Competition favors the prepared firm: Firms’ R&D responses to competitive market pressure

This paper aims to contribute to the literature on the long-debated relationship between market competition and firm research and development (R&D) by investigating the effect of competitive market pressure on firms’ incentives to invest in R&D. The paper shows that a firm's R&D response to competitive market pressure depends primarily on its level of technological competence or R&D productivity: firms with high levels of technological competence tend to respond aggressively (i.e., exhibit a higher level of R&D efforts) to intensifying competitive market pressure, while firms with low levels of technological competence tend to respond submissively (i.e., exhibit a lower level of R&D efforts). The differential effect of competitive market pressure on firm R&D, conditioned primarily by the level of firms’ technological competence, is empirically supported by unique firm-level data from the World Bank. Furthermore, the role of firm-specific technological competence in conditioning the R&D-competition relationship is more evident and statistically more significant for firms facing consumers whose utility is relatively more elastic to product quality than to price.     

The impact of firm participation in R&D programmes on R&D partnerships

R&D subsidies designed to encourage innovation efforts by firms may have intended and unintended effects on the way they organize their innovation process. We present empirical evidence on how R&D subsidies affect firms’ R&D cooperation strategies. In particular, we investigate whether receiving public R&D subsidies affect the probability that a firm will set up an R&D partnership with a public research organization (PRO), or with other firms. Our main findings are: (i) public support significantly increases the chances that a firm will cooperate with a PRO, and (ii) public support also increases the likelihood that a firm will establish private partnerships, but to a smaller extent and only when firms have intangible knowledge assets. These results suggest that public R&D programmes trigger a behavioural change in firms’ R&D partnerships, alleviating barriers to cooperation.     

Complementarities of innovation activities: An empirical analysis of the German manufacturing sector

Innovation strategies in manufacturing often involve internal R&D activities as well as external partnerships. Thereby it is not clear if internal and external activities are complements or substitutes. This paper tests for complementarity of different innovation activities, i.e. internal R&D, R&D contracting, and R&D cooperation. The empirical analysis of cross-sectional firm level data of the German manufacturing sector comprises both indirect and direct complementarity tests; it is based on data from the German part of the Community Innovation Survey (CIS 3). The results provide evidence for significant complementarities between internal R&D and R&D cooperation, but cast doubt on the complementarity of internal and contracted R&D, since a productivity effect on firms’ patenting probability or sales with new products cannot be found.     

Under what conditions do firms benefit from the research efforts of other organizations?

Although R&D spillovers play a key role in the battle for technological leadership, it is unclear under what conditions firms build on and benefit from the discoveries of others. The study described here empirically examines this issue. The findings indicate that, depending on technological opportunities, firm size and competitive pressure, the net impact of R&D spillovers on productivity can be either positive or negative. Specifically, we find that although spillover effects are positively associated with the technological opportunities that a firm faces, this relationship is reversed when firm size is considered. Whilst external R&D affects large self-reliant firms negatively, its impact on the productivity of smaller firms (who usually introduce incremental innovations that are characterized by a strong reliance on external technologies) is positive, and even higher than that of their own R&D. We also demonstrate that the economic payoff for firms’ own R&D is lower when they face intense competition. In cases of low-appropriability, however, spillover effects are more positive, allowing firms to increase their performance using the inventions of others.     

Do R&D subsidies affect SMEs’ access to external financing?

Many countries spend sizeable sums of public money on R&D grants to alleviate debt and equity gaps for small firms’ innovation projects. In making such awards, knowledgeable government officials may certify firms to private financiers. Using a unique Belgian dataset of 1107 approved requests and a control group of denied requests for a specific type of R&D grant, we examine the impact of subsidies on small firms’ access to external equity, short term and long term debt financing. We find that obtaining an R&D subsidy provides a positive signal about SME quality and results in better access to long-term debt.     

