywords: entrepreneurship, human capital, IQ
    JEL: J24 L26
    Date: 2018–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11303&r=knm
  3. By: Arbex, Marcelo; Mattos, Enlinson
    Abstract: We study optimal human and health linear policies when there is a paternalistic motive to overcome present bias problems of agents with heterogeneous cognitive skills. The paternalistic intervention rewards individuals for physical capital accumulation and the combined e ect of health and human capital on future earnings. Our results highlight a novel e ect of paternalistic policies due to the interaction between present-biased preferences and cognitive skills. We illustrate numerically that this policy package is the most e ective and we analyze the relevance of agent's cognitive skills and present-biased preferences for the determination of rst-best and constrained rst-best optimal policies.
    Date: 2017–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fgv:eesptd:465&r=knm
  4. By: Döttling, Robin; Ladika, Tomislav; Perotti, Enrico C
    Abstract: We model how technological change leads to a shift in corporate investment towards intangible capital, and test its implications for corporate financial policy. While tangible assets can be purchased and funded externally, most intangible capital is created by skilled workers investing their human capital, so it requires lower upfront outlays. Indeed, U.S. high-intangibles firms have larger free cash flows and lower total investment spending, and do not appear more financially constrained. We model and test how these firms optimally retain cash for both a precautionary as well as a retention motive. The optimal reward for risk-averse human capital involves deferred compensation and a commitment to retain cash. High-intangibles firms also should favor a payout policy of repurchases over dividends to avoid penalizing unvested claims. Our empirical evidence supports these predictions.
    Keywords: cash holdings; corporate leverage; deferred equity; equity grants; Human Capital; intangible assets; share vesting.; Technological change
    JEL: G32 G35 J24 J33
    Date: 2018–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12618&r=knm
  5. By: Slivko, Olga
    Abstract: Economic literature acknowledges the impact of immigration on cross-border patenting and scientific publications. However, the role of immigration ows in the dissemination of knowledge in a broader sense is yet to be assessed. In this paper, I estimate the effect of immigration on the facilitation of online knowledge reagrding destination countries in the native languages of immigrants. To quantify online knowledge, I focus on one of the world's most viewed online knowledge platforms, Wikipedia. I combine data on immigration ows between the pairs of immigrants' origin and destination countries with contributions to Wikipedia describing the countries of immigrants' destinations in the languages spoken in immigrants' origin countries. I specifically focus on knowledge domains describing science and culture. In order to draw a causal inference, I use shocks to immigration due to economic and political crises as exogenous shocks to Wikipedia content and analyze subsequent changes in the contributions to Wikipedia. An increase in immigration yields more knowledge contributed to Wikipedia about science and culture in destination countries in the native languages of the origin countries. Interestingly, the increase in contributions is driven by anonymous contributors. In the Wikipedia community, these are considered occasional contributors who care personally about the topics they contribute to. The increase in content generated anonymously is driven by longer contributions.
    Keywords: Immigration,Knowledge dissemination,Online knowledge,Wikipedia
    JEL: L17 O15 O33 H41 L86
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:18008&r=knm
  6. By: Stefan Wagner (ESMT European School of Management and Technology); Martin C. Goossen (Tilburg University)
    Abstract: We link the hiring of R&D scientists from industry competitors to the subsequent formation of collaborative agreements, namely technology-oriented alliances. By transferring technological knowledge as well as cognitive elements to the hiring firm, mobile inventors foster the alignment of decision frames applied by potential alliance partners in the process of alliance formation thereby making collaboration more likely. Using data on inventor mobility and alliance formation amongst 42 global pharmaceutical firms over 16 years, we show that inventor mobility is positively associated with the likelihood of alliance formation in periods following inventor movements. This relationship becomes more pronounced if mobile employees bring additional knowledge about their prior firm’s technological capabilities and for alliances aimed at technology development rather than for agreements related to technology transfer. It is weakened, however, if the focal firm is already familiar with the competitor’s technological capabilities. By revealing these relationships, our study contributes to research on alliance formation, employee mobility, and organizational frames.
    Keywords: Inventor mobility, alliance formation, interfirm collaboration, technological capabilities, pharmaceuticals
    Date: 2018–02–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esm:wpaper:esmt-18-01&r=knm

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