Regional variations in the demand and supply of business information: A study of manufacturing firms

This paper is based upon work carried out on behalf of British Library Research and Development Department into the information practices and behaviour of manufacturing firms. Interviews with manufacturing firms (59), public librarians (7) and other information suppliers were carried out during the period May–October 1985 in Greater Manchester, Cleveland and Lincolnshire. Use of various sources of external information and types of information demanded are investigated. The significance of information acquisition failure and the influence of distance upon use of information sources are explored. Internal organizational practices are described.     

Open service innovation and the firm's search for external knowledge

The concept of open innovation captures the increasing propensity of firms to work across their traditional boundaries of operation. This phenomenon has largely been studied from the viewpoint of manufacturing businesses while services have received much less attention despite the predominant role they play in advanced economies. This paper focuses on open innovation in services, both as a subsector of the economy and as a component of the activities of manufacturing firms. We study the open innovation practices of business services firms and then consider the implications for open innovation of the adoption of a service inclusive business model by manufacturing firms. Our analyses are based on a unique dataset with information on open innovation activities amongst UK firms. Overall, engagement in open innovation increases with firm size and R&D expenditure. Business services are more active open innovators than manufacturers; they are more engaged in informal relative to formal open innovation practices than manufacturers; and they attach more importance to scientific and technical knowledge than to market knowledge compared to manufacturing firms. Open innovation practices are also associated with the adoption of a service inclusive business model in manufacturing firms and service-integrated manufacturers engage in more informal knowledge-exchange activities. The paper contributes towards a reconceptualisation of open innovation in service businesses and a deeper evidence-based understanding of the service economy.     

Information resource management: A question of attitudes?

Based on field work carried out in 71 manufacturing firms during 1986, a number of key personal factors influencing information behaviour are isolated. The implications of these factors for the take-up of information resource management ideas are examined.     

Beyond industry–university links: Sourcing knowledge for innovation from consultants, private research organisations and the public science-base

This paper explores the use of specialist knowledge providers as sources of information in the innovation activities of manufacturing and service firms. Specialist knowledge providers are consultancies, private research organisations and the public science-base (i.e., universities and the government research laboratories). These may be engaged by firms in co-operative arrangement for innovation or as informal sources of information. We find, as anticipated, that amongst other factors specialist knowledge providers are more likely to be engaged by firms with more open approaches to innovation, those with high levels of absorptive capacity, those with greater social capital and networking capabilities, as well as by those with deeper commitments to innovation. Overall, the use of specialist knowledge providers tends to complement firms’ own internal innovation activities and to complement other external sources of knowledge. Moreover, the individual types of specialist knowledge providers tend to complement rather than substitute for one another. Beyond this we find significant differences in the types of specialist knowledge providers used by manufacturing and service firms. Although service firms are more likely than manufacturers to use specialist knowledge providers, they are more likely to engage consultants, whilst their links with research-based organisations, including the public science-base, are weaker. We ask whether there is a case for increasing the extent to which the public science-base undertakes activities that are relevant to innovation in the services.     

The fruit flies of innovations: A taxonomy of innovative small firms

Taxonomies of patterns of innovation give a dominant role to large firms, and are often based on empirical studies that exclude micro firms. This paper proposes an empirical taxonomy of the innovative firms at the bottom of the size distribution, based on a new survey of 1234 small firms and micro firms in The Netherlands, in both manufacturing and services. These firms differ not only in their innovative activities, but also in their business practices and strategies, such as management attitude, planning and external orientation, that they use to achieve innovation. The taxonomy identifies four categories of small innovative firms: science-based, specialised suppliers, supplier-dominated and resource-intensive. It suggests a more diverse pattern of innovation of small firms than in Pavitt's [Pavitt, K., 1984. Sectoral patterns of technical change: towards a taxonomy and a theory. Research Policy 13 (6), 343-373] taxonomy, a pattern that is shared by both manufacturing and service firms. Finally, the research shows that taxonomies can be effectively used to map differences in the rates, sources and nature of innovation, with the differences in the business strategies of innovative firms.     

