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on Small Business Management |
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Issue of 2011‒11‒14
twenty papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of Beira Interior and Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Iris Wanzenböck; Thomas Scherngell; Fischer Manfred |
| Abstract: | In the recent past, interest of Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) policies to influence the innovation behaviour of firms has been increased considerably. This gives rise to the notion of behavioural additionality, broadening traditional evaluation concepts of input and output additionality. Though there is empirical work measuring behavioural additionalities, we know little about what role distinct firm characteristics play for their occurrence. The objective is to estimate how distinct firm characteristics influence the realisation of behavioural additionalities. We use survey data on 155 firms, considering the behavioural additionalities stimulated by the Austrian R&D funding scheme in the field of intelligent transport systems in 2006. We focus on three different forms of behavioural additionality – project additionality, scale additionality and cooperation additionality – and employ binary regression models to address this question. Results indicate that R&D related firm characteristics significantly affect the realisation of behavioural additionality. Firms with a high level of R&D resources are less likely to substantiate behavioural additionalities, while small, young and technologically specialised firms more likely realise behavioural additionalities. From a policy perspective, this indicates that direct R&D promotion of firms with high R&D resources may be misallocated, while attention of public support should be shifted to smaller, technologically specialised firms with lower R&D experience. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p297&r=sbm |
| By: | Ricardo Monge-González; Juan A. Rodríguez-Alvarez; John Hewitt; Jeffrey Orozco; Keynor Ruiz |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the degree to which innovation by Costa Rican manufacturing firms creates or displaces employment, how different innovation strategies affect employment, and how these effects vary by firm size and type of employment demand characteristics (skills and gender). In particular the research focuses on the differential effects of product and process innovations on employment growth. Particular attention is paid to identifying innovation impacts on employment generation by SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises). |
| Keywords: | Science & Technology :: Research & Development, Labor :: Workforce & Employment, Private Sector :: SME, Science & Technology :: New Technologies, Innovation, employment, skills, genders, SMEs, Costa Rica |
| JEL: | O31 O38 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:54278&r=sbm |
| By: | Mercedes Teruel; Agustà Segarra |
| Abstract: | This paper draws on a sample of innovative Catalan firms to identify the effects of the two main sources of innovation —internal R&D and external R&D acquisition— on productivity in the manufacturing and service industries. The sample comprises a 3,267 firms from the CIS-4 for the years 2002-2004. We compare empirical results when applying usual OLS and quantile regression techniques. Our results suggest the different patterns attributable to the two sources of innovation as we move up from lower to higher conditional quantiles. First, the effect of the marginal effect of internal R&D on productivity in both sectors decreased as we moved up to higher productivity levels. Second, the marginal effect of external R&D acquisition increased as we moved up to higher productivity levels, especially in high-tech manufacturing industries. Our empirical results suggest that the link between internal and external R&D is complex, varying between firms’ productivity levels and between industries. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p1860&r=sbm |
| By: | Andres Jung; Cecilia Plottier |
| Abstract: | It is widely acknowledged that young ventures and fast growing firms have a strong impact on economic growth and employment creation. It is not only entrepreneurial dynamics associated to entry and exit of new ventures, but also the ability of firms to survive and grow, that is important for economic development. Fast growing firms (not necessarily new), are the most dynamic agents in the economy and play a key role in job creation. Despite the economic impact of fast growing ventures, knowledge about the factors driving their growth path is unclear. A better understanding about how these factors work is important for developing countries, particularly for Latin American economies. Our study intends to contribute to entrepreneurship literature in two ways: a) integrating firm level factors associated to growth, with the local or sectorial environment within which those firms operate, in a small Latin American economy (Uruguay); b) framing that analysis within the context of a regional trade block (Mercosur). Entrepreneurship literature about these issues is scarce for developing economies, and our conjecture is that factors associated to micro and meso level of analysis, in this regional context, matter for how firms overcome the growth