From knowledge to added value: A comparative, panel-data analysis of the innovation value chain in Irish and Swiss manufacturing firms

The innovation value chain (IVC) divides the innovation process into three separate links or activities: knowledge gathering, knowledge transformation and knowledge exploitation. Here, we report a comparative panel data analysis of the IVC in Ireland and Switzerland. Both economies are small, very open and depend significantly on innovation to maintain competitive advantage. In recent years, however, R&D and innovation growth in Ireland has been markedly stronger than that in Switzerland. We investigate these differences through the ‘lens’ of the IVC. Significant similarities exist between some aspects of firms’ innovation behaviour in each country: strong complementarities emerge between external knowledge sources and between firms’ internal and external knowledge. And, in both countries, in-house R&D and links to customers prove important drivers of innovation. Innovation drives productivity growth in different ways in the two countries, however, through product change in Switzerland and through process change in Ireland. Other differences in the determinants of innovation performance linked to ownership and firms’ institutional context emphasise the systemic nature of innovation and the legacy of past patterns of industrial development.     

Fishing upstream: Firm innovation strategy and university research alliances

This paper examines how innovation strategy influences firms’ level of involvement with university-based research. Our results suggest that firms with internal R&D strategies more heavily weighted toward exploratory activities allocate a greater share of their R&D resources to exploratory university research and develop deeper multifaceted relationships with their university research partners. In addition, firms with more centralized internal R&D organizations spend a greater share of their R&D dollars on exploratory research conducted at universities. In contrast to other external partners, we find evidence suggesting that universities are preferred when the firm perceives potential conflicts over intellectual property.     

Investments in modernization, innovation and gains in productivity: Evidence from firms in the global paper industry

This paper examines the impact of investments in modernization and innovation on productivity in a sample of firms in the global pulp and paper industry. This industry has traditionally accounted for significant amounts of employment and capital investment in North America and Europe. In contrast to much of the existing literature which focuses on the impact of R&D and patents on firms’ performance and productivity, we examine data on actual investment transactions in four main areas: (i) mechanical, (ii) chemicals, (iii) monitoring devices and (iv) information technology. We find that firms that implemented a greater number of investment transactions in modernization achieved higher productivity, and these estimated quantitative effects are greater than the impact of standard innovation variables such as patents and R&D. Investment transactions in the information technology and digital monitoring devices imparted a particularly noticeable boost to productivity. These results are obtained after controlling for other firm-specific variables such as capital intensity or mergers and acquisitions. Thus, firms’ decisions to undertake investments in modernization and incremental innovations appear to be critical for achieving gains in productivity, compounding to form meaningful differences in performance, productivity and competitive position across firms in the longer run. For some of the traditional industries like pulp and paper, R&D and patents seem to be particularly poor indicators of innovation and, more generally, how firms go about achieving gains in productivity.     

The effects of owner identity and external governance systems on R&D investments: A study of Western European firms

This paper builds on agency and institutional theory to extend the analysis of the effects of ownership and control on R&D investments by considering the influence of different types of ownership and of institutional corporate governance systems. Our empirical analysis is based on a unique dataset of 1000 firms publicly-traded in six European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden and the UK). Controlling for industry- and firm-level effects, our findings show that higher shareholding by families is negatively associated with R&D investment. Moreover, widely-held firms invest less in R&D in the United Kingdom than in Continental European countries, thus suggesting the existence of a greater pressure towards the reduction of R&D in market-based governance systems. The results are robust against possible sample selection biases due to firms’ discretional R&D disclosure.     

Technological internationalisation in the electro-technical industry: a cross-company comparison of patenting patterns 1986-2000

This paper addresses the issue of R&D internationalisation of two multinationals in the electro-technical industry (GE and ABB), by means of a patent data analysis. The overwhelming majority of both companies’ R&D activities are concentrated in Western Europe and North America. The locational overlap between the two firms’ activities is small. These results are consistent with findings from earlier studies that (1) there is little evidence to suggest that the ‘production’ of technology is globalised in a general sense and (2) that tapping knowledge from an industry's global lead location plays a very limited role in foreign R&D investments.     

