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on Small Business Management |
|
Issue of 2015‒05‒22
thirteen papers chosen by João Carlos Correia Leitão Universidade da Beira Interior |
| By: | Tom Broekel; Dirk Fornahl; Andrea Morrison |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the allocation of R&D subsidies with a focus on the granting success of firms located in clusters. On this basis it is evaluated whether firms in these clusters are differently embedded into networks of subsidized R&D collaboration than firms located elsewhere. The theoretical arguments are empirically tested using the example of the German biotechnology firms’ participation in the 6th EU-Framework Programmes and national R&D subsidization schemes in the early 2000s. We show that clusters grant firms another premium to their location, as they are more likely to receive funds from the EU-Framework Programmes and hold more favourable positions in national knowledge networks based on subsidies for joint R&D. |
| Keywords: | Innovation policy, R&D subsidy, collaboration networks, embeddedness, technology cluster |
| JEL: | R11 O33 R58 D85 |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1514&r=sbm |
| By: | Mery Patricia Tamayo (Grupo de Economía y Empresa, Departamento de Economía, Universidad EAFIT, Universidad EAFIT and GRIPICOUCM, carrera 49 No 7 sur – 50, Medellín, Colombia.); Elena Huergo (Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico I (Análisis Económico), Facultad de CC. Económicas y Empresariales. Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Campus de Somosaguas, 28223 Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid (Spain); Grupo de Investigación en Productividad, Innovación y Competencia (GRIPICO) (Group for Research in Productivity, Innovation and Competition), Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales (Faculty of Economics and Business), Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Complutense University of Madrid)) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the determinants of R&D offshoring of Spanish firms using infor-mation from the Panel of Technological Innovation. We find that being an exporter, continuous R&D engagement, applying for patents, being a subsidiary, and firm size are factors that positively affect the decision to offshore R&D. In addition, we obtain that the factors that influence this decision for firms that belong to a business group differ depending on whether the firm purchases R&D services within the group or through the market. |
| Abstract: | Este trabajo analiza los determinantes del offshoring de I+D de las empresas españolas utilizando información del Panel de Innovación Tecnológica. Los resultados indican que ser exportador, realizar I+D de forma continua, solicitar patentes, ser una filial y el tamaño de la empresas afectan positivamente a la decisión de realizar offshoring de I+D. Además, se obtiene que los factores que influyen en esta decisión para las empresas que pertenecen a grupos empresariales difieren dependiendo de si la empresa compra los servicios de I+D dentro del grupo o a través del mercado. |
| Keywords: | R&D offshoring, firms’ strategies, obstacles to innovation, independent firms, subsidiaries, estrategias empresariales, obstáculos a la innovación, empresas independientes, filiales. |
| JEL: | L24 O32 |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucm:doctra:15-01&r=sbm |
| By: | Tavassoli, Sam (CIRCLE, Lund University and Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona); Karlsson, Charlie (Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona; Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies (CESIS), KTH, Stockholm and Jönköping International Business School, Jönköping) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the persistency in innovation behavior of firms. Using five waves of the Community Innovation Survey in Sweden, we have traced the innovative behavior of firms over a ten-year period, i.e. between 2002 and 2012. We distinguish between four types of innovations: process, product, marketing, and organizational innovations. First, using Transition Probability Matrix, we found evidence of (unconditional) state dependence in all types of innovation, with product innovators having the strongest persistent behavior. Second, using a dynamic probit model, we found evidence of “true” state dependency among all types of innovations, except marketing innovators. Once again, the strongest persistency was found for product innovators. |
| Keywords: | Persistence; innovation; product innovations; process innovations; market innovations; organizational innovations; state dependence; heterogeneity; firms; Community Innovation Survey |
| JEL: | D22 L20 O31 O32 |
| Date: | 2015–05–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2015_019&r=sbm |
| By: | Braunerhjelm, Pontus (Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum, Department of Industrial Economics and Management, Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies (CESIS) & Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)); Desai, Sameeksha (Indiana University); Eklund, Johan E. (Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum and Jönköping International Business School) |
| Abstract: | Entrepreneurship can have important positive effects linked to job creation, wealth and income generation, innovation and industry competitiveness. Scholars and policy-makers around the world have turned to the regulatory environment as a mechanism through which entrepreneurship can be encouraged, grown and its economic benefits harnessed. The effect of regulatory conditions on entrepreneurship however is not well understood, and can be nuanced given the wide range of regulatory tools and possible areas of impact. This paper serves as the introduction to a special issue, which seeks to shed some light on the relationship between regulation, firm dynamics and entrepreneurship. We identify some foundational considerations relevant to this relationship and discuss key questions, followed by a brief overview of each of the papers contained in the special issue. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship; regulation; firm; entry |
