Creativity and regional innovation: Evidence from EU regions

We analyse the role of creative workers in the region as a source and foundational element of regional innovation in the European Union. We show the empirical relevance of this factor – which we label inspiration – within the structure of a recursive model of regional innovation for a set of 83 European regions. We show that, when differentiated from the presence of regional intelligence – as measured by the availability of human capital – and from technological infrastructure, inspiration, along with the degree of development of national and regional institutions, has the strongest direct and indirect effects on regional patenting activity.     

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.     

Technology push and demand pull perspectives in innovation studies: Current findings and future research directions

This study updates the debate on the sources of innovation. Using techniques like factor analysis, multidimensional scaling, and pathfinder analysis, we examine the most influential articles that have dealt with the topic. Our analysis provides three main findings. The first more precisely highlights the role of demand as a source of innovation. The second illustrates how competences enable firms to match technology with demand and capitalize on technology and demand as sources of innovation. The third unveils a distinction between external and internal sources of innovations. The sources of innovation can be purely external or internally generated competences that enable the firm to integrate external knowledge within its boundaries. Our work contributes to the classic debate by providing a more granular understanding of how technology and demand interact. In discussing our findings, we link our framework to strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship studies that expressly call for a better understanding of technology and demand factors in value creation and capture.     

Ownership and firm innovation in a transition economy: Evidence from China

We examine innovation performance of firms in a transition economy from an ownership perspective. We focus specifically on the relationship between ownership structures and firm innovation performance. Drawing on data from 548 Chinese firms we find volume of patent registration to be most strongly influenced by foreign ownership in the firm along with firm affiliation within a business group. The influence of state and institutional ownership on innovation performance is positive but lagged. Contrary to expectations, insider ownership leads to lower innovation performance and concentrated ownership has no significant impact. Our study has two principal contributions. Firstly, we utilize a comprehensive treatment of ownership characteristics, overcoming weakness in previous studies that have used a more narrow focus on ownership type. Secondly, we contribute to understanding of how firms in transition economies build ‘indigenous’ capabilities for innovation by drawing attention to the interplay of foreign and domestic control of agents’ innovation.     

Sources of innovation and industry-university interaction: Evidence from Spanish firms

In this paper we use a sample of Spanish innovative firms to identify the determinants of R&D cooperation agreements between five types of partners: firms that belong to the same group; customers and suppliers; competitors; universities; public research centres. We focus on the determinants of R&D cooperation between innovative firms and universities. We used the Spanish version of the Community Innovation Survey (CIS-3) to obtain data about the R&D cooperation of 4150 innovative firms in Spain. To obtain empirical evidence about the determinants of this cooperation, we adopted an integrated approach that enables us to compare the effects of sectorial and individual determinants on the choice of partners. Our results show that a firm's cooperation activities are closely linked to the characteristics of the industry and the characteristics of the firm. These include R&D intensity, size, whether the firm belongs to a group, product and process innovation, and access to public funds for R&D activities. Internal R&D and agreements with customers, suppliers and competitor partners also increase firm's propensity for R&D cooperation with universities.     

Dynamics in innovation systems: Evidence from Japan's game software industry

In contrast to the US and recently Europe, Japan appears to be unsuccessful in establishing new industries. An oft-cited example is Japan's practical invisibility in the global business software sector. Literature has ascribed Japan's weakness - or conversely, America's strength - to the specific institutional settings and competences of actors within the respective national innovation system. It has additionally been argued that unlike the American innovation system, with its proven ability to give birth to new industries, the inherent path dependency of the Japanese innovation system makes innovation and establishment of new industries quite difficult. However, there are two notable weaknesses underlying current propositions postulating that only certain innovation systems enable the creation of new industries: first, they mistakenly confound context specific with general empirical observations. And second, they grossly underestimate - or altogether fail to examine - the dynamics within innovation systems. This paper will show that it is precisely the dynamics within innovation systems - dynamics founded on the concept of path plasticity - which have enabled Japan to charge forward as a global leader in a highly innovative field: the game software sector.     

Sector heterogeneity and dynamic effects of innovation subsidies: Evidence from Horizon 2020

We evaluate the effect of a pan-European innovation funding program on firm growth and innovative output. Using a difference-in-differences estimation on a sample of matched firms, we find that subsidized firms are able to invest more in tangible and intangible assets, achieve higher growth of turnover and employment, and file more patent applications. We then analyze the dynamic treatment effect and find that the effects of subsidization tend to get stronger over time. Moreover, our findings indicate that the effect of subsidization is highly heterogeneous across sectors with different R&D or knowledge intensity and level of competition. Finally, we explore some economic channels to explain how subsidies generate strong effects on firm performance. We show that subsidized firms are able to generate more internal financing and attract more long-term borrowing after receiving the subsidy, yet we find no evidence that subsidized firms are able to attract more external equity financing than similar unsubsidized firms.     

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.     

