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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2018‒06‒18
five papers chosen by Laura Ştefănescu Centrul European de Studii Manageriale în Administrarea Afacerilor |
| By: | Montresor, Sandro; Quatraro, Francesco (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the move of regions towards sustainable growth through their specialisation in new green technologies. In particular, we analyse the role that smart specialisation strategies (S3) can have in this respect by addressing two research questions. First of all, we investigate whether the environmental diversification of regional technologies is, according to the S3 logic, driven by their “relatedness” to existing knowledge of green and non-green nature. Second, we analyse the role of the Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) that S3 policies recommend regions to prioritise, not only in fostering the adoption of environmental technologies, but also in affecting its dependence on the pre-existing knowledge-base. Combining regional patent and economic data for a 34-year panel (1980-2013) of 180 European regions, we find that the relatedness to the existing technological-base of the region actually makes the acquisition of a new green-tech specialisation more probable. This holds true with respect to both the green and non-green extant knowledge, pointing to a regional diversification that also benefits from the “hybridisation” of non-environmental technologies. The latter however requires a higher degree of relatedness than a “pure” green branching process. Regional KETs also help the transition towards sustainable technologies. What is more, they negatively moderate the green impact of the relatedness to pre-existing technologies, of both green and non-green nature, and thus attenuate the boundaries the latter could pose to regions in their environmental specialisation. These results confirm that S3 policies can actually boost the intertwining of a smart and sustainable kind of growth, and that the KETs inclusion within S3 can amplify the virtuous interaction between these two objectives. |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201804&r=knm |
| By: | Antonelli, Cristiano (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | This paper accommodates the new understanding of the limited exhaustibility of knowledge into the Schumpeterian frame of the creative response to articulate a comprehensive model of Schumpeterian growth. The limited exhaustibility of knowledge and its transient appropriability favor the accumulation of a stock of quasi-public knowledge. The increasing stock of quasi-public knowledge together with appropriate knowledge governance conditions account for the secular decline of knowledge costs and the increase of diachronic and pecuniary knowledge externalities. Because of its limited exhaustibility and the consequent cumulability, knowledge is an endogenous endowment that accounts for growth. Unexpected out-of-equilibrium conditions in product and factor markets stir the response of firms. The availability of knowledge externalities accounts for the rate of innovation as they help making the reaction creative so as to enable the introduction of innovations. The search for technological congruence and the secular decline of the cost of technological knowledge accounts for its knowledge intensive direction as it induces the introduction of biased technological changes that augment the output elasticity of knowledge as an input. The limited exhaustibility of knowledge accounts for the secular trend towards the knowledge economy. |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201709&r=knm |
| By: | Flavio Calvino (OECD); Chiara Criscuolo (OECD); Luca Marcolin (OECD); Mariagrazia Squicciarini (OECD) |
| Abstract: | This study proposes a taxonomy of sectors according to the extent to which they have gone digital. The taxonomy accounts for some of the key facets of the digital transformation, and recognises that sectors differ in their development and adoption of the most advanced “digital” technologies, in the human capital needed to embed them in production and in the extent to which digital tools are used to deal with clients and suppliers. The indicators used to classify 36 ISIC revision 4 sectors over the period 2001-15 are: share of ICT tangible and intangible (i.e. software) investment; share of purchases of intermediate ICT goods and services; stock of robots per hundreds of employees; share of ICT specialists in total employment; and the share of turnover from online sales. The study further proposes an overall summary indicator of the digital transformation in sectors which encompasses all the considered dimensions. |
| Date: | 2018–06–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:stiaaa:2018/14-en&r=knm |
| By: | Antonelli, Cristiano (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | The notion of endogenous innovation as the outcome of the creative response of firms to out-of-equilibrium conditions is the cornerstone of the new evolutionary complexity. This essay explores the role of the reactivity of firms to out-of-equilibrium conditions and of knowledge governance in assessing the chances that creative responses actually take place as an alternative to adaptive responses. It implements a systemic frame able to show that: i) the levels of reactivity of firms enhance the research efforts of rims that try and cope with out of equilibrium conditions; ii) the actual rates of introduction of innovations and increase of total factor productivity are contingent upon the quality of knowledge governance, and iii) out-of-equilibrium conditions, as well as the amount of knowledge externalities are the endogenous outcome of the creative response. |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:labeco:201710&r=knm |
| By: | Réka Juhász; Claudia Steinwender |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how information and communication technology (ICT) improvements affect trade along the value chain and international technology diffusion. We examine the impact of a revolutionary technology, the roll-out of the global telegraph network, on the 19th century cotton textile industry. First, we show that connection to the telegraph disproportionately increased trade in intermediate goods relative to final goods. We document that this was due to differences in codifiability; that is, the extent to which product specifications could be communicated at a distance using only words (and thus by sending telegrams) as opposed to inspecting a sample of the product. Second, adoption of the telegraph also facilitated international technology diffusion through the complementary mechanisms of importing machinery and acquiring knowledge of the production process and local demand through importing intermediates. These results shed light on how ICT facilitates the formation of global value chains and the diffusion of frontier technology. |
| JEL: | F14 N7 O14 O33 |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24590&r=knm |