|
on Microeconomics |
| By: | Mikkel Lucas Overby |
| Abstract: | In many emergent markets, cross-industry alliances are necessary to develop and market new products and services. The resource-based view suggests that firms form alliances to access or acquire valuable, rare, non-imitable and non-substitutable resources, and that such access determines the level of profits. Hence, firms confronted with the choice between partners with strong versus partners with weak resource endowments should choose the former. We contest this view and argue that firms benefit from allying with weak partners at certain times. In essence, we suggest that partner selection involves assessing the relative importance of strong resource endowments and aligned strategic aspirations over time. By adopting an evolutionary approach, we show that appropriate partner selection criteria are dynamic and may involve allying with weak partners in the initial exploratory stage, with weak and/or strong partners in the development stage and with strong partners in the maturity stage. Our findings suggest that the resource-based understanding of strategic alliances should be extended to include a more profound role for a partner firm’s strategic aspiration. |
| Keywords: | Strategic alliances; partner selection; resources; aspirations |
| JEL: | L14 L86 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:05-07&r=mic |
| By: | Luísa Ferreira Lopes; Manuel Mira Godinho |
| Abstract: | We present a model that links innovation effort to economic performance, along the lines of the Crépon et al (1998) model. However, in contrast to Crépon et al, that analyze R&D intensive manufacturing sectors, the present application examines the relationship between innovation and performance for services sectors. This is relevant since much effort has been made to explore that relationship for manufacturing but very little is known about it in the case of services sectors. In trying to fulfill this gap the paper uses firm-level data from the Second Community Innovation Survey to estimate a simultaneous equations model for firms in ten services sectors in Portugal. The present model also differs from former approaches by the specific explanatory structure proposed to estimate the complex relationship between innovation and economic performance. Instead of estimating a direct link between innovation and labor productivity, three specific relationships were put forward. The first of them explains the innovation effort intensity (an input in the innovation process). The second one relates service innovation (an output of the innovation process) to effort intensity and to other explanatory variables. Finally, the third relationship links labor productivity to both service innovation and effort intensity considering also some other influences. Sensitivity analysis of the results to alternative estimation techniques was performed. |
| Keywords: | Innovation and performance; Innovation in services; Technology; Service sectors; Labor productivity; CIS |
| JEL: | O31 O33 L8 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:05-08&r=mic |
| By: | Peter Maskell; Leïla Kebir |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the theoretical backgrounds of the "cluster" and proposes a framework aiming at drawing the contour of cluster theory. The profundity of the notion of "clusters" is arguably conditional on the coherence of four fundamental issues associated with the concept: 1) the economic and social benefits that may accrue to firms when clustering or co-locating (the existence argument); 2) the diseconomies encountered when clustering exceeds certain geographical and sectoral thresholds (the extension argument); 3) the advantages obtained by exploiting intra- cluster synergies rather engaging in external interaction (the exchange argument); and, finally, 4) the possible erosion of economies and onset of diseconomies over the lifecycle of the cluster (the exhaustion argument). Each of these four issues is examined in terms of three relevant major theoretical frameworks that can be brought to bear on the cluster concept. The paper considers approaches based on the idea of externalities (illustrated by the Marshall's work on "Industrial districts"); on competitiveness issue (illustrated by Michael Porter’s theory of cluster growth); on a territorial perspective (illustrated by the GREMI approach). The analysis acknowledges the general shift in explanatory emphasis from considerations of static cost efficiency towards more dynamic interpretations that highlight the creation and use of knowledge as their pivotal theoretical element. By placing these changes within a common conceptual framework the paper shows how different theoretical solutions provide distinct points of departure for subsequent policy recommendations. Three distinctive groups of solutions are identified focussing respectively on local spillovers, on competitiveness and on the region and its development. The paper concludes by identifying areas of particular ambiguity where further theoretical work is most urgently needed. |
| Keywords: | Cluster; cluster theory; industrial district; innovtive milieu; regional policy |
| JEL: | L22 R10 R58 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:05-09&r=mic |
| By: | Andrea Fosfuri; Marco S Giarratana; Alessandra Luzzi |
| Abstract: | Open source software (OSS) has recently emerged as a new way to organize innovation and product development in the software industry. This paper investigates the factors that explain the investment of profit-oriented firms in OSS products. Drawing on the resource-based theory of the firm, we focus on the role played by pre-OSS firm assets both upstream and downstream, in the software and the hardware dimensions, to explain the rate of product introduction in OSS. Using a self-assembled database of firms that have announced releases of OSS products during the period 1995-2003, we find that the intensity of product introduction can be explained by a strong position in software technology and downstream market presence in hardware. Firms with consolidated market presence in proprietary software and strong technological competences in hardware are more reluctant to shift to the new paradigm. The evidence is stronger for operating systems than for applications. The fear of cannibalization, the crucial role of absorptive capacity, and complementarities between hardware and software are plausible explanations behind our findings. |
| Keywords: | Product introduction; open source software; absorptive capacity |
| JEL: | L86 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:05-10&r=mic |
| By: | Darla Hatton MacDonald (Policy and Economics Research Unit,CSIRO Land and Water); Sebastien Lamontagne |
| Abstract: | It is often said that water is under-priced and that if the full cost of water were charged, water use would be more sustainable. Moving from a statement to actual practice requires a shift in thinking about the fundamental economics. Australia has embarked on a process of economic reform and part of the reform package in the water sector has required States within Australia to report on progress towards full cost pricing, including the set of costs and in some circumstances, benefits, through changes to the environment. |
| Keywords: | water, full cost, economics, externalities, Murray-Darling Basin |
| JEL: | Q0 Q1 Q2 |
| Date: | 2004–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csi:report:04_005&r=mic |