The bumpy road of technology partnerships: Understanding causes and consequences of partnership mal-functioning

Research on technological partnerships has traditionally sought explanation of their high failure rates in partner characteristics and relationship features. This study introduces the notion of a ‘bumpy road’ in technology partnerships which refers to undesired outcomes such as ‘partnership mal-functioning’ and ‘instability’ to the degree to which innovation activities are hampered. We explain how firm-level strategies can reduce the probability of a ‘bumpy road’ in partnerships. We also assess the impact of this ‘bumpy road’ on innovative performance. We find that firms that excel in diversification of external activities (in terms of different types of partners) perform best. Moreover, a persistent product oriented innovation strategy geared at developing new products, new markets, or higher product quality will yield more stable partnership outcomes. Our results confirm that engagement in partnerships is beneficial for innovative performance. However, firms that experienced a ‘bumpy road’ in their technological partnerships have to pay a price in terms of a negative effect on their innovative performance.     

Technological similarity,post-acquisition R&D reorganization,and innovation performance in horizontal acquisitions

This paper aims to disentangle the mechanisms through which technological similarity between acquiring and acquired firms influences innovation in horizontal acquisitions. We develop a theoretical model that links technological similarity to: (i) two key aspects of post-acquisition reorganization of acquired R&D operations – the rationalization of the R&D operations and the replacement of the R&D top manager, and (ii) two intermediate effects that are closely associated with the post-acquisition innovation performance of the combined firm – improvements in R&D productivity and disruptions in R&D personnel. We rely on PLS techniques to test our theoretical model using detailed information on 31 horizontal acquisitions in high- and medium-tech industries. Our results indicate that in horizontal acquisitions, technological similarity negatively affects post-acquisition innovation performance and that this negative effect is not mediated by the reorganization of the acquired R&D operations. However, replacing the acquired firm's R&D top manager leads to R&D productivity improvements that positively affect innovation performance.     

The French defence industry in the knowledge management era: A historical overview and evidence from empirical data

In the defence industry the recent development of a ‘market for technology’, the creation of new European high-technology companies as well as transformations in government agencies have driven firms to reposition their technological and organizational skills. Our objective is to show that the transformations that have occurred in the past 10 years have not only redefined skills and the organization of production, but also have given a more strategic place to knowledge management (KM) practices. We provide a contextual and historical overview based on qualitative interviews, in order to better understand the relation between KM and innovative behaviour in this industry. We build an original industrial and technological database comprising various samples that provides quantitative information concerning KM and innovative practices. The results of the statistical analysis reveal the specificity of firms in this industry. Taking account of the size of these firms and their technological intensity, we show that the behaviour of defence industry firms in terms of KM practices, differs from that of other firms. This is evident from their technological performance, and innovation and patenting intensity. This structural tendency is explained as an innovative behaviour in the French national innovation system rather than merely a ‘trend’.     

The endogenous relationship between innovation and diversification, and the impact of technological resources on the form of diversification

This research has endeavoured to build on earlier research on the relationship between a firm's technological resources and the direction of its diversification, by trying to confirm the endogeneity of this relationship and by addressing the influence of innovation on the choice of the mode of diversification. Based on a sample of Spanish firms, our results suggest that innovation drives diversification, but not the reverse. The second important finding of this research is the empirical confirmation that knowledge assets are not related to the diversification mode.     

How firms innovate through R&D internationalization? An S-curve hypothesis

This article examines the effects of R&D internationalization and organizational slack on innovation performance. We suggest that there is an S-shaped relationship between R&D internationalization and innovation performance. Innovation performance increases in the decentralization stage, decreases in the transition stage, and increases again in the recentralization stage. In addition, organizational slack is hypothesized to have a negative moderating effect on the S-shaped relationship. Longitudinal data on 210 Taiwanese firms in the information technology sector during a 10-year period is collected to test the hypotheses. The findings support our prediction. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Creating advantage in peripheral regions: The role of publicly funded R&D centres

Regional investment in R&D, technological development and innovation is perceived as being strongly associated with productivity, growth and sustained international competitiveness. One policy instrument by which policy makers have attempted to create regional advantage has been the establishment of publicly funded research centres (PRCs). In this paper we develop a logic model for this type of regional intervention and examine the outputs and longer-term outcomes from a group of (18) publicly funded R&D centres. Our results suggest some positive regional impacts but also identify significant differences in terms of innovation, additionality and sustainability between university-based and company-based PRCs. University-based PRCs have higher levels of short-term additionality, demonstrate higher levels of organisational innovation but prove less sustainable. Company-based PRCs demonstrate more partial additionality in the short-term but ultimately prove more sustainable.     

