Knowledge spillovers through human mobility across national borders: Evidence from Zhongguancun Science Park in China

This paper investigates the impact of returnee entrepreneurs and their knowledge spillovers on innovation in high-tech firms in China. Using panel data for 1318 high-tech firms in Beijing Zhongguancun Science Park (ZSP) we find that returnee entrepreneurs create a significant spillover effect that promotes innovation in other local high-tech firms. The extent of this spillover effect is positively moderated by the non-returnee firm's absorptive capacity approximated by the skill level of employees. Multinational enterprises’ R&D activities positively affect the innovation intensity of non-returnee firms only when these local firms possess the sufficient level of absorptive capacity. Our findings have important implications for policy-makers and practitioners.     

What makes companies pursue an Open Science strategy?

Whereas recent scholarly research has provided many insights about universities engaging in commercial activities, there is still little empirical evidence regarding the opposite phenomenon of companies disseminating scientific knowledge. Our paper aims to fill this gap and explores the motivations of firms that disclose research outcomes in a scientific format. Besides considering a dimension internal to the firm, we focus particularly on knowledge sourcing from academic institutions and the appropriability regime. We conduct an econometric analysis with firm-level data from the fourth edition of the French innovation survey (CIS) and matched scientific publications for a sample of 2512 R&D performing firms from all manufacturing sectors. This analysis provides evidence that firms are more likely to adopt academic principles if they need to access scientific knowledge that is considered important for their innovation development, whereas the mere existence of collaborative links with academic institutions is not a strong determinant. Furthermore, the results suggest that the inclination of firms to publish is sensitive to the level of knowledge spillovers in a sector and the effectiveness of legal appropriation instruments.     

Effects of foreign acquisitions on R&D activity: Evidence from firm-level data for France

This paper investigates the causal effect of foreign acquisitions on the research and development (R&D) activities of domestic target firms over the period 1994–2004. Using accounting data on French innovative manufacturing firms, we implement appropriate difference-in-difference estimation techniques associated with a matching propensity score procedure. We find that the acquisitions of French firms by foreign companies boost R&D spending. There is a simultaneous rise in the external and in-house R&D expenditures of French acquired firms. R&D is more contracted out to local research providers, in particular to local public laboratories and universities. The increase in internal R&D spending benefits to development, but also basic and applied research. Finally, the growth of the R&D budget is not only financed by internal resources but also receives financing from external partners, especially parent companies. Thus, our results call into question the idea that foreign takeovers hamper the R&D development of target firms and are detrimental to the national innovation system of the host country. First, acquisitions appear to bring efficiency gains enough to counterbalance the various costs of integration and market power effects, pushing firms to invest more in R&D. Acquisitions do not seem to incite managers to take shorter term and more financial driven decisions at the expense of R&D. Second, when motivated by technology sourcing and overseas R&D development, acquisitions might be used to access the specific know-how of target firms and to tap into the knowledge of the national innovation system. Then, purchaser firms could be more likely to develop the innovative capability of target firms and to strengthen their linkages with local partners than to reduce them and relocate R&D abroad.     

The ex ante assessment of knowledge spillovers: Government R&D policy, economic incentives and private firm behavior

This paper investigates the role of government R&D subsidy programs in stimulating knowledge spillovers. R&D subsidies are an effective public policy instrument when knowledge spillovers exist yet ex ante it is difficult to identify projects that have the greatest potential to increase innovation and economic growth. This paper derives a set of project and firm attributes that the literature finds generate knowledge spillovers and uses data on project proposals to estimate the degree to which a government R&D program conforms. We find that projects that were awarded R&D subsidies were more likely to have attributes such as participation in new research joint ventures and connections to universities and other firms. Following the post-award activities of firm, we find that receipt of a government R&D subsidy increased the funding from other sources when compared to firms that were not awarded funding.     

R&D co-operation and innovation a microeconometric study on French firms

The scope of this paper is to report new empirical evidence on the determinants of R&D co-operation. Indeed, the literature on the capabilities of firms emphasises the role of knowledge in the performance and evolution of firms who use knowledge developed in others to build their own knowledge capital. R&D co-operation between firms is one of the many strategies by which this knowledge may be transmitted. Several theoretical models have stressed that R&D co-operation is more likely when the level of spillovers is high. While this supposition is used in many theoretical models, it has rarely been tested before. Our results do not lend strong support to this intuition. Indeed, our spillover variables (national pure spillovers, national rent spillovers and imports of machine tools), which were supposed to match the theoretical notion of spillovers used in these theoretical models have a positive but not a significant role when explaining R&D co-operation. The R&D co-operation increases with size and with R&D intensity, but not with market share. It also increases with the budget spent on paying license fees and on acquiring patents and labour from foreign firms. In this study, we also analyse the determinants of innovation. In more precise terms, we compare the effects of R&D co-operation to those played by traditional internal factors and those exerted by external, pure and rent spillovers on the innovation capacity of the firms. Our results show that the commercial success of innovations of French firms depends mainly on size, market share, R&D intensity and human capital. Inward FDI from industrialised countries exerts a positive and significant effect. The finding highlights the important role of the absorptive capacity of firms. Spillover measurements, such as the acquisition of machine tools, foreign patents, licenses, and technological opportunities have a positive impact on innovation.     