barriers they face. In our study, we analyze how firm and context level factors interact so as to explain employment growth of a sample of Uruguayan SMEs, during 2003-2007, period of strong economic expansion that followed a deep recession. Uruguay is a small and relatively open economy, located between Argentina and Brazil, partners in a regional trade agreement (Mercosur). We intend also to analyze how being part of this trade block has influence on firm growth. Preliminary results show, as expected, that small, young and internationalized firms tend to grow faster. Also, that regional and sectorial characteristics influence the ability of SMEs to surmount barriers to growth. Finally, some characteristics of the integration of the regional trade block into the world economy seem to be relevant to explain firm growth in Uruguay. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p1502&r=sbm |
| By: | Torben Klarl |
| Abstract: | A large and still growing body of literature suggests that entrepreneurship is of exceptional importance in explaining regional specific efficiencies of knowledge spillovers. Although quantifying the impact of entrepreneurial activity for economic growth is an interesting issue -- particularly at the regional level -- a consice formulation within a theoretical growth model is missing. This paper in general tries to uncover the link between own- and neighbour-related regional entrepreneurial activity in innovation and regional growth within a spatial semi-endogenous growth model in the spirit of Jones (1995) reflecting recent empirical findings on entrepreneurial activity for economic growth. The paper makes the following points: firstly, the degree of tacit knowledge spillover within the R\&D-sector is positively related to own and neigbhour-related entrepreneurial activity and secondly, for a given entrepreneur's willingness to invest in R\&D-projects the degree of tacit knowledge spillover is higher with stronger institutions. The paper derives an explicit solution for the transitional as well as for the balanced growth path level of entrepreneurs' innovative activities. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p278&r=sbm |
| By: | Roberto Alvarez; José Miguel Benavente; Rolando Campusano; Conrado Cuevas |
| Abstract: | This paper compiles and analyzes several sources of information to shed light on the relationship between innovation and employment growth in the manufacturing industry in Chile in the last 15 years. Our overall conclusions are that process innovation is generally not found to be a relevant determinant of employment growth, and that product innovation is usually positively associated with an expansion in employment. These results seem to be similar regardless of firm size and hold for both low- and high-tech industries. Our findings reveal that in-house R&D (make only strategy) is positively related with employment growth. However, this is not the case for the sample of small firms. With respect to employment growth by types of workers, skilled vs. unskilled, the evidence is less robust. However, in-house R&D appears to favor employment growth for both types of workers in low-tech industries. |
| Keywords: | Science & Technology :: Research & Development, Labor :: Workforce & Employment, Science & Technology :: New Technologies, Innovation, new technology employment, research & development, Chile |
| JEL: | D2 J23 L1 O31 O33 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:54258&r=sbm |
| By: | Petri Ruuskanen; Tomi Kankainen |
| Abstract: | During the last decade, there has been wide agreement on the importance of dynamic capabilities on economic performance of firms. Simultaneously an increasing literature suggests that economic dynamics is embedded in social relations and social institutions. In this article, the determinants of dynamic capabilities of small manufacturing Finnish firms will be explored. Specifically we focus on the importance of social capital for firm dynamics. According to analysis, the most important antecedents of dynamic capabilities of firms are its strategy and social capital. Social capital as wide and active participation in network cooperation correlates statistically significantly with the firm dynamics. Social capital increases firm dynamics by enhancing communication and knowledge spillovers in corporate networks. Active networkers gain important information from their bridging and linking ties, such as other firms and public institutions. According to the analysis, the increase of trust in business relations does not correlate with the dynamic capabilities. Instead trust acts as a trigger factor when firms consider their network activities. Keywords: social capital, networks, trust, dynamic capabilities, small and medium sized enterprises |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p806&r=sbm |
| By: | Hajjem, Olfa; Ayadi, Mohamed; Garrouste, Pierre |