| JEL: | K20 L30 L51 M13 |
| Date: | 2015–05–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0405&r=sbm |
| By: | Dionisius A. NARJOKO (Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia, Indonesia) |
| Abstract: | Technology transfers are important channels for firms in developing countries to get access to new technology and initiate innovation. This paper examines the geographical pattern of technology transfers in the form of buyer-provided training in domestic and international production networks. Our unique buyer-supplier network data in four countries in Southeast Asia allow us to directly observe the buyer-supplier relationship as well as the existence of inter-firm provision of training for product/process innovation in order to investigate the geographical structure of knowledge acquisition, dissemination, and aggregation among local and non-local firms. The empirical analysis finds the following: (i) the probability of having training provided by the main buyer presents a U-shaped quadratic pattern with respect to the geographical distance between the respondent firms and the main buyers. The geographical proximity to the main buyer seems to be particularly important for local firms. (ii) The training provision is likely for both local and non-local firms when the main buyer is a multinational located in the same country. (iii) The probability of having training from the main buyer is high when the main buyer conducts R&D. (iv) Both local and non-local firms that have training provided by their main buyers are likely to provide training to their main suppliers. (v) In the case of non-local firms, product innovation with production partners is more likely when they have upstream/downstream training. However, such links seem to be weaker in the case of local firms |
| Keywords: | buyer-provided training; FDI spillovers; backward linkages; Southeast Asia |
| JEL: | M5 O31 O32 R12 |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:era:wpaper:dp-2015-40&r=sbm |
| By: | G. Dosi; M. Grazzi; D. Moschella |
| Abstract: | In this work we analyze the relationship between the patterns of firm diversification, if any, across product lines and across bodies of innovative knowledge, proxied by the patent classes where the firm is present. Putting it more emphatically we investigate the relationship between "what a firm does" and "what a firm knows". Using a newly developed dataset matching information on patents and products at the firm level, we provide evidence concerning firms' technological and product scope, their relationships, the size-scaling and coherence properties of diversification itself. Our analysis shows that typically firms are much more diversified in terms of products than in terms of technologies, with their main products more related to the exploitation of their innovative knowledge. The scaling properties show that the number of products and technologies increase log-linearly with firm size. And the directions of diversification themselves display coherence between neighboring activities also at relatively high degrees of diversification. These findings are well in tune with a capability-based theory of the firm. |
| JEL: | C81 D22 L20 L25 O31 |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp1004&r=sbm |
| By: | Jonathan Borggren; Rikard H. Eriksson; Urban Lindgren |
| Abstract: | Following the impact on regional renewal and employment ascribed to rapidly growing firms (high-impact firms, HIFs), this paper argues that little is still known in economic geography and business studies today regarding the mechanisms influencing growth of such firms and, hence, the potential impact on regional employment. The aim of this paper is thus to explore how the qualitative content of skills (i.e. the degree of similarity, relatedness and unrelatedness) recruited to a firm during a period of fast growth influences its future success. Our findings, based on a sample of 1,589 HIFs in the Swedish economy, suggest that it is not only the number of people employed that matters in aiding the understanding of the future destiny of the firms –"but also, more importantly, it is the scope of the skills recruited and their proximity to related industries. |
| Keywords: | high-impact firms, skills, relatedness, labor flows |
| JEL: | L25 R12 R23 |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1512&r=sbm |
| By: | Fafchamps, Marcel; Woodruff, Christopher |
| Abstract: | We conduct a business plan competition to test whether survey instruments or panel judges are able to identify the fastest growing firms. Participants submitted six- to eight-page business plans and defended them before a three- or four-judge panel. We surveyed applicants shortly after they applied, and one and two years after the competition. We use follow-up surveys to construct measures of enterprise growth potential. We find that a measure of ability correlates strongly with future growth, but that panel scores add to predictive power even after controlling for ability and other survey variables. The survey questions have more power to explain the variance in growth. Participants presenting before the panel were given a chance to win customized management training. Fourteen months after the training, we find no positive effect of the training on growth of the business. |
| Keywords: | business plan competitions; firm growth; high growth entrepreneurship |
| JEL: | J24 L26 O1 |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10597&r=sbm |