Knowledge integration in the shadow of tacit spillovers: Empirical evidence from U.S. R&D labs

Integrating knowledge across a firm's value chain (e.g. between R&D, marketing and manufacturing functions), which we denote “Knowledge Integration” (KI), has been consistently found to be a strong predictor of product innovation performance in the management literature. Such cross-functional integration does not occur by chance, but by design, as a result of managerial practices and organizational arrangements. The significant heterogeneity characterizing the diffusion of cross-functional integration across firms is suggestive of the well-known tension between internal and external diffusion of knowledge. In this paper, we argue that the hidden cost of KI is to expose firms to a higher risk of knowledge leakages and provide the first systematic empirical evidence of this apparent tension between internal and external knowledge flows. Based on data from the CMU Survey (one of the rare datasets offering observables on both sides of the tension for a representative set of R&D active firms in the US), we investigate the impact of knowledge spillovers to competitors on internal cross-functional knowledge integration involving the R&D function among manufacturing firms. We find that the intensity of (tacit) R&D knowledge spillovers at the industry-level has a negative and significant impact on the likelihood that firms adopt or achieve KI. Our results therefore suggest that firms may trade their optimal innovative performance against superior appropriability of their rents.     

Technological innovation in services and manufacturing: results from Italian surveys

This paper provides fresh empirical evidence on technological innovation in the service sector, and highlights major similarities and differences with manufacturing. The main findings are the following. Technological innovation is quite a diffused and variegated phenomenon in market services. Engineering, technical consultancy, computing and software emerge as the most innovative sectors. Innovation expenditure per employee in these industries is rather close to the manufacturing average. Service firms as well as the manufacturing ones rely on a wide range of innovation sources. The acquisition and development of software and investment in machinery are the most cited. Investment, R&D and software are the major components of firms' innovation expenditure. Both in services and manufacturing the most important objective of firms' innovation strategies consist of improving service/product quality, increasing market shares and reducing production costs. Major obstacles for introducing technological innovation in services, as well as in manufacturing, are of an economic nature—i.e. lack of appropriate sources of finance and cost of innovation too high. Technological information is drawn mainly from in-house production departments as well as from outside suppliers of equipment, clients and customers. Again this is a pattern which is quite similar to the one found in the manufacturing sector. Finally, in the near future the importance of technology for firms' performance is expected to increase in all service industries. Overall, service and manufacturing sectors show more similarities than differences with respect to some basic dimensions of innovation processes.     

Transferring technology to the small manufacturing firm: A study of technology transfer in three countries

Case histories were compiled of 100 instances of technological change in 102 manufacturing companies in eight industries in Ireland, Spain and Mexico. The cases are analyzed for the source of initial ideas and for sources of technology employed in resolving major problems.Technology is found to flow principally through informal channels within industries. Very little information was obtained from the formal mechanisms or institutions normally considered central to the technology transfer process.Foreign subsidiaries obtain the greatest proportion of their technology from their parent firms. Surprisingly, they are found to have several channels of technology blocked to them, which are more readily available to domestic firms. Domestic firms, in many ways have easier access to foreign technology than do the subsidiaries of multinational firms.Product and process innovations originate in somewhat different quarters. Process innovations are slightly more likely to be based on foreign technology; product innovations are more likely to be based on domestic technology.The results reported in the present paper are very similar in many ways to results reported previously in Brazil and Australia.     

Co-operative ties and innovation: Some new evidence for UK manufacturing

Drawing upon survey data from 436 firms, this paper explores the impact of co-operative ties upon levels of innovation (both product and process) in five UK manufacturing industries. Unlike a number of previous studies in this area, the data itself captures both the scale and multi-dimensional nature of both co-operation and innovation. The paper finds evidence to support the hypothesis that vertical co-operative ties are a significant factor in explaining firms’ levels of innovative performance. However, the empirical analysis suggests that it is the strength of such ties - and not just their existence - which are important with stronger dyadic relations between firms having a positive and significant impact upon levels of innovation. The analysis also finds that in some sectors, horizontal co-operative ties are (albeit to a lesser extent) also important.     

Beyond formal R&D: Taking advantage of other sources of innovation in low- and medium-technology industries

This study deepens our knowledge of critical success factors in the innovation process of low- and medium-technology (LMT) industries. To accomplish this, it explores how the innovation process in LMT firms may depend on non-formal R&D activities and the use of external sources. The empirical analysis is based on a representative panel of Spanish manufacturing firms. The results strongly support the view that non-R&D activities such as design, the use of advanced machinery and training are crucial to understanding the innovation process of any firm. The study finds, however, that the impact of these activities is especially important in LMT industries, particularly for the achievement of product innovations. The empirical evidence also reveals the importance of external sources such as the use of consultants, the hiring of personnel, collaboration agreements and external R&D, with the greatest differences between LMT and high-technology (HT) firms being observed in process innovations.     

