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.     

A theory of firm growth: Learning capability, knowledge threshold, and patterns of growth

This paper focuses on the dual role of R&D - knowledge generation and the technological-competence-enhancing effect of R&D - and its implication for the endogenous evolution of R&D productivity and the pattern of firm growth. In particular, based on the evolution of firm-specific R&D productivity or technological competence, this paper derives a simple R&D-based model of firm growth capable of explaining various aspects of firm growth. The model proposes three prototype patterns of firm growth, depending on both firm- and industry-specific characteristics. The former includes firm-specific technological-competence-enhancing capability and the initial level of technological knowledge, and the latter includes industry-specific R&D appropriability. Specifically, firms with low technological-competence-enhancing capability tend to follow a convergent growth pattern in which firm growth gradually declines, while firms with high technological-competence-enhancing capability tend to exhibit either a sustained or a vicious growth pattern depending on the initial size of their technological knowledge stock. An empirical analysis of unique data on firm growth and technological capability provides supportive evidence for the role of technological-competence-enhancing capability in conditioning the pattern of firm growth.     

Do firms in clusters invest in R&D more intensively? Theory and evidence from multi-country data

This study aims to evaluate whether firms located in clusters invest more intensively in research and development (R&D) than their non-clustered counterparts. Specifically, it proposes a model of firm R&D and tests empirically its implications for the effect of being located in a cluster on firm R&D intensity. The key ideas underlying the theory are as follows: (1) due either to natural excludability or to a high degree of stickiness of R&D-opportunity-bearing technological knowledge, geographical proximity per se is limited in the (automatic) spillover of knowledge with promising R&D opportunities to nearby firms; (2) geographical proximity may, however, help enhance the effectiveness or efficiency of knowledge exchange through market mechanisms (e.g., through contract R&D, R&D collaboration); (3) potential advantages (or disadvantages) in firm R&D of being located in a cluster also depend on the degree of asymmetry in technological competence among firms located in the cluster. The key ideas are supported by an empirical analysis of a multi-industry, multi-country data set compiled by the World Bank. In particular, the results show that being located in a cluster per se actually has a negative effect on firm R&D intensity, which is in contrast to the conventional wisdom of pure or automatic localized knowledge spillovers, as far as firm R&D intensity is concerned.     

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.     

Characteristics of research and development performing firms in Canadian manufacturing

The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the salient characteristics of R&D performing firms in Canadian manufacturing. The paper begins by presenting a brief overview of recent trends in R&D in the Canadian economy. The next section analyzes the main characteristics of those firms which undertake research and development activities in Canadian manufacturing industries. Various aspects are examined in this section including the R&D expenditure patterns of industries in the research-intensive and non-research-intensive sectors, R&D by size of firm and by size of program, levels of R&D intensity in terms of small, medium and large R&D performing firms. The importance of foreign ownership and its implication for the level of R&D activity is also considered. The paper concludes by summarizing the highlights of R&D performing firms and draws some implications for the structure of Canadian manufacturing based on the findings.     

R&D,foreign ownership,and corporate groups: Evidence from Japanese firms

This study empirically examines whether the research and development (R&D) activities of foreign-owned firms in Japan differ notably from the R&D activities of domestically-owned firms based on a firm-level panel dataset. Our study carefully disentangles the significant differences in R&D investment behavior of subsidiaries due to three different reasons: having a foreign parent, corporate group affiliation, and the degree of relatedness between business units. The results reveal the following. First, firms that are majority-owned by another firm are less active in R&D than independent firms. Second, foreign ownership does not matter if the parent firm is from a G7 country, but R&D intensity is significantly and positively associated with foreign ownership if the parent firm is from a non-G7 country. Finally, for subsidiaries whose business is related to that of their parent firm, the R&D intensity is lower if the parent is a domestic firm, but higher if it is a foreign firm. These findings imply that globalization and the integration of firms may not only affect production patterns and global supply chains, but may also have an important impact on the level of domestic R&D activities.     

Does being R&D intensive still discourage outsourcing?: Evidence from Dutch manufacturing

Being R&D intensive has traditionally been seen as an impediment to outsourcing. This study confirms that empirically this was the case for a set of manufacturing industries in The Netherlands in the early 1990s, but also shows that R&D intensity became a positive predictor for changes in outsourcing levels over the 1990s, suggesting firms in R&D intensive industries have increasingly started to rely on partnership relations with outside suppliers. This confirms the need to move the analysis from scale, opportunism and appropriation concerns to a relational perspective when studying outsourcing in R&D intensive industries.     

The role of technology standards in product innovation: Theory and evidence from UK manufacturing firms

This paper studies the role of technology standards in firms’ product innovation in terms of both incremental innovation (within a technology life cycle) and radical innovation (beyond the present technology cycle). We first develop a theoretical model which predicts that technology standards can be used by firms as an “insurance” hedging against the risky process of developing new products. This insurance mechanism fosters incremental innovation and product growth especially for those further away from the technological frontier. Using data from a weighted panel of UK manufacturing firms over seven years, we find that the use of technology standards over past years significantly enables a firm’s incremental innovation while also reducing its incentive to deliver radical innovation. Additionally, we show that this relationship is contingent on a firm’s R&D intensity in line with predictions of our theoretical model.     