| By: | Fassio, Claudio (CIRCLE, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effect of exporting activities on the innovation strategies of firms in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK. It puts forward the hypothesis that the positive effect usually found in the related literature is driven by two main mechanisms. The first is a technological learning effect that allows firms active in international markets to benefit from foreign knowledge spillovers in technologically advanced markets and decrease their research cost for the development of innovations. The second is a foreign demand effect according to which the increase of demand induced by the access to foreign markets increases also the profitability of introducing innovations. The paper uses firm-level information about the export destinations of exporters and creates two indices to proxy the two effects, using respectively foreign R&D intensity and foreign growth of imports of the countries of destination of exports, measured at the sectoral level. The empirical analysis, which takes into account possible endogeneity issues related with the firms’ strategic choice of the markets of destination, shows that the two effects induce the adoption of different innovation strategies: while the technological learning effect increases mainly the incentives to introduce brand new product innovations, the foreign demand effect fosters the adoption of efficiency strategies. |
| Keywords: | Export activity; Innovation strategies; Destination of exports; International Spillovers; International demand |
| JEL: | F10 O33 P51 |
| Date: | 2015–05–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2015_017&r=sbm |
| By: | Catini, Roberto; Karamshuk, Dmytro; Penner, Orion; Riccaboni, Massimo |
| Abstract: | In recent years there has been a growing interest in the role of networks and clusters in the global economy. Despite being a popular research topic in economics, sociology and urban studies, geographical clustering of human activity has often studied been by means of predetermined geographical units such as administrative divisions and metropolitan areas. This approach is intrinsically time invariant and it does not allow one to differentiate between different activities. Our goal in this paper is to present a new methodology for identifying clusters, that can be applied to different empirical settings. We use a graph approach based on k-shell decomposition to analyze world biomedical research clusters based on PubMed scientific publications. We identify research institutions and locate their activities in geographical clusters. Leading areas of scientific production and their top performing research institutions are consistently identified at different geographic scales. |
| Keywords: | innovation clusters; network analysis; bio-pharmaceutical industry |
| JEL: | C6 O31 R12 |
| Date: | 2015–05–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:64454&r=sbm |
| By: | Letizia Montinari; Massimo Riccaboni; Stefano Schiavo |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to the literature explaining firm-level heterogenenity in the extensive margin of trade, defined as the number of products exported by each firm. We develop a dynamic model where firms must invest in RD to maintain and increase their portfolio of goods: the process of product innovation by incumbent firms is such that the probability to capture new products is a function of the number of varieties already exported. Varieties can also be produced from scratch by new entrepreneurs. The entry/exit dynamics of varieties, together with population growth that characterize the economy, gives rise to a distribution for the number of products exported by each firm with a heavy right tail, which is consistent with the data. This markedly heterogeneous behavior in export markets occur even if we do not assume any heterogeneity in productivity to start with. On the other hand, we assume that differences in export sales across products originate from the demand- side of the model, in the form of a product-specific preference attribute. Finally, a simple extension of the model allows us to derive some interesting insights on the behavior of multi-products firms: sales of different products across destinations are not uncorrelated, but show a rather strict hierarchy. |
| Keywords: | international trade, extensive margin, innovation, preferential attachment, multi-product firms |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trn:utwpem:2015/04&r=sbm |
| By: | Mieczyslaw Adamowicz (Pope John Paul II State School of Higher Education in Biala Podlaska); Aldona Machla (Warsaw University of Life Sciences) |
| Abstract: | Subjects of research are small and medium enterprises in local scales of Pultusk town and community and policy of local authorities related to SME sector. The main task of research is an avaluation, in random sample of enterpreneurs, of the SME support system and instruments used by local authorities. Results of empirical survey were suttled in subject literature analysis and presented by comparing to the national charakteristics of MSE sector and its structure in Poland, and linking these to general suport policy by central and lokal governments. |
| Keywords: | Small and Medium Enterprises Sector, support policy for SME, Pultusk town and community, development factors and barriers for SME |
| JEL: | A11 |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pes:wpaper:2015:no124&r=sbm |
| By: | Boschma, Ron (CIRCLE, Lund University and Regional research centre Utrecht (URU), Utrecht University) |
| Abstract: | Klepper’s theory of industry clustering based on organizational reproduction and inheritance through spinoffs challenged the Marshallian view on industry clustering. The paper provides an assessment of Klepper’s theoretical and empirical work on industry clustering. We explore how ‘new’ his spinoff theory on industry clustering was, and we investigate the impact of Klepper’s theory on the economic geography community. Klepper’s work has inspired especially recent literature on regional branching that argues that new industries grow out of and recombine capabilities from local related industries. Finally, the paper discusses what questions on industry location are still left open or in need of more evidence in the context of Klepper’s theory. |
| Keywords: | Klepper; spinoff dynamics; agglomeration economies; Marshall; industry cluster; evolutionary economic geography |
| JEL: | B15 B52 O18 R11 |
| Date: | 2015–05–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2015_018&r=sbm |