集群情境下企业创新投入的影响因素研究——基于苏州制造业数据的实证分析

本文研究集群情境下企业创新投入的影响因素,并利用苏州制造行业中3090家企业的数据进行了实证检验。研究发现产业集群能促进企业创新投入强度的提高;由于复杂知识的排他性,集群中的高技术企业会进一步加大创新投入,但聚集效应对创新投入的影响还与集群知识分布的不对称性有关。由于具有外部技术来源,产业聚集中的外资企业会减少创新投入,但集群中采用市场机制进行创新的企业将会增加创新投入。     

E-Commerce to Protect the Network Relationships: The Case of Taiwan's PC Industry

Although Taiwan is one of the world's leading producers of information products, it lags behind advanced countries in the application of information technologies. The strength of Taiwan's industry lies in its low-cost manufacturing capabilities, which in recent years have been undermined by rising wages. Faced with a massive relocation of production activities to China, the Taiwanese government is trying to prevent the hollowing out of domestic industry by encouraging local firms to embrace new information technologies to strengthen their ties to multinational firms. The initiative aims at enhancing the flexibility of production and speeding up responses to the market through concerted actions by brand marketers, parts suppliers, and assemblers. New technologies underscore new working methods that erect entry barriers to protect existing network relationships.     

创业投资对制造企业创新的资源支持效应——股东积极主义路径与异质性情境

针对转型时期面临提质增效压力的中国制造企业,基于创业板2009-2019年的制造企业面板数据,探究创业投资对于制造企业自主创新资源配置的作用机制.研究发现:具有耐心资本与专家赋能属性的创业投资股权参与,缓解了制造企业的创新资源约束,促进了制造企业创新活动的财务资源与智力资源的配置力度;在作用路径上,创业投资通过加强股权制衡、参与董事会决策等中介路径,对激励制造企业创新资源配置发挥了积极主义投资者的角色作用;那些所处环境具有高度动态性、市场竞争激烈、接受政府财税扶持较多的制造企业,.创业投资的创新资源支持效应更显著.研究结论的决策参考和政策启示为:制造企业应主动进行对外融资营销、加强与专业创业投资机构之间的合作,以增强获取和配置创新资源力度;创业投资机构应切实秉持服务创新创业的使命,持续提升支持制造企业创新的专家赋能水准;政府职能主管部门应营造创业投资机构多样化、专业化和规范化运作的制度环境,引导创业投资更多地流入转型升级的制造企业.     

Catching up and leapfrogging in a high-tech manufacturing industry: towards a firm-level taxonomy of knowledge accumulation

Latecomer firms from emerging economies upgrade their technological capabilities by providing original equipment manufacturer (OEM) services to multi-national enterprises from advanced countries and extend their role across the global value chains. Existing firm-level taxonomies of knowledge accumulation cannot explain why most latecomer firms fail to transit to advanced levels in high-tech manufacturing industries. The proposed framework combines firm-level taxonomy of knowledge accumulation with catch-up trajectory to argue that, under the knowledge regime of a high-tech manufacturing industry, latecomers’ learning experience differs from those as posited by previous studies. Using the integrated circuit industry as the empirical anchor, this paper shows that firms undergo ‘critical transition’ in learning which involves sustainable innovative capacity and momentum-generation to reach the advanced level. It shows how OEMs build knowledge to leapfrog incumbents without competing with their branded customers. Throughout the process, inter-firm collaboration and open innovation are critical sources of knowledge.     

制造业服务化商业模式创新:基于资源基础观

整合制造业服务化与商业模式创新两个领域的前沿理论,基于资源基础观,采用我国两家装备制造企业的双案例研究,揭示制造企业服务化的商业模式创新机理。研究结论表明：第一,制造服务化的外在表现是企业价值主张、业务流程、盈利模式与外部关系的重构,而内在动力是企业关键资源与能力的重新整合。第二,为实现服务化,企业内资源可以打破重组,以商业模式各要素为属性进行资源整合;制造企业原有的关键资源与能力是企业赖以转型的必要基础。第三,制造服务化是一个长期的过程,对于不同服务化程度的企业,资源整合的重点及方式也应有所不同。     