Overseas R&D, knowledge sourcing, and patenting: an empirical study of Japanese R&D investment in the US

This paper purports to study the contribution of R&D at home and abroad to the firm’s inventive activity, using a sample of 137 Japanese multinationals. The empirical analysis relates the number of inventions in Japan and that in the US, as measured by the number of patents issued by the USPTO, to the parent’s R&D, the US subsidiaries’ R&D, the presence of R&D in Europe, the firm’s experience in the US, entry mode, and industry dummies. In addition, to study the subsidiary’s role in sourcing local technological knowledge, we construct indices of local technological strength of the state in which the subsidiary is located. The results, most importantly, indicate that these indices positively contribute to inventions at home and in the US among Type R firms, whose R&D subsidiaries mainly aim to research, suggesting that knowledge sourcing is an important function of these subsidiaries and locational choice is important for this purpose. These results do not hold among Type S firms, whose R&D subsidiaries mainly aim to support local manufacturing and sales activities.     

Gender diversity in firm ownership: Direct and indirect effects on firm-level innovation across 29 emerging economies

Despite recent evidence linking various measures of gender diversity in the firm with firm-level innovation, we know little about the mediating channels underlying this relation. Building on and extending the Upper Echelon and entrepreneurship literature, we address the following question: how, i.e., through which mediating channels does gender diversity in ownership-management gets at the heart of firm innovation? We use cross-sectional survey data collected in a random sampling of 7848 firm owner-managers across 29 emerging economies during 2012–2016 to test our hypotheses. Our findings demonstrate both direct and indirect effects of our focal independent variable. Specifically, firms with greater gender diversity in ownership are more likely to invest in R&D and rely upon external capital, with such differentials explaining sizeable proportions of higher likelihoods of overall innovativeness, as well as technological and non-technological innovation exhibited by their firms. Our post-analytical extensions reveal gender diversity among the workforce and human-resource-management practices that support employees' creativity and learning as additional mediating channels through which gender diversity in ownership likely impacts firm innovation. Furthermore, gender diversity in ownership allows firms from less-advanced emerging economies to catch up in their overall innovativeness with firms from more-advanced emerging economies.     

R&D cooperation and innovation activities of firms—evidence for the German manufacturing industry

The aim of the paper is to investigate in a simultaneous equation framework the role of R&D cooperation in the innovation process—in context with other factors—from two specific aspects. First, analysis focuses on the impact of R&D cooperation on firms’ innovation input and output. Second, analysis is undertaken as to how the number of cooperation partners affects the innovation behaviour of firms. Starting with the discussion of theoretically expected effects of successful R&D cooperation on the innovation activities of firms, the importance of inter-organizational arrangements in R&D is empirically investigated in respect of firms in the German manufacturing industry. The estimation results can be summarized as follows: joint R&D is used to complement internal resources in the innovation process, enhancing the innovation input and output measured by the intensity of in-house R&D or the realization of product innovations. On the input side, the intensity of in-house R&D also stimulates the probability and the number of joint R&D activities with other firms and institutions significantly.     

First- and second-order additionality and learning outcomes in collaborative R&D programs

In this paper, we distinguish between firm-level learning effects that result from ‘first-order’ and ‘second-order’ additionalities in innovation policy interventions. ‘First-order’ additionalities represent direct firm-level R&D subsidies, whereas ‘second-order’ additionalities result from knowledge spill-overs, horizontal knowledge exchanges between firms, and from other meso- or community-level effects. Analyzing data from collaborative R&D programs in Finland, we show that enhancing identification with a community of practice among R&D program participants (proxy for second-order additionality) enhances firm-level learning outcomes beyond those resulting from direct R&D subsidy (proxy for first-order additionality). Learning effects facilitated by second-order additionality are not confined to technological learning alone, encompassing also business and market learning. We also show that aspects of program implementation enhance identification with a community of practice, which then mediate the relationship between program implementation and firm-level learning outcomes.     