| Abstract: | This article analyzes the determinants of the French companies’ innovation activity while highlighting the importance and the complementarities of the organizational and technological practices’impact. Our results suggest on one hand, that the product or process innovation is determined by the internal and external attributes of the company (size, demand pull and technological class). On the other hand, the complementarities tests between the technological (R&D activity and technological partnership) and organizational practices showed that these strategies are interconnected and that they have complementary effects which call for their simultaneous adoption. Accordingly, to be able to benefit completely from the positive effect of the partnership and the R&D efforts on innovation, they must be accompanied by certain organizational practices related to a good skills management and the implementation of an organizational architecture facilitating the knowledge creation and sharing. |
| Keywords: | innovation; complementarities; technological and organizational competencies |
| JEL: | L23 O32 C25 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:34617&r=sbm |
| By: | Hans Lööf |
| Abstract: | Firms display persistent differences as regards both internal and external characteristics, and these differences correspond to asymmetries in the performance of firms with regard to productivity level and growth as well as innovativeness. This paper focuses on one internal characteristic and one external factor by distinguishing between firms with persistent R&D efforts and other firms and firms located in a metropolitan region versus firms with other locations. Applying Swedish data on individual firms and their location, the paper shows that firms that follow a strategy with persistent R&D efforts have a distinctly higher level of productivity across all types of location. In addition, the productivity level of firms with persistent R&D is augmented in a significant way when such firms have a metropolitan location and, in particular, a location in a metropolitan city |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p1396&r=sbm |
| By: | Hugo Pinto |
| Abstract: | Knowledge transfer is a crucial aspect for the new paradigm of science-industry cooperation. The new role of universities and the relevance of external knowledge to firm's competitiveness brought a huge attention to this process both in analytical and decision-making terms. Commonly, formal mechanisms as intellectual property rights licensing, research contracts and spinning-off are the focus of the policy interventions and studies but the role of informality is being underlined by several recent research results. This article explores the crucial factors that induce science and industry collaborations in Andalusia, a catching-up region in Spanish and European context. The study uses limited dependent and count data regression analysis based in a survey applied in parallel to research groups and firms. The estimated regressions create a mirror image between these two institutional spheres stressing aspects that are more relevant in each reality to stimulate the existence, number, diversity and informality of knowledge transfer. The results give relevant insights for policies to stimulate knowledge transfer in technology moderate intensive South European regions. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p212&r=sbm |
| By: | José L. González-PernÃa; Iñaki Peña-Legazkue |
| Abstract: | Although export-oriented new ventures and the field of international entrepreneurship have received considerable attention by scholars during the last decade (Oviatt and McDougla, 2005), their potential economic impact has not been sufficiently analyzed yet. To the best of our knowledge, no studies on this issue have been carried out at regional level. Despite the increasing impact of globalization, regions have emerged as the essential and active unit of economic development process (Scott and Stopper, 2003). Regions are influential environments fostering entrepreneurship (Feldman, 2000). This is especially true for knowledge-based entrepreneurship since proximity to knowledge sources matters in order to discover opportunities and exploit them (Audretsch, 1998). Moreover, regions differ culturally and economically, and such differences encourage or discourage people to venture in entrepreneurial activity. We analyze the impact of export-oriented entrepreneurship on regional growth using data provided by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor project and the Spanish Institute of Statistics, for 17 NUTS-2 Spanish regions over a period of six years. After controlling for catching-up effects (van Stel et al., 2005), as well as, other drivers of economic growth (e.g. change in technology capability and human capital), we found evidence that those regions with a higher percentage of adult population involved in export-oriented entrepreneurship experience a higher GDP growth. This relationship is greater as the level of foreign customers served by the entrepreneurial initiatives is substantially higher (i.e., at least 1%, 25% or 75% of customers located abroad). These results support those found at national level by Hessels and van Stel (2009). However, our paper adds to the extant literature on entrepreneurship by analyzing the role of entrepreneurial activity with different levels of export intensity on regional growth under a longitudinal context. Policy implications derived from these results suggest that trade policies for export promotion among new ventures should be carried out at regional level. Otherwise, exporting new ventures may concentrate only on certain regions, which would help to increase differences on growth within a nation. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p1526&r=sbm |