On estimating a knowledge production function at the firm and sector level using patent statistics

This paper proposes a definition of the knowledge base of an agent using only patent statistics. It then develops a model of a knowledge production function that can be estimated at the firm level and the sector level using the knowledge base matrix. It identifies the impact of own knowledge base, absorptive capacity to exploit intersectoral spillovers, and absorptive capacity to exploit intrasectoral spillovers, on new technology generation. It permits a study of the dynamics of knowledge generation without having to resort to additional information on the R&D activities of firms. Finally, the paper illustrates the method with the case study of new biotechnology-based knowledge creation by firms in the foods sector.     

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.     

Innovation on demand—Can public procurement drive market success of innovations?

Public procurement has been at the centre of recent discussions on innovation policy. We embed it into the broader framework of public policies to stimulate innovation: regulations, R&D subsidies and basic research at universities. We synthesize the characteristics of all four instruments conceptionally and quantitatively compare their effects on innovation success for 1100 firms in Germany. We find that public procurement and knowledge spillovers from universities propel innovation success equally. The benefits of university knowledge apply uniformly to all firms. However, public procurement is especially effective for smaller firms in regions under economic stress and in distributive or technological services.     

If you cannot block, you better run: Small firms, cooperative innovation, and appropriation strategies

This empirical study examines small firms’ strategies for capturing returns to investments in innovation. We find that small firms’ strategies are qualitatively different from those found in earlier studies of both small and large firms. Most of the small firms examined here find informal means of protection, such as speed to market or secrecy, more important than patenting. Only firms with university cooperation—typically R&D intensive and science-based small firms—were likely to identify patents as the most important method of appropriating innovation returns in their field. Thus, the strategic choice for most small firms is between secrecy and speed to market. Firms that cooperate in innovation with horizontal partners or significantly depend on vertical partners tend to prefer speed, whereas process innovators with modest R&D investments or few cooperative R&D activities display a preference for trade secrets. Indeed, cooperation activities greatly influence the choice of intellectual property strategy for small firms. Earlier research has emphasized patents and trade secrets as key strategies of appropriation, yet these strategies do not appear to be very beneficial for small firms engaged in cooperative innovation. These results raise policy questions regarding the functionality of the existing system of intellectual property rights.     

Cooperation in innovation activities: The importance of partners

This paper analyses the importance of cooperation partners for the development of innovation activities. We contribute to the literature on cooperation in innovation activities that seeks to identify the characteristics differentiating cooperative from non-cooperative firms by proposing a different approach to this problem. We distinguish firms according to their evaluation of cooperation partners in the development of innovation activities. We apply a probit selection model to account for the firm's decision to cooperate (or not). The data we use come from the Portuguese Third Community Innovation Survey. Our estimation results show that firms from high-technological industries, with higher levels of absorptive capacity and of innovation investment, who give importance to incoming spillovers management, and who cooperate with firms from the same group or with suppliers, place greater value on cooperation partners in the innovation process. Additionally, we also find that the factors influencing the importance attributed to cooperation activities are different from the ones behind the decision to cooperate.     

Innovation performance and channels for international technology spillovers: Evidence from Chinese high-tech industries

This paper empirically investigates the impact of different channels for international technology spillover on the innovation performance of Chinese high-tech industries, using panel data analysis. We report that learning-by-exporting (and importing) promotes innovation in Chinese indigenous firms. Foreign R&D activities by multinational enterprises in a host country significantly affect the innovation performance of domestic firms only when absorptive ability is taken into account. The findings indicate that both international technology spillover sources and indigenous efforts jointly determine the innovation performance of Chinese high-tech sectors.     

高技术产业技术溢出效应的实证研究

利用面板数据模型和普通最小二乘回归方程组以北京为例对高技术产业进行比较实证研究.研究结果表明,研发投入强度对于行业技术进步有决定性作用,同时研发投入能够强化行业间产品创新的技术溢出;行业的人力资本的投入有利于提升对市场技术知识存量溢出的吸收能力;基于行业间的新产品模仿创新的技术溢出效应对于行业全要素生产率和技术效率有显著作用;从行业间关系看,偏基础性行业的技术溢出效应较大.     

吸收能力形成的前因变量及其对企业创新绩效的影响分析——吸收能力作为中介变量的实证研究

研究利用天津市高新技术产业园区227家企业的数据开展分析,结果显示,组织结构柔性、创新战略作为前因变量影响吸收能力,根据"组织结构—战略"匹配理论,两者的交互作用也能促进吸收能力形成;同时,吸收能力提升创新绩效,吸收能力在前因变量和创新绩效中起着部分中介作用,研究表明了企业"战略—结构—能力"与绩效的关系:企业需要以创新战略为导向,构建柔性化、有利于创新的组织结构,并有效开展内外部知识获取评估、应用吸收和商业化,从而提升创新绩效。     

国际贸易与FDI技术溢出效应的实证研究──基于吸收能力与门槛效应的分析视角

收集了国际贸易、FDI及创新相关数据,运用超越知识生产函数的动态面板计量模型,考察了1998—2009年中国大陆30个省级区域创新的国际贸易与FDI技术溢出效应。研究表明:国际贸易技术溢出效应短期不显著为负,中期显著为正,长期显著为负。FDI技术溢出效应在短期显著为正,中期显著为负,长期不显著为负或不显著为正。在此基础上,从吸收能力和门槛效应视角进行了原因分析,并有针对性地提出了有效吸收和利用国际技术溢出、提升区域创新能力的政策建议。     

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.     

