R&D spillovers from subsidized firms that fail: Tracing knowledge by following employees across firms

Public R&D subsidies aim to target particularly risky R&D and R&D with large externalities. One would expect many such projects to fail from a commercial point of view, but they may still produce knowledge with social value. Such knowledge is likely to be embodied in workers or teams of workers. I test for knowledge diffusion from subsidised technology firms transmitted through the labor market. The specific case analysed is a series of Norwegian IT-programs so far considered unsuccessful. It has been argued that know-how built up during the programs still ‘fertilize’ the IT-industry. I find limited support for this claim.     

Alliances are not enough explaining rapid growth in biotechnology firms

The goal of this paper is to understand the factors explaining differential growth in biotechnology firms. It aims also to add some caution to the generalized opinion according to which alliances are the key factor behind new firm performance. The theoretical framework is based on competence, and evolutionary theories of the firm. These approaches underline the fact that within similar industries and technologies firms display clear and persistent variety in performance. Some 60 dedicated biotechnology firms (DBFs) were interviewed across Canada; half of them experienced rapid growth. A few variables, including alliances, explained much of the fast growth.     

Effects of R&D and networking on the export decision of Japanese firms

This paper examines how internal R&D intensity and external networking channels are related with the firm's export decision, based on a large firm-level data set covering all manufacturing industries in Japan without any firm-size threshold. Internal R&D is not the only determinant of exporting, while it is strongly related with exports in the science-based sector. Collaborations with other firms on joint projects and operations of subsidiaries overseas are significantly linked to exports of large-sized firms, while affiliations with business associations and R&D intensity are critical for small-sized firms to export. Connections with computer networks have a weaker impact.     

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.     

R&D manpower and technological performance: The impact of demographic and task-related diversity

We assess the impact of R&D manpower diversity on firms’ technological performance. Relying on insights from two theoretical perspectives on team diversity (i.e. social categorization perspective and information decision-making perspective), we hypothesize that both demographic and task-related sources of diversity within firms’ R&D workforce influence technological performance. In addition, we expect that these two dimensions of diversity interact with each other. To test our hypotheses, we rely on survey data from 938 Singaporean firms, providing in-depth information on three sources of demographic diversity (i.e. gender, age, and nationality of R&D employees) and two sources of task-related diversity (i.e. educational and knowledge area background of R&D employees). Our findings point to significant interactions between different sources of R&D manpower diversity. In particular, we identify substitutive relationships between (a) educational and gender diversity, and (b) nationality and knowledge area diversity.     

Global R&D activities of Japanese MNCs in the US: A triangulation approach

We examined 79 Japanese MNCs’ R&D subsidiaries in the US from the knowledge-based view. We found: (1) subsidiaries’ R&D strategies generally encouraged knowledge flows; (2) subsidiaries’ R&D alliances promoted knowledge flows; (3) R&D subsidiaries with process-oriented incentives promoted vertical knowledge flows; (3) autonomous R&D subsidiaries promoted knowledge flows from the local environments to the subsidiary; (4) R&D subsidiaries with a high level of knowledge flows accumulated a high level of knowledge; and (5) R&D subsidiaries with a high level of accumulated knowledge achieved high overall performance. Our interviews with 30 R&D subsidiaries and 10 parent companies supplement these findings.     

Environmental innovation and R&D cooperation: Empirical evidence from Spanish manufacturing firms

This paper explores the relationship between firms’ R&D cooperation strategies and their propensity to introduce environmental innovations.Previous literature has supported that environmental innovations differ from other innovations as far as externalities and drivers of their introduction are concerned, highlighting mainly the importance of regulation to trigger them. Using data from the Community Innovation Survey on Spanish manufacturing firms (PITEC), this paper investigates specificities that affect rather how they are developed, and in particular the higher importance of R&D cooperation with external partners.The econometric estimations, controlling for selection bias, suggest that environmental innovative firms cooperate on innovation with external partners to a higher extent than other innovative firms. Furthermore, cooperation with suppliers, KIBS and universities is more relevant than for other innovators, whereas cooperation with clients does not seem to be differentially important. Finally, the results bespoke of a substitution effect between cooperation activities and the internal R&D effort.     

