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.     

Influence of technology transfer from universities on manufacturing firms’ innovative performance

Technology transfer (TT) from universities to manufacturing firms is important for enhancing innovation performance (IP) and ultimately improving competitiveness. However, TT is hampered by bureaucracy, inertia, inefficiency, cognitive dissonance, and low research and development activity. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between TT from universities to manufacturing firms and their IP. This study was conducted based on Megnigbeto's (2018) triple helix game theory. A mixed-method approach was used. The independent variable was TT, measured in terms of technology spillover, networking, and the presence of accelerators and incubators within a firm's locality. The dependent variable was IP, measured through innovation output and innovation efficiency. This study used an explanatory sequential research design. The target population was manufacturing firms in Kenya, identified using a multi-stage sampling strategy. Primary data were collected using semi-structured questionnaires, interview schedules, and checklists. Linear regressions, hierarchical multiple moderated regressions, structural equation modeling, and partial least squares were used to test the hypotheses. The results indicate that TT from universities significantly influences IP in manufacturing firms. Universities are important intermediaries of TT in manufacturing firms in Kenya because of their improved IP and competitiveness. Universities should create dynamic linkages with industries and adopt an engaged learning approach in their programs to create greater and more unique values for enhanced competitiveness and sustainable development.     

Which firms benefit from investments in green energy technologies? – The effect of energy costs

Firms will invest in green energy technologies only if these investments have an economic pay-off. Based on unique firm-level data from Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, we find that the marginal effect of investments in green energy technologies on productivity is positive only for the 19% of firms with the highest energy costs. These results have major implications for companies and policy makers regarding the design of green energy policies and incentives.     

Same but different? Research and technology organizations,universities and the innovation activities of firms

Research and Technology Organizations (RTOs) and universities are important elements of countries’ innovation systems. As they are both halfway between science and industry, they are often considered to be the same thing. However, recent studies have stressed the differences between the two. In this paper, we analyze the innovative characteristics (impacts and types of innovation and internal R&D investments) of firms that collaborate with RTOs versus universities. Our study is based on statistical analysis of Community Innovation Survey micro-data (CIS 2012). Our results suggest that firms that see RTOs as more important sources of knowledge than universities have a higher probability of developing service innovation, invest less in internal R&D but are less likely to introduce new, groundbreaking innovations into the market. These results have significant policy and management implications, especially regarding the different but complementary contributions offered respectively by RTOs and universities.     

How does digital piracy affect innovation? Evidence from software firms

Despite digital piracy's well-documented impact on firm revenue, the relationship between piracy and firm innovation, including the creation of new intellectual property (IP) rights, is not well-understood. To fill this gap, this paper estimates the impact of piracy on innovation through a quasi-experimental design and explores the mechanisms driving this relationship using data on software firms. Leveraging a 2001 technological shock that suddenly enabled rising software piracy, we find increases in subsequent R&D spending, copyrights, trademarks, and patents for large, incumbent software firms. Furthermore, firms with large patent portfolios appear to disproportionately increase copyrights and trademarks following the piracy shock. After considering alternatives, our analysis suggests that impacted firms perceive piracy as a form of product-market competition that causes them to increase innovation and balance their IP portfolios.     

Which types of knowledge-intensive business services firms collaborate with universities for innovation?

Drawing on data from an original survey of UK and US publicly traded knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) firms, we investigate what types of KIBS firms collaborate with universities and consider the collaboration important for their innovation. First, we find that science-based KIBS firms (those engaged in a science, technology, and innovation [STI] mode of organizational learning), like science-based manufacturing firms, are active collaborators with universities for innovation. This relationship is further enhanced if these firms also provide highly customized services. Second, in contrast to the existing literature suggesting that firms engaged in a doing, using, and interacting (DUI) mode of organizational learning do not regard collaboration with universities as important for their innovation, we find that KIBS firms engaged in a DUI mode of organizational learning and offering highly customized services are active collaborators with universities for innovation, despite the fact that they may not possess highly formalized scientific knowledge. These findings suggest that KIBS firms co-create knowledge with universities differently than manufacturing firms. Moreover, the findings highlight the wide variety of roles that KIBS firms play in innovation networks with universities.     

Does the merger of universities promote their scientific research performance? Evidence from China

University mergers fundamentally aim to enhance the level of higher education and scientific research performance through resource integration by “reorganization”. However, whether university mergers achieve the latter goal has been subject to controversy. With the help of the “quasi-experiment” of Chinese colleges and universities merged in the 1990s, this study determines the impact of university mergers on scientific research performance. Panel data of 431 colleges and universities from 1993 to 2013 in The compilation of scientific and technical statistics of Chinese higher education and difference in differences method are used. Results show that the merger of colleges and universities exert a significant negative impact on the scientific research performance due to excessive government interventions and difficulties in cultural integration. The merger effect is related to the number of university participants and degree of government intervention. Therefore, university mergers cannot effectively promote the level of scientific research, unable to bring economies of scale and rather lead to diseconomies of scale.     