Demand drops and innovation investments: Evidence from the Great Recession in Spain

The Great Recession, which began in 2008, brought about large contractions in aggregate consumption in many countries. In this research, we study the impact of heterogeneous decreases in demand on innovation investments by analyzing the evolution of innovation investments in a panel of Spanish manufacturing firms during the 2004–2013 period. We proxy heterogeneous variation in demand with net exit rates in the productive stratum of each firm, defined as the group of firms in the same industry and size class. These net exit rates are computed considering all firms in the stratum, including firms that are determined to be non-innovative firms. To support the identification strategy, we show that exit rates do not capture idiosyncratic unobservable characteristics among innovative firms. In addition, we control for the effect of time-varying credit constraints. We find that a one standard deviation increase in exit rates is associated with reductions of 1.5% in the share of firms investing in innovation. The drop is larger for smaller firms, which also experience greater decreases in sales. Since smaller firms are most sensitive to demand drops, they are the natural candidates to be the target of policies devoted to increasing R&D activities during crises. As additional analysis, we study firms’ perceptions of the main obstacles to innovation to find that net exit rates capture the heterogeneous variation in demand, rather than credit constraints. Finally, when analyzing the exit patterns of firms in the sample, we confirm that the net exit rate in a firm's stratum does not drive the exit of firms in our sample.     

The effects of offshore production on onshore innovation: Evidence from Japanese multinationals

This paper examines a largely unexplored channel of the effects of offshore production on onshore (domestic) innovation performance. We combine a comprehensive dataset mapping the global operations of Japanese multinational firms with patent statistics to measure innovation. The study finds that increased offshore production have little effects on onshore innovation performance once properly correcting a simultaneity bias. Furthermore, we find some weak evidence of increased offshore production downgrades the quality of innovation, measured by citations. Consistent with other studies, we find that an increase in overseas R&D is the main driver of innovation creation for multinational firms.     

On the relationship between environmental management, environmental innovation and patenting: Evidence from German manufacturing firms

This paper analyses empirically the relationship between environmental innovations, environmental management and patenting. In particular it tests a number of propositions on how environmental management systems and the interaction with environmentally more or less concerned stakeholders are associated with the probability of firms to pursue innovation in general (measured as patenting behaviour) and specifically environmental innovation (measured based on firm self-assessment and through patent data). In applying a negative binomial as well as binary discrete choice models the relationship is studied using data on German manufacturing firms. As a novel and important insight, the study finds that environmental innovation can be meaningfully identified using patent data and that environmental innovation defined this way is less ubiquitous than self-reported environmental innovation. It also reveals that the implementation level of environmental management systems has a positive effect exclusively on environmental process innovation, whereas it is negatively associated with the level of a firms’ general patenting activities. For environmental product innovation and patented environmental innovations a positive relationship with environmentally concerned and a negative link with environmentally neutral stakeholders is found.     

R&D,innovation and productivity relationships: Evidence from threshold panel model

This study investigates the nonlinear relationship between R&D expenditures, innovation, productivity, high-tech export products. Previous empirical research used linear standard structures to deal with these kinds of specifications, and it has shown that the linearity is frequently conditioned by other macroeconomic factors such as the level of development and the financial openness. Based on these arguments, our study investigates this question in econometric specification using panel smooth threshold regression methodology proposed by Gonzalez et al. in 2005. Our findings suggest that there is a threshold effect within the links between R&D expenditures, innovation, and productivity. The effect of R&D expenditures, innovation, productivity, and medium and high technology product exports is mixed. However, both positive and negative effects are found, depending on which innovation indicators are used or on which level of threshold variable is the most appropriate. The results advocate that the level of economic development can be considered as target indicators to conduct an innovation policy.     

The impact on innovation performance of different sources of knowledge: Evidence from the UK Community Innovation Survey

This paper considers two main categories of knowledge sources and their impact on the innovation performance of enterprises: own-generation through R&D versus knowledge transfers via bought-in resources for innovation purposes, external collaborations on R&D, and internal sources within the company. The national and international dimensions of both internal networks and external collaborative agreements are explored, as is the interaction between R&D and other sources. Data from two UK Community Innovation Surveys allow for the lagging of relevant variables. Our results suggest that, while intra-company knowledge sources, own-generation, and bought-in R&D matter in innovation performance, the benefits of joint innovation efforts in the form of cooperation are less clear. The international dimension of internal networks is highly relevant, and interactions between the own-generation of knowledge and external sources increase the innovation potential of enterprises.     

The effect of technological imitation on corporate innovation: Evidence from US patent data

Technological imitation may play a crucial role in motivating firms to innovate. However, theoretical predictions and empirical findings on the role of imitation have not yet reached a consensus. One major gap in the previous studies is that the empirical tests are based on samples consisting of only one industry over a short period of time. This study uses a novel measure of industry-level technological imitation proxied by quick citations by competitors to examine the relationship between imitation and innovation. Using US patent data for the period 1977–2005, we find that there are inverted U-shaped relationships between the degree of industry-level technological imitation and industry-level innovation activities and between the degree of industry-level technological imitation and the value of firm-level innovation. Our results suggest that positive externalities from the interactions among firms during the innovation process outweigh the negative effects of free-riding concerns on firms’ innovation activities and incentives to innovate up to a high degree of technological imitation, while free-riding concerns outweigh the positive externalities when the level of technological imitation is extremely high. The sector-by-sector analyses show that the relationship between technological imitation and the quantity and market value of innovation are not very different across Pavitt sectors. A comparative analysis on the role of imitation between agglomerated and non-agglomerated industries suggests that the positive effect of a moderate level of imitation and the negative effect of an excessive level of imitation are more pronounced for agglomerated industries. The results suggest that creating innovation clusters, such as Silicon Valley in the United States and Shenzhen City in China, and allowing different innovators to cooperate, imitate and compete with each other would be very effective in promoting corporate innovation. However, an excessively high level of technological imitation is more detrimental for firms in innovation clusters because it lowers those firms’ incentives to innovate more radically.     