| By: | Renato Garcia; Veneziano Araujo; Suelene Mascarini; Emerson Santos |
| Abstract: | The main aim of this paper is to exam the local dimension of the university and industry linkages. It is widely recognized in the literature that academic research is an important source of new knowledge to the innovative efforts of the firms. Many authors, such as Audrescht and Feldman (1996), Acs and Varga (2005), Breschi and Lissoni (2009), have shown that academic research is positively correlated with firms’ innovation at the geographical level. There are two reasons that are pointed out for this correlation. First, there are many ways in which knowledge generated by academic research can spill over to the firms, such as research papers, patents and informal contacts. Second, geographical proximity can encourage cooperation between academic researchers and the R&D staff in the firms. In this way, this paper tries to measure empirically the geographical dimension of the university-industry linkages in Brazil, in the same way to the first effort presented in ERSA 2010 (Garcia et al, 2010). To do that, it was used data from the Brazilian Research Council (CNPq), collected at the CNPq Directory of Research Groups of Brazilian universities. The data shows that in 2008 there were 22,797 research groups from 422 institutions. Among these research groups, 2,726 declared that they have interactions with more than 3,800 firms, which means 5,132 interactions between university and industry. Data were organized both in firm-level and in research group-level; allow the identification of the localization of the firm and of the research group. Among the 5,132 interactions between firms and research groups, it was possible to see that 43.6% of interactions occur inside the same city; 51.2% inside the same region; and 75.3% in the same state. These results show the importance of the local dimension of the interactions between academic research of the university and innovative efforts of the firms. In addition, it was done some empirical tests in order to identify the main factors that contribute to foster university-industry linkages. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p581&r=sbm |
| By: | Cilem Selin Hazir |
| Abstract: | Empirical evidence shows that research is being carried out more in cooperation or in collaboration with others, and the networks described by these collaborative research activities are becoming more and more complex. This phenomenon brings about new strands of research questions and opens up a different research context in the area of geography of innovation. The recent set of literature addressing these new issues shows a high degree of variation in terms of focus, approaches and methodology. Hence to elucidate the relationship between networks and geography it is crucial to have a review them. In this regard, this study focuses on a particular type of networks, namely, project based R&D networks and aims at describing the state-of-the-art in explaining the specificity of geography in formation and evolution of such networks. Towards this aim, we framed the discussion along four lenses: the specificity of geography in partner choice, in successful execution of the collaboration, in the resulting innovation performance both at the organizational and regional level, and the spatio-temporal evolution of networks. The overview provided by the survey is suggestive regarding the theorization of geography and network relationship, and informative regarding the issues demanding further research effort, and promising extensions. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p1616&r=sbm |
| By: | Bode, Alexander; Alig, Simon |
| Keywords: | Innovation management, innovation strategy, innovation cooperation, innovation network |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dar:wpaper:54933&r=sbm |
| By: | Maria Manuela Natário; João Pedro Couto; Ascensão Maria Braga; Teresa Maria Tiago |
| Abstract: | There is interest in both academic literature and regional governments about the innovativeness of regions and the drivers of that competitiveness, especially if considering the impact on economic development and social progress. Innovation is the base for the global competitiveness. Innovative capacity enables regions to increase their productivity and attract investments, thereby sustaining continuous progress in the quality and standard of living. This study aims to measure regions’ innovativeness in different European regions and to evaluate the nature of the innovation process and the relationship existing between its innovativeness’ and its region of origin. It proceeds from the assumption that the competitiveness of a region is reflected in its innovation capacity or innovation dynamic. The literature review regarding regions’ innovativeness produces some insights regarding to the effect of contextual elements on regions performance. Thus, the objective is to compare the European regions to verify the existence of subjacent clusters and find out the characteristics that distinguish the different group of regions. The innovative capacity is considered in terms of innovative output and several factors are analysed to identify and differentiate the dynamics of innovations of the regions. The results point to the existence of five groups of regions, and the factors identified are related to innovation process, namely forms of innovation, factors and objectives of innovation and with aspects related to the innovation framework such as tertiary education and life-long learning, business and public R&D expenses, and level of collaboration for innovating. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p466&r=sbm |