Minding the communications gap: How can universities signal the availability and value of their scientific knowledge to commercial organizations?

We posit that a communications gap exists between universities and commercial organizations, attributed to their idiosyncratic goals, interests, and incentives. To bridge this gap, universities need to recognize and leverage observable differences in the strength of signals and the width of channels used to disseminate their scientific knowledge externally. We explore these ideas by analyzing knowledge dissemination and academic engagement activities in 133 UK universities in the period 2011–2019. Our analysis shows that universities with a lower scientific impact have a higher intensity of collaborative research, contract research, and consultancy activities if they communicate that impact through more prominent scientific outlets. In turn, universities with a higher scientific impact have a lower intensity of interaction with commercial organizations if they communicate their scientific impact through less prominent scientific outlets. We further reveal that universities with a higher economic impact show a higher intensity of collaborative research. At the same time, we find no evidence that the social impact generated by universities is linked to the intensity of university-industry interaction, no matter the channels through which that impact is communicated. Using these findings, we draw implications for practice and policy.     

Separating patent wheat from chaff: Would the US benefit from adopting patent post-grant review?

This article assesses the impact in the US of adopting a patent post-grant review (PGR) procedure similar to one provided in the America Invents Act (AIA) of 2011. We employ novel methods for matching US patents to their European counterparts to find that opposition rates are about three times higher among European Patent Office (EPO) equivalents of US litigated patents as against control-group (unlitigated) patents. Contingent on reaching a final judgment in EPO post-grant opposition, we find that about 70% of these equivalents have challenged claims that are either completely revoked or amended. Using our empirical findings to inform a series of welfare estimates, we calculate benefit-to-cost ratios that the US may expect from implementing PGR in the range of 4:1–10:1. We also discover that these large social benefits result primarily from eliminating unwarranted market power in the current stock of granted patents, and much less so from litigation cost savings per se. Our results provide evidence that the US may benefit substantially from adopting the AIA post-grant review, but only provided that costs are controlled and that administration and appeals are not allowed to become too costly.     

Drivers of spin-off performance in industry clusters: Embodied knowledge or embedded firms?

Numerous studies attest to the distinctive performance of intra-industry spin-offs located in agglomerated regions. Besides entrepreneurs’ pre-entry experience, both superior hires and regional embeddedness have been suggested as factors contributing to this pattern. We employ linked employer-employee data to assess their relevance in the empirical context of the Portuguese plastic injection molds industry. We find that the longevity of entrants is associated with the number and quality of early employees hired from within the industry, consistent with the importance of embodied knowledge flows. Our findings do not suggest that entrants’ centrality in the regional industry network enhances their longevity.     

How do collaborations with universities affect firms’ innovative performance? The role of “Pasteur scientists” in the advanced materials field

This article aimed to identify the effect of university-industry (U-I) collaborations on the innovative performance of firms operating in the advanced materials field, and by doing so, it proposed an original classification of the research organization partners. The main contribution resides in the estimation of the role played by collaborations with differently experienced scientists. In contrast with previous studies, whose empirical setting was the life science industry, in the advanced materials industry the most effective collaborations are not with “Star scientists”, but with “Pasteur scientists”. The latter concept was empirically tested first by the authors of this article, to deepen the present understanding of industrial heterogeneity in innovation processes and to offer new insights for the formulation of corporate innovation strategies. The results of the estimation of a negative binomial regression model applied to a sample of 455 firms active in the photocatalysis in Japan confirm the idea that engaging in research collaborations, measured as co-invention, with “Pasteur scientists” increases firms’ R&D productivity, measured as number of registered patents. In contrast, we found that firms’ collaborations with “Star scientists” exert little impact on their innovative output.     

Technology and employment: Mass unemployment or job creation? Empirical evidence from European patenting firms

This paper explores the possible job creation effect of innovation activity. We analyze a unique panel dataset covering almost 20,000 patenting firms from Europe over the period 2003–2012. The main outcome from the proposed GMM-SYS estimations is the labor-friendly nature of innovation, which we measure in terms of forward-citation weighted patents. However, this positive impact of innovation is statistically significant only for firms in the high-tech manufacturing sectors, while not significant in low-tech manufacturing and services.     

How do journalists seek information from sources? A systematic review

In producing news stories, journalists depend on information obtained from sources. This paper reviews the literature on journalists’ information seeking. The 90 studies included in the review cover how journalists identify sources, interact with sources, interpret information, and manage sources. In addition to quality and accessibility, balance in the group of sources selected is an important criterion in journalists’ identification of sources. However, the importance journalists assign to balance stands in contrast to the frequent finding of bias in their source selections. In interactions with sources, the sources frequently provide ideas for new stories in addition to information for current ones. This finding shows how multiple instances of information seeking coexist and combine into a mesh of intersecting information-seeking processes. In interpreting information, journalists are acutely aware that sources may have an agenda or be misinformed. While journalists praise information checking, they regularly bypass it or replace direct checks for information quality with indirect checks, such as whether the source appears trustworthy. In managing sources, journalists engage in boundary work to regulate their relationship with sources. They also cultivate long-term relationships with selected sources. The review findings are discussed with respect to how journalism shapes journalists’ information seeking and what implications the findings have for information-behavior research in other domains.     

