Exploiting technological opportunities: the timing of collaborations

High-technology companies that discover new technological opportunities face two critical decisions: whether and when to collaborate in exploiting these opportunities. Prior research has examined factors such as transaction costs that determine whether firms decide to collaborate. In this study, we aim to understand when firms collaborate in exploiting opportunities. To this end we study the history of 86 biopharmaceutical product-development projects. We find that factors that reduce articulation and appropriation uncertainties in these projects—patent protection, high R&D intensity of the discoverer, partners’ prior collaboration experience, and support infrastructures in the industry—can speed up collaboration. Interestingly, project-specific factors do not seem to affect timing.     

Patent collaboration and international knowledge flow

In this paper, we provide an empirical analysis of evolving knowledge networks of successful patent collaboration at national level in 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. All countries are classified into main knowledge creators (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) group) and main knowledge users (non-OECD group) in order to distinguish specific characteristics of knowledge interactions within groups and between groups. The analyses are carried out from four aspects, i.e., the overall distribution of knowledge interactions among countries, the countries’ ability to inhabit and facilitate the knowledge flows among others with the help of flow betweenness measures, the countries’ bridgeness between two groups with the recently developed Q-measures, and the most important bilateral knowledge interactions. Results show that although most of the international knowledge interactions still take place within the OECD group, the non-OECD countries have improved their performance significantly. They participate much more in international patenting and collaborations and play much more important roles in facilitating knowledge interactions among others. Among them, China and Taiwan are two most dazzling new stars according to their performance in international knowledge interactions. Considering together with their rapidly improved world competitiveness, the findings indicate that the wide and deep participation in international knowledge interactions may have great contribution to the economic competitiveness.     

知识网络双重异质性对于科技型企业产品创新的影响研究

企业知识网络中知识内容的差异和知识来源的差异所构成的知识网络双重异质性会对企业产品创新带来影响。通过对珠三角地区313家创新型企业的实证分析显示:技术、市场和管理知识的获取水平对于企业产品创新绩效有着显著的正向影响,而且三种异质性知识的获取水平还对产品创新绩效具有正向的三阶交互作用;技术和市场知识来源的异质性除了正向影响产品创新绩效,还分别在技术和市场知识获取水平对于产品创新绩效的影响中表现出正向的调节效应;管理知识异质性在管理知识获取水平影响产品创新绩效的过程中表现出正向的调节效应。     

The transformation of technological regimes

This article explores how the transformation of technological regimes is enabled and constrained by sectoral patterns of innovation. Four innovation patterns are distinguished: the supplier-dependent, the user-driven, the mission-oriented and the R&D-dependent innovation pattern. On the basis of a multiple case, it is shown that there are distinct differences between how these four innovation patterns enable and constrain the transformation of technological regimes and in the degree to which they do so. It is further shown that innovation patterns sometimes enable the development and acceptance of innovations that radically deviate from existing regimes and may help to transform such regimes. The implications for the management of technology are discussed.     

Knowledge bases and regional innovation systems: Comparing Nordic clusters

The analysis of the importance of different types of regional innovation systems must take place within a context of the actual knowledge base of various industries in the economy, as the innovation processes of firms are strongly shaped by their specific knowledge base. In this paper, we shall distinguish between two types of knowledge base: analytical and synthetic. These types indicate different mixes of tacit and codified knowledge, codification possibilities and limits, qualifications and skills, required organisations and institutions involved, as well as specific competitive challenges from a globalising economy, which have different implications for different sectors of industry, and, thus, for the kind of innovation support needed. The traditional constellation of industrial clusters surrounded by innovation supporting organisations, constituting a regional innovation system, is nearly always to be found in contexts of industries with a synthetic knowledge base (e.g. engineering-based industries), while the existence of regional innovation systems as an integral part of a cluster will normally be the case of industries-based on an analytical knowledge base (e.g. science-based industries, such as IT and bio-tech). In the discussion of different types of regional innovation systems five empirical illustrations from a Nordic comparative project on SMEs and regional innovation systems will be used: the furniture industry in Salling, Denmark; the wireless communication industry in North Jutland, Denmark; the functional food industry in Scania, Sweden; the food industry in Rogaland, Norway and the electronics industry in Horten, Norway. We argue that in terms of innovation policy the regional level often provides a grounded approach embedded in networks of actors acknowledging the importance of the knowledge base of an industry.     

斯坦福国际研究院的创新管理分析——基于组织学习和知识管理视角

以斯坦福国际研究院(SRI)为案例,分析了其创新管理“五项守则”及创新成果转化的实践,指出了值得知识密集型科技服务机构借鉴的创新管理经验:围绕组织学习来构建创新活动管理的总体运行机制;相应地设计切合知密集型创新活动特征的管理工具、构建创新管理文化;并依据知识活动的系统性来开展创新成果转化.     