Institutionalizing end-user demand steering in agricultural R&D: Farmer levy funding of R&D in The Netherlands

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the institutionalization of demand-driven modes of working in the R&D planning process and reveal possible weaknesses, through an analysis of a system of collective R&D funding by farmers. The findings indicate that, although end-users have the opportunity to raise issues that lead to R&D, queries are influenced by several actors in the R&D planning process in such a way that they do not adequately reflect farmers’ innovation needs. Conclusions are that more emphasis is required on joint demand articulation and involvement of end-users and other stakeholders in the innovation process, and on the institutional development of R&D funding organizations in order to adopt a more inclusive view on innovation.     

Inter-firm R&D partnering in pharmaceutical biotechnology since 1975: Trends, patterns, and networks

This paper analyses a large, longitudinal database on inter-firm R&D partnerships formed in the high-tech pharmaceutical biotechnology industry since 1975. Our research indicates an overall growth in the number of annually, newly established R&D partnerships where research partners consistently prefer contractual partnerships to equity-based alliances. In the networks that develop through these R&D partnerships, small, entrepreneurial biotechnological companies take a leading role during the 1980s when biotechnology first became relevant for the pharmaceutical industry. The 1990s, however, show a different pattern with established, large pharmaceutical companies becoming more dominant, acting as nodal players with multiple partnerships with a variety of other companies.     

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.     

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.     

Distributed R&D, cross-regional knowledge integration and quality of innovative output

We explore the impact of geographic dispersion of a firm's R&D activities on the quality of its innovative output. Using data on over half a million patents from 1127 firms, we find that having geographically distributed R&D per se does not improve the quality of a firm's innovations. In fact, distributed R&D appears to be negatively associated with average value of innovations. This suggests that potential gains from access to diverse ideas and expertise from different locations are, on average, offset by difficulty in achieving integration of knowledge across multiple locations. To investigate whether the innovating teams that do manage cross-fertilization of ideas from different locations achieve more valuable innovations, we analyze innovations for which there is evidence of such knowledge cross-fertilization along any of the followings dimensions: knowledge sourcing from other locations within the firm, having at least one inventor with cross-regional ties, and having at least one inventor that has recently moved from another region. Analysis along all three dimensions consistently reveals a direct positive effect cross-regional knowledge integration has on innovation quality, as well as a positive interaction effect of cross-regional knowledge integration and distributed R&D for innovation quality. More generally, our findings provide new evidence regarding the importance of cross-unit integrative mechanisms for achieving superior performance in multi-unit firms.     

The dynamics of R&D network in the IT industry

In this paper, we provide an empirical analysis of evolving networks of successful R&D collaborations in the IT industry (consisting of firms that obtained patents in the technological category of computers and communication) in the U.S. between 1985 and 1995. We first show that the R&D network has become more extensive, more clustered, and more unequal in the sense that ‘stars’ have emerged in the network. We then analyze the effect of the existing network structure in the process of new R&D collaboration formation. We control for unobserved similarities among firms based on the community structures within the network that the algorithm developed by Girvan and Newman (2004) identifies and find a significant cyclic closure and preferential-attachment effect.     

Effect of R&D programmes on the formation of university-industry-government networks: comparative analysis of Japanese R&D programmes

Japan has established several R&D programmes since the 1980s aimed at basic and fundamental R&D in response to the criticism of its free-riding on Western basic research. In some of these programmes, the linkages between university, industry and government have been a requirement for formation or selection of projects. In this paper, it is investigated how five Japanese R&D programmes promote inter-sectoral and inter-institutional networks. The result shows that the projects of the Next Generation Programme for pre-competitive research formed few but multiple university-industry-government linkages within each project by designing the complementary relationships among the participants. Linkages between private companies were not much formed except for the projects of the ERATO Programme, in which researchers temporarily leave their own institutes. The funds for more basic research was found to have little effect on the formation of networks within projects but do form the linkages outside the projects.     