Regulatory policy, value of knowledge assets and innovation strategy: The case of the Orphan Drug Act

The U.S. Orphan Drug Act provides R&D incentives to drug-makers that go beyond statutory patent protection. The study explores the act's effect on financial returns to innovation and on the strategy of orphan drug development. Results indicate that the financial return to orphan drug development is positive. The findings suggest that when market size is small and cumulative innovation is an important phenomenon the policy that extends effective patent duration or subsidizes R&D activity improves incentives to innovate.     

Bottom-up estimation of industrial and public R&D investment by technology in support of policy-making: The case of selected low-carbon energy technologies

This paper discusses a bottom-up approach to estimate the level of R&D investment by technology in areas where data are scarce. It develops a four-step methodology for the estimation of corporate R&D investments at technology level. This approach can overcome gaps in existing data by combining publicly available information in a novel way, even though it introduces some uncertainty. This is illustrated for a set of low-carbon energy technologies that were identified as key for meeting Europe's long-term energy and climate objectives by the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan. The paper finds that the aggregated R&D investments dedicated to these technologies amounted to €3.3 billion in the EU in 2007, including public funding from European Union Member States and at EU-level, and industrial research activities from companies with headquarters registered in the EU. The results allow conclusions on the European energy research policy to be drawn, such as the dominance of industrial funds, and have provided significant input to the European policy making in this field. The paper ends with suggestions on how to further enhance the accuracy of the approach and how to widen its application to other sectors.     

Foreign direct investment in industrial research and development: A study of German MNCs

This paper reports on the international research and development (R&D) investments of German multinational corporations (MNCs). Based on a detailed empirical survey of laboratory sites established by 49 German MNCs, we examine (i) the level and pace of R&D internationalization, (ii) the motivations and mandates of overseas R&D laboratories, as well as (iii) the strength of the laboratories’ internal and external ties. Participating firms account for about 46% of all German enterprises with international R&D activities and approximately 66% of the nation's privately funded R&D expenditures in 1999. The findings indicate that the timing and organization of German owned overseas R&D investments more closely resemble Japanese or French than US or Swedish firms. Furthermore, in line with prior studies, German MNCs increasingly invest in international R&D for resource as opposed to market-seeking motives. The paper also finds significant differences with regard to the laboratory's mission and its geographical location on one hand, and its internal and external embeddedness, on the other.     

Reducing the demand uncertainties at the fuzzy-front-end of developing new online services

Addressing the demand uncertainties at the fuzzy-front-end of developing new online services, this paper tests the roles of numerous cluster-based methodologies in improving the predictive accuracy of consumer opinions. The results with an online service revealed that both crisp and non-crisp clustering methodologies improve the predictive accuracy and hence reduce the demand uncertainties at the fuzzy-front-end of the new product development process. They also showed that non-crisp clustering increases the accuracy more than does crisp clustering. Implications of the findings for our understanding of the earlier stages of the new product development process and for making informed R&D policies are discussed.     

Technology acquisition channels and industry performance: An industry-level analysis of Chinese large- and medium-size manufacturing enterprises

Through an industry-level analysis of Chinese large- and medium-size manufacturing enterprises over the period of 1996-2001, this article investigates the direct and interactive contributions of four technology acquisition channels to industry performances in terms of innovation performance and productivity. These channels include in-house R&D, foreign technology transfer, domestic technology transfer, and inter-industry R&D spillover. We have found evidence of an important role of inter-industry R&D spillover in shaping and improving industry performance in China, which has been neglected by previous empirical studies concerned with Chinese industrial firms. The empirical results indicate that inter-industry R&D spillover and foreign technology transfer make significant contributions to both labour productivity and the level of total factor productivity in Chinese manufacturing industries. We have also found that in-house R&D and inter-industry R&D spillover share a complementary relationship in shaping innovation performance and total factor productivity in Chinese industry, and that in-house R&D relates to foreign technology transfer as a complement for labour productivity. Finally, on the mixed results among existing literature in the context of developing countries, this article argues that the commonly followed strategy in technology development, combined with government regulations, will play an essential role in determining the relationship between in-house R&D and foreign technology transfer.     

政府研发补贴、高管团队职能背景多样性与企业研发投入

回应“在获得政府研发补贴后,企业职能背景多样的高管团队能否帮助企业优化资源整合与分配,降低企业研发风险、提高研发活动预期收益”的问题,为进一步优化政府研发补贴政策制定和实施提供微观经验证据和理论依据。基于高层梯队理论与信息决策理论,以2008—2018年我国A股上市企业非平衡面板数据为样本,实证检验政府研发补贴对企业研发投入的影响以及高管团队职能背景多样性对政府研发补贴效应的调节作用。结果显示：政府研发补贴对企业研发投入有显著的正向影响,并且该促进作用在非国有企业组中更加明显;整体而言,高管职能背景多样化有利于政府研发补贴政策效应的发挥,激励企业增加研发投入,但影响效果也会受到企业性质和企业规模的影响。由此提出,创新政策制定者在确定评价指标和甄选帮扶对象时可将企业性质和企业内部高管团队特征纳入考量指标;企业在招贤纳士时要重视高管团队整体职能背景的互补性与完备性。     

