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.     

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.     

国际研发资本技术溢出对绿色技术创新效率的动态效应

基于Coe-Helpman的国际研发资本技术溢出模型,将国际研发投入、跨国技术转移、FDI、OFDI和进口贸易等5条渠道的研发资本技术溢出均纳入该模型,用动态GMM检验各渠道技术溢出与绿色技术创新效率的关系。研究结果表明：从动态性来看,滞后一期的绿色技术创新效率对当期的技术创新效率有显著提升作用,技术的循环累积效应对绿色技术创新效率的提升作用明显。国际研发资本技术溢出比国内研发资本更好地促进了绿色技术创新效率的提升,除了OFDI研发资本技术溢出没有提升绿色技术创新效率,其他渠道均促进了绿色技术创新效率,其中FDI研发资本技术溢出对绿色技术创新效率的提升最为显著。最后本文提出了政策建议。     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Determinants of R&D investment: The Extreme-Bounds-Analysis approach applied to 26 OECD countries

This paper investigates the determinants of R&D investment at the national level with an emphasis on the roles of patent rights protection, international technology transfer through trade and FDI, and economic growth, in addition to the essentials of human capital accumulation and the number of scientific researchers. The Extreme-Bounds-Analysis (EBA) approach is applied to examine the robustness and sensitivity of these factors.The results of the EBA tests on data from 26 OECD countries from 1996 to 2006 showed that tertiary education and the proportion of scientific researchers in a country were robust determinants that had positive effects on R&D intensity. Foreign technology inflows had a robust and negative impact on domestic R&D. Patent rights protection and the income growth rate are fragile determinants of R&D investment.     

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.     

Innovation and R&D spillover effects in Spanish regions: A spatial approach

This paper analyses the spatial patterns of innovation, its regional interdependencies and evolution, as well as its role in determining local innovation in Spanish regions. Results indicate the suitability of a trade-based regional proximity when considering spatial spillovers in innovation. In this context, not only local capacity is relevant in determining domestic innovation, but also spatial innovation spillovers, which result mainly from efforts in both higher education and public administration. Moreover, a minimum level of regional development is required to improve the effectiveness of R&D policies. Therefore, it is necessary for R&D policies to act in combination with other policies focused on the improvement of socio-economic and structural determinants of regional innovative performance.     

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.     

Behavioural additionality of R&D subsidies: A learning perspective

The use of R&D grants as a policy instrument has been motivated by economic arguments of market failure. Neo-classical econometric studies have analysed the additionality of one Euro of subsidies on both the investments of companies in the R&D process and the output of that R&D process. More recently, behavioural additionality has been launched as a third form of additionality. In contrast to input and output additionality, behavioural additionality is related to changes in the processes that take place within the firm. In this paper, we analyse the determinants of the behavioural additionality of R&D grants. To explain the mechanism through which behavioural additionality is obtained, we use organizational learning theory as a guide to formulate our hypotheses. Hypotheses are tested using a telephone survey of 192 recipients of R&D grants provided by the IWT in Flanders in 2001–2004, matched to a sample of 84 firms that undertake innovation activities but which had never had a grant bid accepted. We find that congenital learning and interorganizational learning lead to increased behavioural additionality. However, these learning effects decrease with the number of subsidized projects that are undertaken by the company.     

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.     

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.     

Relative efficiency of R&D activities: A cross-country study accounting for environmental factors in the DEA approach

This paper applies the production framework associated with the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method to evaluate the relative efficiency of R&D activities across countries. R&D capital stocks and manpower are treated as inputs while patents and academic publications are considered as outputs. A three-stage approach, which involves using DEA for evaluating efficiency and using Tobit regressions for controlling the external environment, is applied to 30 countries in recent years. The results show that less than one-half of the countries are fully efficient in R&D activities and that more than two-thirds are at the stage of increasing returns to scale. Most countries have a more significant advantage in producing SCI cum EI publications than in generating patents.     