What determines knowledge sourcing from host locations of overseas R&D operations?: A study of global R&D activities of Japanese multinationals

What determines knowledge sourcing from host locations of overseas R&D operations? We investigate factors that influence the extent to which overseas R&D laboratories source knowledge from host locations. Drawing on both the capabilities perspective and the embeddedness perspective, we have developed a conceptual model and then examined it empirically focusing on overseas R&D labs of Japanese multinationals. Statistical findings from negative binomial regressions show that both technological capabilities of the lab and external embeddedness in the local scientific and engineering communities matter.     

Some determinants of cost distributions in the process of technological innovation

Industrial research and development (R&D) is a set of activities within the broader set of decisions and activities: the process of technological innovation (TI). It is technology transfer (commercialization of the innovation) that leads to technology diffusion that permits production and employment expansion and hence economic growth — an important goal of industrial policy. Firms' managements and government policy- makers should recognize the close relationships among the phases of TI and direct their policy, planning, budgeting and control decisions to the complete process. Many policies currently focus their attention to only one or a few points (such as R&D).In this study we conducted a detailed cost analysis of a limited number of innovation projects and studied the distributions of TI cost over the process phases. We find that almost half of TI costs are devoted to R&D, which implies that government support of this phase is important. Different cost patterns emerge when we classify innovations by industrial sectors, firms' sizes and project complexity. Complex innovations require larger and more variable (risky) R&D budgets. Smaller firms need more assistance in technology transfer. These are only a few important policy implications. This study emphasizes the importance of post-R&D phases and concludes that differential industrial policy may be required for technological innovations.     

Environmental innovation and R&D cooperation: Empirical evidence from Spanish manufacturing firms

This paper explores the relationship between firms’ R&D cooperation strategies and their propensity to introduce environmental innovations.Previous literature has supported that environmental innovations differ from other innovations as far as externalities and drivers of their introduction are concerned, highlighting mainly the importance of regulation to trigger them. Using data from the Community Innovation Survey on Spanish manufacturing firms (PITEC), this paper investigates specificities that affect rather how they are developed, and in particular the higher importance of R&D cooperation with external partners.The econometric estimations, controlling for selection bias, suggest that environmental innovative firms cooperate on innovation with external partners to a higher extent than other innovative firms. Furthermore, cooperation with suppliers, KIBS and universities is more relevant than for other innovators, whereas cooperation with clients does not seem to be differentially important. Finally, the results bespoke of a substitution effect between cooperation activities and the internal R&D effort.     

When publications lead to products: The open science conundrum in new product development

This paper examines interdependencies between firms’ activities in the realms of open science and commercial product development. We present a theoretical framework that outlines when a firm’s involvement in academic communities enhances its innovative performance in terms of new products in development. We argue that the disclosure of more, valuable R&D work in quality scholarly publications and collaborations with academic partners positively affect firm innovation. We further hypothesize a differential effect of adopting open science strategies on the innovation type, being more pronounced for radical innovations than for incremental innovations. We empirically analyze a unique panel dataset containing information on the product innovation performance and R&D activities of 160 UK therapeutic biotechnology firms over the period 1998- 2009. Our results from count data models on the number of new products in development provide empirical support for our hypotheses.     

Strategic interactions in public R&D across European countries: A spatial econometric analysis

The paper adds to the existing literature on the determinants of government spending in Research and Development (R&D) by considering the role of strategic interactions among countries as one of the possible competing explanations, within a spatial econometric framework. We account for several factors affecting national levels of public R&D spending, including (i) the international context – i.e. Lisbon strategy; (ii) country characteristics – level of private R&D, GDP, trade openness and the National System of Innovation; (iii) countries’ similarities in relation to (a) trade and economic size and (b) sectoral specialization. The analysis is carried out on 14 European countries. First, we find that factors traditionally affecting the level of public R&D expenditure, such as the scale of the national economy, trade openness, sectoral specialization and private R&D, significantly influence the level of public R&D in European countries between 1994 and 2006. Interestingly, the introduction of the Lisbon strategy does not seem to have affected changes in the levels of public R&D spending. Second, by using different weight matrices, we confirm the existence of strategic interactions in relation to R&D spending among European countries with similar economic, international trade and sectoral structure characteristics, though not geographically close.