Complements or substitutes? The role of universities and local context in supporting the creation of academic spin-offs

In this paper, we analyze the extent to which University-Level Support Mechanisms (ULSMs) and Local-Context Support Mechanisms (LCSMs) complement or substitute for each other in fostering the creation of academic spin-offs. Using a sample of 404 companies spun off from the 64 Italian Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics universities (STEM universities) over the 2000–2007 period, we show that the ULSMs’ marginal effect on universities’ spin-off productivity may be positive or negative depending on the contribution offered by different LCSMs. Specifically, in any given region, ULSMs complement the legislative support offered to high-tech entrepreneurship whereas they have a substitution effect with regard to the amount of regional social capital, regional financial development, the presence of a regional business incubator, regional public R&D expenses as well as the level of innovative performance in the region. Results support the idea that regional settings’ idiosyncrasies should be considered for universities to develop effective spin-off support policies. This paper contributes to the debate on the evaluation of economic policies supporting entrepreneurship.     

How do foreign firms patent in emerging economies with weak appropriability regimes? Archetypes and motives

Foreign firms patent in emerging economies with weak appropriability regimes at an increasing rate. This phenomenon constitutes a paradox since in such a setting foreign firms should have weak incentives to patent. In an attempt to resolve this paradox, we conducted an inductive analysis of 11 foreign firms that patent in such a setting, using the case of China as our empirical context. We identify four archetypes of foreign firms and three key antecedents the interaction of which determines which archetype a firm can be subsumed under.Our study complements the developed-economy focus of the extant appropriation literature by adding an international perspective. We extend previous econometric studies by identifying salient factors on the firm level that determine the extent to which a foreign firm patents in emerging economies with a weak appropriability regime, highlighting that the extent of a firm's motivation to maintain its freedom to operate can supersede imitability concerns. We also comment on the practical implications of these contributions for managers of foreign firms. Highlighting a structural conflict of interest between foreign firms from developed economies and the development goals of an emerging economy, we point to the generalizability of our results to a wide range of other emerging economies worldwide.     

Exploring the economic value of personal information from firms’ financial statements

Currently personal data gathering in online markets is done on a far larger scale and much cheaper and faster than ever before. Within this scenario, a number of highly relevant companies for whom personal data is the key factor of production have emerged. However, up to now, the corresponding economic analysis has been restricted primarily to a qualitative perspective linked to privacy issues. Precisely, this paper seeks to shed light on the quantitative perspective, approximating the value of personal information for those companies that base their business model on this new type of asset. In the absence of any systematic research or methodology on the subject, an ad hoc procedure is developed in this paper. It starts with the examination of the accounts of a number of key players in online markets. This inspection first aims to determine whether the value of personal information databases is somehow reflected in the firms’ books, and second to define performance measures able to capture this value. After discussing the strengths and weaknesses of possible approaches, the method that performs best under several criteria (revenue per data record) is selected. From here, an estimation of the net present value of personal data is derived, as well as a slight digression into regional differences in the economic value of personal information.     

The interconnections of academic research and universities’ “third mission”: Evidence from the UK

A considerable body of work acknowledges the importance and benefits of the university–industry relationship for the economy and society, but also for increasing the revenue of universities themselves (known also as universities’ “third mission”). However, questions have also been raised about the consequences of the university-industry relationship and its impact on their traditional role. This paper contributes to this debate by exploring whether and how being efficient in generating income from engagement activities impacts on universities’ research performance. By using a sample of 119 UK higher educational institutions for period 2007–2014, and controlling for endogeneity issue, the results show that efficiency in terms of university-industry income and research performance exhibits a nonlinear relationship for both universities established before (“old universities”), and after (“new universities”), the Higher Education Act 1992 (HEA). However, for high level of efficiency, “old universities” do not appear able to improve their research performance further. Finally, positive synergies between the third mission and research mission decline in a more teaching-oriented environment. We conclude that policy makers should account for organisational heterogeneity and teaching orientation to promote research excellence effectively by stimulating engagement.     

How do you mean `global'? An empirical investigation of innovation networks in the multinational corporation

Literature on technological activity in the multinational corporation has recently emphasized the overall advantages from establishing internationally dispersed technological capabilities. This paper builds a taxonomy of innovation networks in the multinational corporation, differentiating between international duplication and international diversification of advanced technological capabilities. Cluster analysis of major Swedish multinationals suggests significant differences in the geographical dispersion of technological capabilities, implying different approaches to the upgrading of competitive advantage and unequal pre-conditions for becoming engaged in internationally integrated research efforts.