技术体制对FDI溢出效应的影响:基于中国制造业的计量分析

本文从技术体制这个新的视角,分析了影响FDI行业内溢出效应以及FDI技术扩散的因素。基于对我国28个制造行业1999年到2002年面板数据的计量统计分析,得到结论:对于FDI总的溢出效应,行业技术机会越少、知识基础越倾向于应用科学、行业的技术轨道流动性越弱,FDI溢出效应越容易发挥;当地企业的吸收能力对FDI溢出具有明显的促进作用;创新独占性和外部知识可获得性对FDI溢出效应的影响在本文的统计结果中并不显著。而技术体制对FDI技术扩散的作用则略有不同:技术机会、创新独占性和技术轨道流动性的反向作用在统计结果中十分显著,其他技术体制因素对FDI技术扩散的影响在本文的统计分析中没有得到体现。这一结论对我国的引资和我国本土企业的技术追赶具有重要意义。     

R&D investment and financing choices: A comprehensive perspective

We posit that the effects of R&D investment on financing choices depend on the degree of intervention barriers and appropriation discrepancy between capital providers and the firm. Based on these two contingencies, we categorize financing instruments into four types: common equity (common stock), convertible securities (preferred stock and convertible debt), transactional debt (corporate bonds), and relational debt (bank and commercial loans). From the experiences of 39 petroleum firms during the period 1976-2005, we found R&D investment has a positive effect on the use of common equity, a U-shaped effect on the use of convertible securities, and an inverted U-shaped effect on the use of relational debt to raise capital. These effects are sustained over several years.     

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.     

The effects of R&D tax credits on patenting and innovations

Norwegian business spending on R&D is low by OECD standards. To stimulate business R&D, in 2002 the Norwegian government introduced a tax-based incentive, SkatteFUNN. We analyze the effects of SkatteFUNN on the likelihood of innovating and patenting. Using a rich database for Norwegian firms, we find that projects receiving tax credits result in the development of new production processes and to some extent the development of new products for the firm. Firms that collaborate with other firms are more likely to be successful in their innovation activities. However, the scheme does not appear to contribute to innovations in the form of new products for the market or patenting.     

政府补贴对产业共性技术可持续研发行为的影响研究

结合共性技术研发过程,提出了共性技术可持续研发行为的概念框架,借鉴Stackelberg主从博弈思想,本文构建了共性技术供给及后续商业开发承担企业、市场收益实现承担企业和政府三方博弈模型,考虑企业在产业中不同的主导地位,研究政府不同补贴对共性技术可持续研发行为的影响。结果表明：政府应谨慎同时提供两类补贴;当共性技术研发努力成本较高时,政府应优先使用研发努力补贴;当市场收益实现承担企业占主导地位,研发努力成本较低时政府应优先选择使用单位成本补贴;无论是否处于主导地位,企业技术水平对政府补贴相关参数均有较大影响,政府制定补贴政策时须给予充分考虑。研究结论为政府补贴政策制定及共性技术研发实践提供了一定的参考。     

Liberalization, outward orientation and in-house R&D activity of multinational and local firms: A quantitative exploration for Indian manufacturing

In an increasingly globalizing and knowledge-based world economy, the declining importance of R&D activity in India is a matter of concern. This paper analyzes the determinants of R&D behaviour of Indian enterprises over the 1990s in the context of the reforms of 1991 and their impact on the R&D behaviour of MNE affiliates and local enterprises. The analysis suggests that although average levels of spending have fallen, increased competition due to liberalization seems to have pushed local firms to rationalize their R&D activity and make it more efficient. Also, R&D spending seems to rise more than proportionally with firm size after a certain threshold level has been reached. The analysis brings out differences in the nature of R&D activity of MNE affiliates and local firms. Local firms direct their R&D activity primarily towards the assimilation of imported technology, and to providing a backup to their outward expansion via exports and FDI. MNE affiliates, on the other hand, focus on exploiting the advantages of India as an R&D platform for their parents. The paper is concluded with some policy implications of the findings.