The impact of cognitive communities on the diffusion of academic knowledge: Evidence from the networks of inventors of a French university

Looking at micro-data on the networks of inventors of a French science university, we investigate whether the kind of cognitive relationships between researchers influences the geography of their collaborations.The hypothesis we test (and confirm empirically) is that academic knowledge diffuses in a restricted geographic area when the connected researchers belong to epistemic communities, whereas communities of practice entail less localised effects. We also show that institutionally mixed research teams do not impede large knowledge diffusion.     

International scientist mobility and the locus of knowledge and technology transfer

Despite the growing interest of scholars and policymakers to better understand the determinants for researchers in public science to transfer knowledge and technology to firms, little is known how temporary international mobility of scientists affects both their propensity to engage in knowledge and technology transfer (KTT) as well as the locus of such transfer. Based on a sample of more than 950 German academics from science and engineering faculties, we investigate how the duration and the frequency of scientists’ visits at research institutions outside their home country affect KTT activities. We find that most mobile scientists engage in KTT to firms both in the host and in their home country, suggesting that KTT activities to firms abroad do not substitute or crowd out, but complement KTT to firms in the home country. We further find that the longer research visits abroad are, the higher the likelihood that scientists engage in KTT to firms, again both in the host and the home country. However, the more frequently scientists visit institutions abroad, the more likely they are to engage in KTT to firms only in their home country. Our results therefore provide evidence for the benefits of “brain circulation”. The article contributes to the growing strand of the literature on scientist mobility and on the determinants of industry-science linkages at the individual level.     

The role of technological management as a source of innovation: Evidence from Spanish manufacturing firms

The objective of this study is to amplify the scarce empirical evidence about the effect of technological management on innovation. At the same time, the investigation is intended to examine whether the scale of production by itself stimulates technological activity and/or it acts as a proxy of other determinants of innovation. The estimation of an innovation production function with a panel of Spanish manufacturing firms shows that the planning and monitoring of the innovation process and the hiring of personnel with special skills for technological activities are significant sources of innovation, although with important differences regarding the type of innovation (process versus product). In addition, the evidence suggests that large firms’ advantages for the generation of product innovations are related to a different use and effectiveness of technological management mechanisms.     

Technological knowledge base, R&D organization structure and alliance formation: Evidence from the biopharmaceutical industry

We explore how an incumbent firm's internal knowledge and organization structure influences its strategic alliance formation. We propose that the firm's knowledge breadth and the centrality of its R&D organization structure positively influence its absorptive capacity, and consequently, its propensity to form strategic alliances. We also argue that the centrality of the R&D organization structure may be a substitute for the breadth of the knowledge base. We validate our ideas using data on 2647 strategic alliances formed over the period of 1993-2002 by 43 major biopharmaceutical firms in the U.S. and Europe. Our discussion focuses on the application of the knowledge-based view of the firm to strategic alliance research. The implications for public policy in the biopharmaceutical industry are also emphasized.     

International research networks in pharmaceuticals: Structure and dynamics

Knowledge production and scientific research have become increasingly more collaborative and international, particularly in pharmaceuticals. We analyze this tendency in general and tie formation in international research networks on the country level in particular. Based on a unique dataset of scientific publications related to pharmaceutical research and applying social network analysis, we find that both the number of countries and their connectivity increase in almost all disease group specific networks. The cores of the networks consist of high income OECD countries and remain rather stable over time. Using network regression techniques to analyze the network dynamics our results indicate that accumulative advantages based on connectedness and multi-connectivity are positively related to changes in the countries’ collaboration intensity whereas various indicators on similarity between countries do not allow for unambiguous conclusions.     

Innovation, regional knowledge spillovers and R&D cooperation

We investigate the impact of knowledge spillovers and R&D cooperation on innovation activities in three German regions. We begin by estimating the knowledge-production function in order to test for interregional difference with regard to the efficiency of innovation activities. In a second step, we analyze the contribution of spillovers from R&D effort of other private firms and of public research institutions to explain these differences. The inclusion of variables for R&D cooperation in the model indicates that R&D cooperation is only of relatively minor importance as a medium for knowledge spillover.     

Productivity impact of technology spillover from multinationals to local firms: Comparing China's automobile and electronics industries

This study compares the impact of innovative activities of multinationals on local firms in China's automobile and electronics industries. In the automobile industry we find that both multinationals and local firms in the assembly industry have vertical spillovers to local parts supply firms. In contrast, in the electronics industry, only a small amount of vertical spillover effects from local firms can be found. Furthermore, we find that horizontal spillovers exist in neither the automobile industry nor the electronics industry.     