Determinants of industry-academy linkages and, their impact on firm performance: The case of Korea as a latecomer in knowledge industrialization

This paper utilizes the Korea Innovation Survey data to identify the determinants of industry-university and industry-government research institute (IUG) cooperation, and its impact on firm performance. First, we find that among the determinants of IUG cooperation, traditional firm characteristic variables of size and R&D intensity are not significant, while participation in national R&D project turns out be most significant and robust in both cooperation modes. This is in contrast to the results from the cases in European countries and reflects the significance of government policies in promoting IUG cooperation in latecomer economies. Second, with regard to the impact of IUG cooperation, we conspicuously find no significant impact on the innovation probability of firms when we control the possible endogeneity, such that already innovative firms would participate more at such cooperation modes. This implies that the IUG cooperation cannot guarantee the success of a firm in technological innovation. Rather, it may have an influence on the selection or direction of the research projects of a firm. When we limited the analysis to innovative firms, we do find a positive impact of the IUG cooperation on patents generated from new product innovation but find none in terms of volume of sales or labor productivity. These results seem to reflect the still transitional nature of the national innovation system (NIS) and knowledge industrialization in Korea.     

提高自主技术创新能力的途径选择

本文从组合创新模式的角度,提出了提高企业技术创新能力的三个可供选择的途径及不同选择途径应具备的条件。并通过调查研究,分析了我国企业技术创新能力提高途径选择的总体情况。最后,以杭州纺织机械厂和杭州凯地丝绸公司这两个企业为案例,对不同途径作实证分析     

企业技术开发合作决策分析

本介绍了企业技术开发合作的评估与决策过程,讨论了影响企业技术开发合作决策的１４个因素,并对１４个因素的量化分析提出初步构想。     

企业技术创新悖论及其网络机制干预研究

随着市场环境的日趋复杂多变及竞争的日益激烈,技术创新成为提升企业竞争力、促进企业成长和效率非线性提高的重要途径。组织结构是影响企业技术创新能力的重要因素。企业技术创新管理面临着技术和组织上的两难悖论,即企业越是追求高新技术,就越是导致企业偏重内部结构并导致部门之间的隔离,从而越是阻碍了企业技术创新;高生产率、产品商业化创新和创新信息管理都需要一个严格等级分明的组织,而新技术发明和创意都要求比较灵活机动的、非等级制的组织形式。企业内外的合作网络机制是解决技术创新的两难悖论、提高创新绩效的关键。     

Digital technology adoption and knowledge flows within firms: Can the Internet overcome geographic and technological distance?

Under what conditions does digital technology adoption increase cross location knowledge flows within firms? We investigate this question by studying the impact of adopting basic Internet access on cross-location knowledge flows within the same firm. We construct a large data set of Internet adoption and patent citations among dyadic pairs of firm-locations between 1992–1998. We find that when both locations in the pair adopt basic Internet there is an increase in the likelihood of a citation between the citing and (potential) cited location. In contrast, we find no significant effect of Internet adoption at only the citing location. We further study how this effect varies according to the proximity of the research activities between the source and recipient of knowledge and specialization of the research activities within the recipient. We find that the likelihood of a citation increases more after dyadic Internet adoption when the pair is working in similar research areas and when the research areas in the citing location are less specialized. These results, which are robust to a range of robustness analyses, suggest that digital technologies such as Internet connectivity are able to facilitate knowledge flows between locations only when they share a common knowledge base.     

高等学校知识创新论

本文从知识创新,知识传播,技术创新等方面论述了高等学校在国家创新体系中的地位与作用,并讨论了加强高等学校知识创新的基本途径。     

论知识创新与知识组织、知识管理

知识经济时代,知识创新已成为知识经济发展的生命线,本文提出实现知识创新的途径－加强知识组织与知识管理,在分析知识经济研究领域成果的基础上,总结了加强知识组织与知识管理的几点具体措施。     

企业技术转移与技术创新

随着企业创新能力的不断提高,技术转移是实现技术创新成果转化手段之一。技术创新是技术转移的源泉,技术转移则是技术创新成果的价值体现,技术转移与技术创新相辅相成,技术创新是推动企业快速发展的根本动力,技术转移则是技术创新和实业结合,是技术发挥作用的必需过程。科学有效的技术转移模式能促进技术创新体系良性循环,从而使技术创新与技术转移成为企业发展的巨大推动力量。     

Coordination costs and project outcomes in multi-university collaborations

Multi-university collaborations draw on diverse resources and expertise, but they impose coordination costs for bridging institutional differences and geographic distance. We report a study of the coordination activities and project outcomes of 491 research collaborations funded by the US National Science Foundation. Coordination activities, especially division of responsibility for tasks and knowledge transfer among investigators, predicted project outcomes (e.g., producing new knowledge, creating new tools, and training students). However, more universities involved in a collaboration predicted fewer coordination activities and fewer project outcomes. A statistical mediation analysis showed that insufficient coordination explained the negative relationship between multi-university collaboration and project outcomes.