产业升级与自主创新:机理分析与实证研究

产业升级的自主创新效应是当前经济学研究的一个较为新颖的论题,自主创新效应也是中国产业升级过程中国家战略预期的关键之一。本文在国内外现有文献研究的基础上,深入地研究了产业升级与自主创新之间的影响机理,并在此基础上,就产业升级对自主创新的影响,运用适当模型和1998—2012年中国省际层面的相关数据进行了经验性检验。实证结果表明,产业升级对中国整体自主创新存在显著正面的溢出效应,产业升级的创新溢出效应越明显,中国自主创新能力越强,而对东部、中部和西部的自主创新效应则存在较大差异。充分利用产业升级实现自主创新能力的提升,关键是要加大研发投入,提升自身的消化吸收能力和自主研发能力,营造有利于自主创新的政策环境。     

ODI与中国自主创新:机理分析与实证研究

ODI对母国的自主创新效应是当前经济学研究的一个较为新颖的论题,自主创新效应也是中国"走出去"过程中国家战略预期的关键之一。在国内外现有研究文献的基础上,深入地研究了ODI与母国自主创新之间的影响机理,并在此基础上,就中国ODI对其自主创新的影响,运用适当模型和1991—2006年中国省际层面的相关数据进行了经验性检验。实证结果表明,ODI在整体上对中国自主创新存在显著正面的反向溢出效应,ODI的反向技术溢出效应越明显,中国自主创新能力越强,而对东中西部各地区的效应则存在较大差异。充分利用ODI实现我国自主创新能力的提高,关键是要提高我国自身的技术吸收能力和自主研发能力。     

Managing research and innovation networks: Evidence from a government sponsored cross-industry program

Important innovations are increasingly produced based on research engagement and fertilization across industries. However, we know little about the challenges associated with managing innovation networks in specific contexts that involves researchers in cross-industry collaboration. Against this backdrop, we draw on theory on design and orchestration of innovation networks to analyze a large-scale government sponsored program, “ProcessIT Innovations” that was designed to increase competitiveness and accelerate economic growth in Northern Sweden. The program was initiated and led by firms from the traditionally strong local process industry and engaged local researchers and firms from the emerging IT industry. Based on our analyses, we offer two contributions. First, we provide a detailed analysis of the challenges related to configuration of the network, orchestration of partnerships between participants, and facilitation of innovation in dedicated development projects. Second, we propose a model of managing research and innovation networks through fertilization across industries and between firms and research institutions.     

A platform-based approach to ambidexterity for innovation: An empirical investigation in the public sector

Innovation in the public sector plays an important role in improving the quality of public services and addressing economic and societal challenges. Most of the previous research on innovations has focused on the private sector. How organizations may achieve ambidexterity for innovations in the public sector characterized by unique constraints has been largely underexplored. Platforms have emerged as key components in organizations’ approaches to innovation. Using an empirical study in a public sector organization, this study identifies a platform-based approach that can be used to achieve ambidexterity in balancing exploitative and exploratory innovations in the public sector. Organizations facing constraints pertaining to structure, risk, and value may benefit from considering their product/service development, process management, and value formulation through this approach. This study also identifies practices in platform development, appropriation, and control that contributed to the success of the platform-based approach.     

Product innovation and the decision to invest in fixed capital assets: Evidence from an SME survey in six European Union member states

This work explores the relationship between product innovation and the decision to invest in fixed capital assets among a sample of SMEs in six European Union countries located in both peripheral and more central areas. We find that the presence of product innovation reduces the probability to invest. A firm’s size exerts a direct, inverted U-shape effect on the probability to invest and an indirect effect through the linear effect of size on the probability to innovate. The gap in the probability to invest between innovative and non-innovative firms increases with size.     

工艺创新机制研究:来自中国汽车企业的实证

现有产品创新研究文献远远多于工艺创新文献,而对于工艺创新机制的研究更为少见。本文结合文献调研、专家访谈和汽车企业工艺实践,构建了汽车企业工艺创新机制理论模型和研究假设,利用结构方程模型对假设进行了检验。研究发现,决策机制对动力机制、组织机制和激励机制有正向作用,但决策机制对企业工艺创新能力没有直接影响;动力机制、组织机制直接影响工艺创新能力,动力机制的作用相对较弱;组织机制对激励机制的正向作用和激励机制对工艺创新能力的正向作用都没有通过检验。本文对丰富工艺创新研究具有重要的学术价值,研究成果有利于促进企业和政府加强对工艺创新重视。