The workforce of pioneer plants: The role of worker mobility in the diffusion of industries

Does technology require labour mobility to diffuse? To explore this, we use German social-security data and ask how plants that pioneer an industry in a location – and for which the local labour market offers no experienced workers – assemble their workforces. These pioneers use different recruiting strategies than plants elsewhere: they hire more workers from outside their industry and from outside their region, especially when workers come from closely related industries or are highly skilled. The importance of access to experienced workers is highlighted in the diffusion of industries from western Germany to the post-reunification economy of eastern German. While manufacturing employment declined in most advanced economies, eastern German regions managed to reindustrialise. The pioneers involved in this process relied heavily on expertise from western Germany: while establishing new manufacturing industries in the East, they sourced half of their experienced workers from the West.     

The wider impacts of high-technology employment: Evidence from U.S. cities

Innovative, high-technology industries are commonly described as drivers of regional development. ‘Tech’ workers earn high wages, but they are also said to generate knock-on effects throughout the local economies that host them, spurring growth in jobs and wages in nontradable activities. At the same time, in iconic high-tech agglomerations like the San Francisco Bay Area, the home of Silicon Valley, the success of the tech industry creates tensions, in part as living costs rise beyond the reach of many non-tech workers. Across a large sample of U.S. cities, this paper explores these issues systematically. Combining annual data on wages, employment and prices from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Consumer Price Index, it estimates how growth in tradable tech employment affects the real, living-cost deflated wages of local workers in nontradable sectors. Results indicate that high-technology employment has significant, positive, but modest effects on the real wages of workers in nontradable sectors. These effects appear to be spread consistently across different kinds of nontradable activities. In terms of substantive wider impacts, tech appears benign, though fairly ineffectual.     

R&D internationalization, R&D collaboration and public knowledge institutions in small economies: Evidence from Finland and the Netherlands

This paper investigates domestic and foreign innovating firms’ determinants of R&D collaboration with domestic universities and public knowledge institutes in Finland and the Netherlands. We put particular emphasis on the impact of incoming academic spillovers on the probability to co-operate with these public R&D institutes.Based on data from Community Innovation Surveys we find that foreign firms in the Netherlands are less likely to co-operate with domestic public knowledge institutions than domestic firms, while in Finland no significant difference can be detected. Another result is that incoming knowledge spillovers are an important determinant for R&D collaboration with domestic public knowledge institutions in both countries. In case of foreign firms in Finland, incoming knowledge spillovers affect the probability to co-operate with public knowledge institutions more positively compared to domestic firms. For the Netherlands no substantial difference could be found in this respect. Further, innovating firms in Finland that require academic or basic knowledge do not co-operate significantly more with public knowledge institutions than those that need applied knowledge. At the same time they are willing to share knowledge with public R&D partners. In the Netherlands innovating firms that require relatively more basic than applied knowledge, increase the probability of co-operation with Dutch universities and public knowledge institutions but there is reluctance to share proprietary knowledge with public R&D partners. For both countries no significant difference between foreign and domestic firms with regard to academic knowledge requirements could be found. This raises the issue whether Finnish innovation policies with a strong focus on R&D co-operation provide incentives for strategic behaviour by domestic public partners to put more emphasis on applied research.     

Shaping the national system of inter-industry knowledge exchange : Vertical integration, licensing and repeated knowledge transfer in the German plastics industry

We will claim in this paper that it was in particular the above-average propensity to share innovative information with customers and competitors which caused the exceptional international competitiveness of the West German plastics industry including chemical firms, plastics fabricators and machine makers. The system of knowledge exchange of this national cluster was shaped in two main steps. In the first half of the 20th century, cartellization and mergers were first tolerated and then even supported by the German government. It was in this period when German chemical firms formed the vertically integrated I.G. Farben concern which provided an optimal organisational framework to explore the new technological path of plastics. After the breaking up of I.G. Farben the firms of the West German chemical firms had to find new ways to maintain inter-industry technological co-operation in the second half of the 20th century. It turned out that they became aware of both contractual and non-contractual solutions of bundling standard good and information which were often placed somewhere between “market” and “hierarchy”. It seems to be no accident that all these different institutions did primarily encourage knowledge exchange between firms in geographical and cultural proximity. That is why the knowledge exchanging network of the plastics industry described in this paper has been in particular concentrated on German firms. Even so the question is still open whether this localisation is just a curiosity limited to a special industry cluster or part of a broader German system of knowledge exchange.     

Long-run versus short-run decisions: R&D and market structure in Spanish firms

I present new econometric evidence on the relation between market structure and R&D using data on Spanish firms. I adopt a different approach from previous studies by distinguishing between long-run and short-run decisions of firms regarding R&D. I assume that the long-run or strategic decision is whether to conduct R&D or not, and the short-run choice is how much to invest once the firm decides to be innovative. I argue that market structure affects long-run R&D decisions but does not affect short-run ones. A Heckman-type selection model is used to test such a relation. The results are robust to several specifications and measures of monopoly power.     