Proactive R&D management and firm growth: A punctuated equilibrium model

The external environment is characterized by periods of relative stability interspersed with periods of extreme change, implying that high performing firms must practice exploration and exploitation in order to survive and thrive. In this paper, we posit that R&D expenditure volatility indicates the presence of proactive R&D management, and is evidence of a firm moving from exploitation to exploration over time. This is consistent with a punctuated equilibrium model of R&D investment where shocks are induced by reactions to external turbulence. Using an unbalanced panel of almost 11,000 firm-years from 1997 to 2006, we show that greater fluctuations in the firm's R&D expenditure over time are associated with higher firm growth. Developing a contextual view of the relationship between R&D expenditure volatility and firm growth, we find that this relationship is weaker among firms with higher levels of corporate diversification and negative among smaller firms and those in slow clockspeed industries.     

Does R&D performance decline with firm size?—A re-examination in terms of elasticity

There have been many previous studies exploring the relationship between R&D performance and firm size; however, to our knowledge, this issue has never been examined in terms of R&D output elasticity. This paper therefore sets out to re-examine the relationship of the two variables using R&D output elasticity as a measure of R&D performance. A total of 126 manufacturing firms, listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange over the period from 1994 to 2000, are taken as the analytical sample. One practical consideration for choosing these particular firms is the relative abundance of data available for the variables for a longitudinal investigation. The estimates suggest that there is an approximating ‘U-type’ relationship between R&D productivity and firm size. This finding suggests that both large and small firms have higher R&D productivity, and even when the sample is divided into the high-tech and traditional sectors, such a finding still holds. Therefore, in contrast to the prior studies, this study shows that size offers advantage in R&D performance.     

Does local knowledge spillover matter for firm productivity? The role of financial access and corporate governance

Global productivity growth has either stagnated or declined, despite continued technological innovations with the rise of knowledge-intensive intangibles that arise from the growth of knowledge stock (R&D activities). Understanding the root causes of this paradox in the context of growing economies requires an investigation of whether local knowledge diffusion can explain firm-level productivity differences, including key constraining factors like sources of financing or corporate governance structure. Using financial data of 7970 Indian firms over a 20-year period and clustering firms across industries, we assess the impact of R&D stock that is external to the firm through estimating both within (intra) and between (inter) industry spillovers. We find that both R&D and non-R&D-performing firms benefit from ‘between industry’ spillovers. We further show that firms with better access to finance achieve higher productivity, not only through their own R&D capital stock but also via both types of industry-level knowledge spillover. We allow for the two key sources of international spillovers namely import intensity and FDI. While import-intensive firms experience lower productivity, FDI mitigates this adverse productivity effect across knowledge-intensive exporting firms. The paper concludes that financially unconstrained firms and firms with greater corporate board connectedness derive positive industry-level spillover effects, reflecting intra- and inter-industry as domestic spillover or local value-chain effect in the literature on technological innovation.     

R&D intensity, value appropriation and integration patterns within organizational boundaries

Complementary insights from Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) and the Resource-Based View (RBV) of the firm are combined to predict the relationship between firm specific technological knowledge and patterns of integration within organizational boundaries. The findings show that the level of Research and Development (R&D) intensity (representing the creation of firm specific technological knowledge) has an inverted U-shaped relationship with the propensity of firms to integrate activities within organizational boundaries. At low levels of R&D intensity, firms’ propensity to integrate their activities is low, but increases with escalating levels of R&D intensity in order to avoid the misappropriation of value generated by technological knowledge. However, beyond a certain R&D intensity level, the propensity to integrate activities declines, since the level of technological knowledge is high enough to prevent imitation by third parties. As expected we further find that firms which follow this integration pattern outperform those which do not. As the level of R&D intensity increases, the integration of production and marketing activities enables firms to improve performance until a certain R&D intensity threshold, after which such integration negatively affects performance.     

Innovation activities, use of appropriation instruments and absorptive capacity: Evidence from Spanish firms

This article empirically investigates the relationship between innovation activities of firms, their use of appropriation instruments and their absorptive capacity. We study a wide range of manufacturing and service industries, not just high-tech, and a wide range of innovation activities, not just R&D. We use multilevel logit models for complex samples to disentangle industry from firm-specific effects. We find that within an industry, firms that invest in appropriation instruments to reduce outgoing spillovers tend to conduct more R&D and downstream activities than firms that do not. Acquisition of technology is not related to the use of appropriation instruments. The effects of incoming spillovers (measured through absorptive capacity) on innovation activities of firms are industry specific and stronger for firms that invest in appropriation instruments. For this type of firm, both the capability to scan the external environment for technology and the capability to integrate new technology are related to the innovation activities. For firms that do not invest in appropriation instruments, only scanning capabilities are related.     