A man on the inside: Unlocking communities as complementary assets

Since Teece's seminal paper explaining who were the gainers from technological innovation, increased globalization and the information and communication technology revolution have brought new ways for firms to organize and appropriate from innovation. A new more open model of innovation suggests that firms can benefit from sources of innovation that stem from outside the firm. The central theme of this paper is how firms try to unlock communities as complementary assets. These communities exist outside firm boundaries beyond ownership or hierarchical control. Because of practices developed by communities to protect their work, firms need to assign individuals to work in these communities in order to gain access to developments and, to an extent, influence the direction of the community. Using network analysis we show that some software firms sponsor individuals to act strategically within a free and open source software (FOSS) community. Firm sponsored individuals interact with more individuals than interact with them, and also they seek to interact with central individuals in the community. However, we can see differences in how individuals interact, depending on whether their affiliation is with a dedicated FOSS firm or an incumbent in the software industry. Apparently, some firm managers believe they need ‘a man on the inside’ to be able to gain access to communities.     

Evaluating innovative processes in french firms: Methodological proposition for firm innovation capacity evaluation

Measuring innovation processes is a major concern for academics and firm managers. This study proposes an innovation capacity (IC) measure framework based on a set of 15 innovation management practices. Every practice is subdivided into multiple criteria which are directly observable phenomena or facts. The statistical method of value test and a multi-criteria approach are adopted to propose a typology of four groups of innovative firms (proactive, preactive, reactive, passive). The features observed on these groups of firms allow the determination of the firms’ innovation capacity and are useful for providing recommendations and practical actions for them, with a view to reinforcing it. Data from a sample group of 39 small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing industry in Lorraine, France were collected via a field survey and were fed into the model to determine the innovation capacity of the companies.     

The impact of cash incentives on TMT information seeking behavior in entrepreneurial firms

We explore the relationship between cash incentives for the top management team (TMT) and managerial information seeking from sources external to the firm. We hypothesize that TMT cash incentives in tandem with base compensation, the firm's technological intensity and use of an aggregate performance criterion influence TMT information seeking from customers and vendors/suppliers (what we refer to as affiliate sources). Our hypotheses are tested by using data obtained from CEOs and the TMT in 193 entrepreneurial firms. As hypothesized, our results suggest that: a) cash incentives influence TMT information seeking primarily from affiliate information sources, b) the effect of cash incentives on TMT information seeking from affiliate sources is much stronger in technology intensive firms, and c) use of aggregate performance criterion has a negative impact on information seeking from affiliate sources. Our findings also indicate that in technology intensive firms, the positive relationship between cash incentives and TMT information seeking from affiliate sources is strongly moderated by the base pay levels of executives – the relationship is much stronger when executive base pay is low.     

从外部知识获取到内部创新能力：员工信息素养的调节效应

通过对257家新兴企业中高层管理者和研发人员的调查数据,本文研究了员工信息素养对外部知识效应的影响,重点分析了员工信息素养对外部知识获取与内部创新能力之间关系的调节效应,并运用模糊集定性比较分析（fsQCA）技术探讨了企业规模对员工信息素养的制约效应。结果表明：员工信息素养对技术知识和市场知识的吸收效果均有促进作用;此外,企业规模越大,员工信息素养对技术知识与创新能力之间关系的促进作用越小。本研究结论不仅丰富了员工素养与企业创新等领域的理论空间,同时也为战略性新兴产业企业在开放式创新环境下有效提高员工信息素养、增强外部知识吸收、提升创新能力和创新绩效提供了实践指导。     

The interplay between product innovation,publishing, patenting and developing standards

Firms use a variety of practices to disclose the knowledge generated by their R&D activities, including, but not limited to, publishing findings in scientific journals, patenting new technologies, and contributing to developing standards. While the individual effects of engaging in the listed practices on firm innovation are well-understood, the existing literature has not considered their interrelation. Therefore, our study examines if the three practices are complements, substitutes, or unrelated in terms of firms’ performance with product innovations new to the market. Our analysis builds on a sample of innovation-active firms from the German Community Innovation Survey, which includes information on the development of standards, enhanced with information on firms' engagement in patenting and publishing. We find that 26% of innovation-active firms engage in at least one of the three practices, and 22% of engaging firms combine them. Using supermodularity tests, we show that publishing and patenting as well as patenting and developing standards are substitutes. Publishing and developing standards are not significantly linked. Based on our findings, we derive implications for innovation management and policy.