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.     

Benefiting colleagues but not the city: Localized effects from the relocation of superstar inventors

In this paper I examine episodes in which superstar inventors relocate to a new city. In particular, in order to assess whether the beneficial effects of physical proximity to a superstar have a restricted network dimension or a wider spatial breadth (spillovers), I estimate changes in patterns of patenting activity following these events for two different groups of inventors: the superstar's close collaborators, and all the other inventors in a given urban area, for both the locality where the superstar moves to and for the one that is left behind. In the case of collaborators, I restrict the attention to patents realized independently from the superstar. The results from the event study register a large and persistent positive effect on the collaborators in the city of destination, as well as a simultaneous negative trend affecting those still residing in the previous location. In the long run, these effects translate into an increased difference between the two groups of about 0.16 patents per inventor. Conversely, no city-wide spillover effect can be attested, offering little support to place-based policies aimed at inducing a positive influx of top innovators in urban areas.     

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.     

On the innovativeness of foreign affiliates: Evidence from companies in The Netherlands

In examining the distinctive contributions of foreign subsidiaries and domestic firms to innovative performance in Dutch manufacturing, the paper shows that foreign ownership is an important factor in explaining inter-firm differences affecting innovativeness. It characterizes innovativeness by distinguishing between products that are new to the firm (‘imitative’ innovations), and those products that are new to the market (‘real’ innovations). It uses firm-level data for 4780 firms which took part in the Community Innovation Survey (CIS-2) for 1996 in The Netherlands. It concludes that foreign subsidiaries are more innovative, they are more likely to introduce ‘imitative’ as well as ‘real’ innovations compared to domestic firms. In comparison with the population of innovative companies, however, there is greater heterogeneity among foreign subsidiaries, i.e. they are not more likely to introduce ‘real’ innovations if they cannot utilize knowledge transfer from an associated company.     

Location, collocation and R&D alliances in the European ICT industry

This paper argues that spatial proximity plays a role in determining the propensity of firms to engage in R&D alliances. Drawing from economic geography, network theory and innovation theory, we discuss how prior collocation can affect the propensity to engage in R&D alliances, arguing that alliances can act both as a substitute and as a complement to collocation. Using a novel dataset matching alliances and patent data for the European ICT industry, we show that alliances are complementary to prior collocation (at both national and sub-national regional level) of firm’s R&D labs. In such an intra-industry, oligopolistic scenario, firms strategically use R&D alliances as a means to limit knowledge flows and protect competences, rather than to promote knowledge flows. Furthermore, while a common institutional context is important to promote collaboration, because of the high level of R&D internationalisation as well as the complex social networks within an oligopolistic industry, national institutional contexts are less relevant.     

Resolving the knowledge paradox: Knowledge-spillover entrepreneurship and economic growth

The knowledge paradox suggests that high levels of investment in new knowledge do not necessarily and automatically generate the anticipated levels of competitiveness of growth. In particular, knowledge investments do not automatically translate into balanced growth and competitiveness. The purpose of this paper is to explain why knowledge investments are inherently unbalanced, so that the competitiveness and growth ensuing from knowledge are not equally spread across individuals, firms, and spatial units of observation, such as regions and countries. Based on a data set linking entrepreneurial activity to growth within the context of German regions, this paper shows that entrepreneurship serves a conduit of knowledge spillovers.     

Demand drops and innovation investments: Evidence from the Great Recession in Spain

The Great Recession, which began in 2008, brought about large contractions in aggregate consumption in many countries. In this research, we study the impact of heterogeneous decreases in demand on innovation investments by analyzing the evolution of innovation investments in a panel of Spanish manufacturing firms during the 2004–2013 period. We proxy heterogeneous variation in demand with net exit rates in the productive stratum of each firm, defined as the group of firms in the same industry and size class. These net exit rates are computed considering all firms in the stratum, including firms that are determined to be non-innovative firms. To support the identification strategy, we show that exit rates do not capture idiosyncratic unobservable characteristics among innovative firms. In addition, we control for the effect of time-varying credit constraints. We find that a one standard deviation increase in exit rates is associated with reductions of 1.5% in the share of firms investing in innovation. The drop is larger for smaller firms, which also experience greater decreases in sales. Since smaller firms are most sensitive to demand drops, they are the natural candidates to be the target of policies devoted to increasing R&D activities during crises. As additional analysis, we study firms’ perceptions of the main obstacles to innovation to find that net exit rates capture the heterogeneous variation in demand, rather than credit constraints. Finally, when analyzing the exit patterns of firms in the sample, we confirm that the net exit rate in a firm's stratum does not drive the exit of firms in our sample.