The maturation of global corporate R&D: Evidence from the activity of U.S. foreign subsidiaries

This study empirically investigates the impact of foreign country factors like market size, technological strength of industries, and science and engineering (S&E) capability on the conduct of U.S. overseas R&D during the 1991-2002 period. We find that overseas markets primarily predict the entry of U.S. R&D, while the S&E capability of nations is strongly correlated with the post-entry intensity of U.S. foreign subsidiaries’ innovative activity. We also find important inter-industry differences: U.S. electrical, electronics, computer, and telecommunication industries are strongly drawn towards overseas S&E capacity; industries including Machinery, Automobiles, and Transport equipment are primarily attracted by the technological strength of foreign industry; U.S. R&D in Chemicals mostly follows overseas markets. We discuss the implications of our results to the global organization of innovative activity and innovation policy.     

Technological similarity,post-acquisition R&D reorganization,and innovation performance in horizontal acquisitions

This paper aims to disentangle the mechanisms through which technological similarity between acquiring and acquired firms influences innovation in horizontal acquisitions. We develop a theoretical model that links technological similarity to: (i) two key aspects of post-acquisition reorganization of acquired R&D operations – the rationalization of the R&D operations and the replacement of the R&D top manager, and (ii) two intermediate effects that are closely associated with the post-acquisition innovation performance of the combined firm – improvements in R&D productivity and disruptions in R&D personnel. We rely on PLS techniques to test our theoretical model using detailed information on 31 horizontal acquisitions in high- and medium-tech industries. Our results indicate that in horizontal acquisitions, technological similarity negatively affects post-acquisition innovation performance and that this negative effect is not mediated by the reorganization of the acquired R&D operations. However, replacing the acquired firm's R&D top manager leads to R&D productivity improvements that positively affect innovation performance.     

The differential impact of privately and publicly funded R&D on R&D investment and innovation: the Italian case

This paper explores the impact of a specific R&D policy instrument, the Italian Fondo per le Agevolazioni della Ricerca (FAR), on industrial R&D and technological output at the firm level. Our objective is threefold: first, to identify the presence or absence of private R&D investment additionality/crowding-out within a pooled sample and in various firm subsets (identified by region, size, level of technology, and other features), while also taking into account the effect of single policy instruments or mixes of them. Secondly, to analyse the output (innovation) additionality by comparing the differential impact of privately funded R&D and publicly funded R&D expenditure on applications for patents filed by firms. Thirdly, the paper will compare the structural characteristics of firms showing additionality with those of firms showing crowding-out, in order to determine the firm characteristics associated with successful policy interventions. Our results suggest that FAR is effective in the pooled sample, although no effect emerges in some firm subsets. In particular, while large firms seem to have been decisive for the success of this policy, small firms present a more marked crowding-out effect. Furthermore, the firms’ growth strategies and ability to transform R&D input into innovation output (patents) seem to have a positive effect in terms of additionality.     

Does technological diversification promote innovation?: An empirical analysis for European firms

This paper analyses the impact of technological diversity on innovative activity at the firm level. The empirical study on a panel of European R&D active companies shows that both R&D intensity and patents increase with the degree of technological diversification of the firm. Possible explanations are that, on the one hand, a firm that diversifies its technology can receive more spillovers from other (related) technological fields. On the other hand, diversification can reduce the risk from technological investments and it creates incentives to spend more on R&D. The paper provides empirical evidence relevant to the diversity-specialization innovation debate.     

Impacts of internal R&D on firms’ performance and energy consumption: Evidence from Ethiopian firms

In recent decades, with the rapid development of the knowledge economy and science, countries have embraced technical innovation and have gradually increased investment in research and development (R&D). A vast literature indicates that the relationship between R&D and firm performance is highly complex. The evidence suggests that R&D positively influences firm performance, yet findings on the process by which this happens are mixed. Rigorous analyses are required on how R&D investments affect energy consumption. This study explores the impact of R&D investment on the performance and energy consumption of 476 firms in Ethiopia by employing a combination of fixed-effect, propensity score matching, and endogenous treatment effect estimation methods. The empirical results reveal that investment in R&D positively influences both innovation and long-term financial performance but negatively impacts short-term financial performance and energy consumption. The results also show that the impacts of R&D activities vary significantly across different categories of firms, confirming that heterogeneity may be an issue among the firms considered. The results also indicate that the availability of credit is a more important moderating factor in the relationship between R&D investment and firm performance than the legal system is. These results have important implications for firms with growing R&D operations, especially those in developing countries such as Ethiopia. Ethiopian firms should invest more in R&D activities, such as in fundamental and applied research, to improve performance and enhance competitiveness.     

Measuring the change in R&D efficiency of the Japanese pharmaceutical industry

This paper presents a data envelopment analysis (DEA)/Malmquist index methodology for measuring the change in R&D efficiency at both firm and industry levels. Letting each of ten firms in each year be a separate decision-making unit, and employing one input and three outputs in a DEA case of R&D activity input-output lag, we measure “total factor R&D efficiency” change of Japanese pharmaceutical firms for decade 1983-1992 as defined by the period of R&D input. Decomposing Malmquist index into catch-up and frontier shift components and using “cumulative indices” proposed in this study, we evaluate R&D efficiency change for each firm and empirically show that R&D efficiency of Japanese pharmaceutical industry has almost monotonically gotten worse throughout the study decade.