| By: | Link, Albert N. (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics); Scott, John T. (Dartmouth College) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the impacts of the U.S. publicly-funded Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program’s funding on the overall employment growth of SBIR-award recipient firms. This paper is motivated by the U.S. Congress’ continued emphasis of employment growth during its deliberations on the reauthorization of the SBIR program. We set forth a model of employment growth; the model offers a framework through which we can compare the firm’s actual level of employment after receipt of an SBIR award and completion of the research project to the level of employment predicted by the firm’s characteristics prior to the award. Using data collected by the National Research Council within the National Academies, we estimate our model, and we conclude that, on average, the overall employment effects associated with the SBIR program are large absolutely and relative to dollars of funding, but these effects are, in general, not statistically significant. |
| Keywords: | Employment growth; Entrepreneurship; Innovation; Technology; Small business |
| JEL: | J48 L26 O31 O38 |
| Date: | 2011–10–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:uncgec:2011_017&r=sbm |
| By: | Tian, Can |
| Abstract: | Various empirical works have shown that dispersion of firm-level profitability is significantly countercyclical. I incorporate firms' technology adoption decision into firm dynamics model with business cycle features to explain these empirical findings both qualitatively and quantitatively. The option of endogenous exiting and credit constraint jointly play an important role in motivating firms' risk taking behavior. The model predicts that relatively small sized firms are more likely to take risk, and that the dispersion measured as the variance/standard deviation of firm-level profitability is larger in recessions, which are consistent to the data. |
| Keywords: | Firm Dynamics; Business Cycles; Countercyclical Dispersion |
| JEL: | L25 L11 E32 |
| Date: | 2011–05–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:34480&r=sbm |
| By: | Michael Barber; Thomas Scherngell |
| Abstract: | Interactions between firms, universities, and research organizations are crucial for successful innovation in the modern knowledge-based economy. Systems of such interactions constitute R&D networks. R&D networks may be meaningful segmented using recent methods for identifying communities, subnetworks whose members are more tightly linked to one another than to other members of the network. In this paper, we identify such communities in the European R&D network using data on joint research projects funded by the fifth European Framework Programme. We characterize the identified communities according to their thematic orientation and spatial structure. By means of a Poisson spatial interaction model, we estimate the impact of various separation factors – such as geographical distance – on the variation of cross-region collaboration activities in a given community. The European coverage is achieved by using data on 255 NUTS-2 regions of the 25 pre-2007 EU member-states, as well as Norway and Switzerland. The results demonstrate that European R&D networks are not homogeneous, instead showing relevant community substructures with distinct thematic and spatial properties. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p392&r=sbm |
| By: | Eero Lehto |
| Abstract: | Industries have varying abilities to benefit from externalities associated with geographical concentration, and are also likely to suffer in different degrees from crowding costs. This makes industries differ in their concentration process. We hypothesize that firms with low education levels (low tech) tend to be concentrated in areas with low urban costs and small populations, and firms with high education levels (high tech) to be concentrated in areas with high urban costs and large populations. This is shown to be true with Finnish regional-industry data. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p832&r=sbm |
| By: | Michael Wyrwich |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates regional sources of entrepreneurial opportunities of knowledge-intensive start-up activity. Thereby it is investigated whether it makes a difference if the knowledge-intensive sector is a newly emerging industry compared to the case where its location across space could develop already over a long period of time. The analysis is on knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) in East and West Germany in the 1990s. At the time of German re-unification in 1990s in the former socialist East Germany no KIBS sector existed in contrast to West Germany. The findings indicate that being new to the region makes a difference. Note: My other choice was to submit this paper for an R-Session. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa11p1711&r=sbm |