专利对外许可行为有助于企业自身创新能力发展吗?

本文使用2008—2017年中国制造业上市企业专利许可数据,采用倾向值得分匹配倍差法考察了企业专利技术对外许可行为与自身创新能力发展的关系。研究发现：总体而言,中国制造业上市企业专利技术对外许可行为存在显著的自选择效应,创新能力越强的企业选择对外许可其专利使用权的可能性越大;控制自选择效应后,企业专利对外许可行为对自身创新能力的发展有长期促进作用。对不同技术类型企业研究发现,高、低技术产业企业的专利许可行为对其自身创新能力提升分别有长、短期促进作用,中技术产业企业的许可行为对企业创新能力发展则无显著影响。     

技术溢出对集群企业创新绩效的影响机理研究

诸多研究认为,技术溢出是集群内企业提高创新绩效的主要因素,而企业创新环境和吸收能力是技术溢出与集群企业创新绩效之间关系的重要调节变量。构建了技术溢出、吸收能力、企业创新环境与企业创新绩效等变量之间关系的理论模型。对长春市软件产业集群的97家软件企业的调查问卷进行实证分析,实证研究结果表明,在集群内,技术溢出对企业创新绩效具有直接影响,且两者之间关系受到企业吸收能力和企业创新环境的正向调节作用,另外,企业吸收能力对集群企业间技术溢出具有积极影响。     

企业创新管理方式选择与创新绩效研究

基于浙江省数百家高科技企业的创新管理数据,本研究发现领导者创新意识确立、创新文化建设、创新制度完善、研发机构设立、研发经费投入以及产学研项目合作是企业推进创新工作的主要方式。实证检验结果显示创新软环境对于企业技术进步、效益提升和创新能力均有显著的积极影响,研发机构建设对企业技术进步和效益提升均有显著贡献,研发资金投入则对企业技术进步有显著正向影响。当企业面临激烈的市场竞争时,创新软环境对企业创新能力提升有更为积极的促进作用,同时产学研合作对于企业效益提升与创新能力表现出显著的正向影响。本研究进一步调查分析影响企业技术创新绩效的主要因素以及目前企业所面临的最大的困难,更为全面的展示当下我国高科技企业的创新与发展现状。     

An audit of technological innovation capabilities in chinese firms: some empirical findings in Beijing, China

Recent studies have advocated different technological innovation capabilities (TICs) and discussed their impact on a firm’s competitive performance. This paper introduces a study framework of innovation audit and examines the relevance of seven TICs to building and sustaining the competitiveness of Chinese firms. Empirical data was acquired through a recent study of 213 Chinese firms in Beijing, China. Regression analysis was employed to examine the correlation between TICs and innovation rate, sales growth, and product competitiveness among these firms. The findings verify that R&D and resources allocation capabilities are the two most important TICs. A strong R&D capability could safeguard innovation rate and product competitiveness in large and medium-sized firms, whereas a resources allocation capability would enhance the sales growth in small firms. However, the impact of learning and organising capabilities on a firm’s innovation performance has yet to be investigated.The findings of this paper suggest that Chinese firms should consider a more balanced focus on their TICs’ harmonising enhancement. In order to maintain their sustainable development, effectively plan and implement their innovation strategies as well as enhance their whole innovation capability, Chinese firms should closely relate their TICs to the formulation of technology strategy and harmonisation of innovation and R&D activities.     

产业特征对技术创新激励政策效应的交互影响

   有关技术创新激励政策效应的研究对产业特征的关注还不充分,影响了对激励政策产业层面效应的深入理解。本文认为更为系统地重审技术创新激励政策的效应,有必要将产业市场竞争度与产业技术吸收能力同步纳入研究模型,因为它们分别影响产业创新主体的技术创新动机和技术创新能力。当产业市场竞争度与产业技术吸收能力都处于高水平时,技术创新激励政策对产业技术创新的正向效应最为明显。实证数据来自和五类使能技术的应用密切相关的16个制造业的2013—2017年的数据,包括R&D资本存量、全时人员当量、发明专利申请数、新产品开发项目数、新产品销售收入数据,和以DEA视窗方法计算得到的产业技术创新绩效数据,分析结果表明：产业技术吸收能力放大了税收优惠政策对技术创新绩效的正向作用;但是R&D补贴政策对于技术吸收能力低的产业有更高的正向效应;当技术市场竞争度高时,技术吸收力对税收优惠与R&D补贴的正向促进作用最高。本研究深化了对技术创新激励政策的作用机理的理解,并提示政策制定者需要充分重视产业的市场竞争度。