R&D Subsidies as Dual Signals in Technological Collaborations

We investigate the influence of public R&D subsidies on a firm’s likelihood to form technological collaborations. Using signaling theory, we conceptualize the award of a subsidy as a pointing signal (i.e., indicating a quality attribute that distinguishes the signaler from its competitors), and the monetary amount raised through a subsidy as an activating signal (i.e., activating the quality attribute of the signaler). Drawing on the attention-based view, we investigate whether the relative salience of these signals varies between two types of signal receivers: academic and corporate partners. Using a panel sample of Spanish manufacturing firms, our results indicate that the two types of receivers attend to the two signals differently: while academic partners attend to pointing signals only (sent by the award of a selective subsidy), corporate partners react to the richer information that activating signals provide (sent by the monetary value of both selective and automatic subsidies). Our results are stronger for SMEs vis-à-vis large firms, and hold after controlling for endogeneity, selection bias, simultaneity, attrition, inter-temporal patterns in technological collaborations, and the substantive effects of subsidies. The theorized and tested dual nature of subsidy-enabled signals and their different salience to distinct partner types hold interesting implications for research on alliances, innovation policy, and signals.     

Does R&D performance decline with firm size?—A re-examination in terms of elasticity

There have been many previous studies exploring the relationship between R&D performance and firm size; however, to our knowledge, this issue has never been examined in terms of R&D output elasticity. This paper therefore sets out to re-examine the relationship of the two variables using R&D output elasticity as a measure of R&D performance. A total of 126 manufacturing firms, listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange over the period from 1994 to 2000, are taken as the analytical sample. One practical consideration for choosing these particular firms is the relative abundance of data available for the variables for a longitudinal investigation. The estimates suggest that there is an approximating ‘U-type’ relationship between R&D productivity and firm size. This finding suggests that both large and small firms have higher R&D productivity, and even when the sample is divided into the high-tech and traditional sectors, such a finding still holds. Therefore, in contrast to the prior studies, this study shows that size offers advantage in R&D performance.     

First- and second-order additionality and learning outcomes in collaborative R&D programs

In this paper, we distinguish between firm-level learning effects that result from ‘first-order’ and ‘second-order’ additionalities in innovation policy interventions. ‘First-order’ additionalities represent direct firm-level R&D subsidies, whereas ‘second-order’ additionalities result from knowledge spill-overs, horizontal knowledge exchanges between firms, and from other meso- or community-level effects. Analyzing data from collaborative R&D programs in Finland, we show that enhancing identification with a community of practice among R&D program participants (proxy for second-order additionality) enhances firm-level learning outcomes beyond those resulting from direct R&D subsidy (proxy for first-order additionality). Learning effects facilitated by second-order additionality are not confined to technological learning alone, encompassing also business and market learning. We also show that aspects of program implementation enhance identification with a community of practice, which then mediate the relationship between program implementation and firm-level learning outcomes.     

On the road again: Researcher mobility inside the R&D network

This paper examines the roles of international assignments and other forms of researcher mobility inside the integrated R&D networks of six of the largest European pharmaceutical companies. From in-depth interviews with R&D managers and scientists it is found that, while the use of international assignments is both limited and often not aimed specifically at the transfer of knowledge, other forms of short-term mobility are widely employed. But what is transferred through such short-term visits is narrow in focus and often related to specific projects whereas international assignments enable the transfer of broader and more complex knowledge. The potential impact of these changes in the inter-unit mobility patterns of researchers may be to limit both the exploitation of potential synergies across disciplines and the creation of enduring and strong personal ties among researchers working in distant locations.     

The effects of owner identity and external governance systems on R&D investments: A study of Western European firms

This paper builds on agency and institutional theory to extend the analysis of the effects of ownership and control on R&D investments by considering the influence of different types of ownership and of institutional corporate governance systems. Our empirical analysis is based on a unique dataset of 1000 firms publicly-traded in six European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden and the UK). Controlling for industry- and firm-level effects, our findings show that higher shareholding by families is negatively associated with R&D investment. Moreover, widely-held firms invest less in R&D in the United Kingdom than in Continental European countries, thus suggesting the existence of a greater pressure towards the reduction of R&D in market-based governance systems. The results are robust against possible sample selection biases due to firms’ discretional R&D disclosure.