MNCs’ offshore R&D networks in host country's regional innovation system: The case of Taiwan-based firms in China

China has become a hot spot of R&D internationalization and a growing number of Taiwan-based firms have indeed set up R&D units in China. Taking into account China's substantial regional variations in economic development, innovation capacity, and knowledge productivity, such notions as regional innovation system (RIS) and local innovative milieu may become more relevant to the study on relationships between China and its inward R&D internationalization. Therefore, the key issue for this paper is what locational advantages of an RIS within a host country affect the network linkages and networking strategy of multinational corporations’ (MNCs’) offshore R&D units. The paper aims to enrich the current understanding of R&D internationalization in several ways. First, the paper attempts to examine the R&D networking underlying R&D internationalization by Taiwan-based firms in China, with particular reference to the sub-national level inside China. Second, the paper tries to establish a link between the literature of R&D internationalization and that of RIS, with a modified version of Dunning's eclectic paradigm. Efforts are made to map the relationship between foreign subsidiaries’ local R&D networks and their host RISs inside China. Third, the paper takes advantage of a government databank to adopt a quantitative approach, the Seemingly Unrelated Bivariate Probit Regression model, with foreign subsidiaries as the unit of analysis, to highlight the role played by some aspects of the RIS in determining the local R&D networking of Taiwanese subsidiaries in China. Our evident shows that MNCs’ offshore R&D units that purse home-based technology exploitation strategy, the mainstream strategy regarding the developing host country, tend to be located in a host region with a strong knowledge application and exploitation subsystem, while an RIS with a strong knowledge generation and diffusion subsystem, within such a developing country as China, may induce MNCs’ local R&D units to pursue home-base technology augmenting strategy. On balance, not only the location choice but also the local R&D linkages of MNCs’ offshore subsidiaries are related to appropriate fits between the RIS and the subsidiaries’ innovation network inside the host country.     

基于高管联结的企业间研发行为趋同“形似”还是“神似”？

利用2012—2017年中国A股制造业上市公司数据,考察高管联结以及以此为基础的组织间双边关系对企业研发行为的影响。研究发现,在基于高管联结的组织间双边关系中,联结双方存在显著的研发投入趋同和研发效率趋同;联结双方相似度越高,研发投入趋同和研发效率趋同越显著;环境不确定性对联结双方研发投入趋同存在正向影响,但对研发效率趋同的影响不显著。基于理性学习和行为反应的组织间模仿是上述研发行为趋同的内在生成机制。理性学习过程能够带来联结双方研发投入趋同和研发效率趋同;行为反应过程在强化联结双方研发投入趋同的同时,抑制了研发效率趋同。理性学习过程还进一步推动了焦点企业研发效率提升,带来联结双方研发效率的“向上趋同”。企业间研发行为的模仿和学习应以自身资源能力特征、模仿对象研发绩效以及外部环境因素的系统分析为基础。管理者应跳出行为习惯、规范压力和个人职业声誉的窠臼,更加理性独立地做出研发决策。     

研发机构企业化有助于提高研发投入吗?——来自制造业上市公司的经验证据

本文从研发机构企业化改制视角出发,探讨了组织属性、公司治理和经营模式对创新主体研发投入的影响机制与作用路径,并结合中国制造业上市公司年报数据以及TOBIT回归模型做实证分析与稳健性检验。研究结果发现,研发机构企业化改制（1）有利于通过公司制经营丰富市场参与主体、激发产业创新活力;（2）有益于通过股份式管理推动跨界协同发展、提升企业创新动能;（3）有助于通过专业化外包集中发展核心业务、释放创新资源潜力。上述研究结论不仅对促进产业链与创新链深度融合具有理论指导意义,还为新型研发机构建设提供了实践参考价值。     

R&D投入、技术获取模式与企业创新绩效-基于浙江省高技术企业的实证

现有研究在探讨企业R&D投入与创新绩效之间的关系时,忽略了技术获取模式在其中的调节作用。本文以企业技术获取模式为调节变量,提出了R&D投入、技术来源、国外技术引进方式和企业创新绩效的理论模型,并结合浙江高技术企业的问卷调查结果,采用分组回归方法进行实证分析。研究发现:企业R&D投入与创新绩效显著正相关;以自主研发作为企业主要技术来源,以及以购买技术资料或专利作为引进国外技术的主要方式,对企业R&D投入与创新绩效的关系起正向调节作用;以合作研发为主要技术来源,以及以购买设备、购买样品、聘请国外技术人员等为引进国外技术主要方式,对企业R&D投入与创新绩效的关系起反向调节作用。