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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2009‒04‒05
thirteen papers chosen by Laura Stefanescu European Research Centre of Managerial Studies in Business Administration |
| By: | M. KNOCKAERT; D. UCBASARAN; M. WRIGHT; B. CLARYSSE |
| Abstract: | The increased pressure put on public research institutes to commercialize their research results has given rise to an increased academic interest in technology transfer in general and science based entrepreneurial firms specifically. By building on innovation speed and knowledge literatures, this paper aims to improve understanding of how tacit knowledge can be effectively transferred from the research institute to the science based entrepreneurial firm. More specifically, we assess under which conditions tacit knowledge contributes to the generation of innovation speed, which is a crucial success parameter for technology based ventures. Using an inductive case study approach, we show that tacit knowledge can only be transferred effectively when a substantial part of the original research team joins the new venture as founders. Our analysis also reveals that the mere transfer of tacit knowledge is insufficient to ensure the successful commercialization of technology. Commercial expertise is also required on the condition that the cognitive distance between the scientific researchers and the person responsible for market interaction is not too large. Our findings have implications for science based entrepreneurs, technology transfer officers, venture capitalists, policy makers and the academic community. |
| Keywords: | science based entrepreneurial firms; tacit knowledge; technology transfer; innovation speed; cognitive distance |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rug:rugwps:09/554&r=knm |
| By: | CINCERA, Michèle |
| Keywords: | Knowledge spillovers; Innovation; Industry-University S&T transfer and colaborations; Firm's économie performance |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulb:ecoulb:info:hdl:2013/11871&r=knm |
| By: | Mariana Lopes (Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto); Aurora A.C. Teixeira (INESC Porto; CEFUP, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto) |
| Abstract: | Open Innovation is a flow of inputs and outputs of knowledge and technology which favours, at the firm level, the acceleration of the innovation process, as well as the establishment and penetration of firms in new markets. This type of innovation incorporates technological innovation from internal and external sources, as well as different ways to access markets. The empirical studies in the area reveal that there is a significant bias in favour of countries of technological frontier, such as the United States, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany or Sweden. The present study aims at covering this gap in literature by examining firms in a country of intermediate technology development – Portugal. Based on 70 innovative firms located in Portugal we found that open innovation is only partially diffused throughout these firms. In addition, open innovation is more widespread in terms of external absorption of knowledge/ technology rather than in terms of knowledge/technology transfer. This result may indicate lack of awareness about the economic potential of making available to third parties the technologies internally created. This may require a different approach to organization/management of R&D, in particular, and of innovation, in general. |
| Keywords: | Open Innovation; Intermediate technology development; Portugal. |
| JEL: | O32 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inc:wpaper:2009-03-wp4&r=knm |
| By: | Asenso-Okyere, Kwadwo; Davis, Kristin |
| Abstract: | "Every day, millions of rural people who depend on agriculture confront technical, economic, social, cultural, and traditional obstacles to improving their livelihoods. To cope with these obstacles, the rural poor draw on indigenous knowledge and innovate through local experimentation and adaptation. Indigenous knowledge alone, however, is not enough to deal with the complex problems facing the agricultural sector. Emerging issues such as high food prices, climate change, and demands for biofuels require complementary knowledge from formal agricultural research and development (R&D) and support from policies and other institutions. Formal and informal knowledge and innovation must therefore be linked to accelerate sustainable agricultural development. Knowledge, defined as organized or processed information or data, is fundamental in the pursuit of innovation. For innovation to occur, knowledge must be created, accumulated, shared, and used. Innovations—new ideas, practices, or products that are successfully introduced into economic or social processes— can involve technologies, organizations, institutions, or policies. Innovation means putting ideas, knowledge, and technology to work in a manner that brings about a significant improvement in performance or product quality." from Author's text |
| Keywords: | Agricultural research, Agricultural development, Innovation, Knowledge, technology, Institutions, Policies, Organizations, |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:polbrf:11&r=knm |
| By: | Eleonora Cavallaro; Marcella Mulino |
| Abstract: | We consider a technologically backward country and analyse the implications on competitiveness and long-run growth of the quality content of traded goods. We build an endogenous growth model where quality improvements stem from research activity taking place in the R&D sector, and where the relative quality content of goods matter for export and import demand functions. We show that the possibility of an optimal growth with a balanced current account and no adverse terms-of-trade effects is closely related to the evolution of the country’s technological distance with respect to the trade partner: with an unfavourable quality-dynamics the country cannot engage successfully in “non-price” competition. Thus, long-run growth is coupled with an adverse export to import ratio, and a balanced trade requires a continuous offsetting fall in relative prices, either through devaluations or wage deflations. We then allow for international knowledge spillovers that increase the productivity of labour resources devoted to research in a way which is proportional to the technological distance between the countries. We show that the greater the country’s ability to absorb foreign knowledge and improve upon foreign technologies, the greater the gains in competitiveness, and the benefits to long-run growth. A numerical simulation confirms our findings. |
| Keywords: | Vertical innovation; Technological change and catching up; Economic growth of open economies |
| JEL: | O33 F43 |
| Date: | 2009–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sap:wpaper:117&r=knm |
| By: | W. Scott Frame; Lawrence J. White |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses the technological change and financial innovation that commercial banking has experienced during the past twenty-five years. The paper first describes the role of the financial system in economies and how technological change and financial innovation can improve social welfare. We then survey the literature relating to several specific financial innovations, which we define as new products or services, production processes, or organizational forms. We find that the past quarter century has been a period of substantial change in terms of banking products, services, and production technologies. Moreover, while much effort has been devoted to understanding the characteristics of users and adopters of financial innovations and the attendant welfare implications, we still know little about how and why financial innovations are initially developed. incompl s |
| Keywords: | technological change, financial innovation, banking CL HG2567 A4A5 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedawp:2009-10&r=knm |
| By: | Achim , Marian; Neamtu , Ion |
| Abstract: | In the context of a bright economy towards we aim the insurances represent are activity branch a services department with a financial character and with many valences. Beyond of the essential role of these is that the protection of the properties and the persons too between the various risks, the insurances accomplish many socio-economic functions like as attending as an offeror on the loan capital’s market the achievement of investment by resources or on the value document’s market, the creation of P.I.B. and the creation of jobs. The specialized bearers of risk are presented in any national economy in nowadays and they always take over them the risks which threaten the physical persons and the juridical persons, offering them a high level of certainty in change of the insurance’s prices. Consequently these specialized societies which accomplish the insurant role just unload of their contact partners which are the insurants by material consequences of the risks which threaten them. The insurance premium is the cost which is payed by insurants to the insurer, this being much more reduced than the damage which it could suffer in case by producing an insurant risk. This can be a protection form between the worst events which can appear and influence the human life and the economic agent’s activity. |
| Keywords: | economy/ risk/ evaluation |
| JEL: | G22 G29 G20 |
| Date: | 2009–01–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:14379&r=knm |
| By: | Laura Abramovsky (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Rachel Griffith (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London); Gareth Macartney (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London); Helen Miller (Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Abstract: | <p>In this paper we use new data to describe how firms from 15 European countries organise their innovative activities. The data matches firm level accounting data with information on the patents that those firms and their subsidiaries have applied for at the European Patents Office. We describe the data in detail. </p> |
| Keywords: | International investment and multinational firms; technological change and research and development; fiscal policies and behaviour of economic agents |
| JEL: | F21 F23 O3 H3 |
| Date: | 2008–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:08/10&r=knm |
| By: | Laura Abramovsky (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Helen Simpson (Institute for Fiscal Studies and CMPO, Bristol) |
| Abstract: | <p><p>We investigate evidence for spatially mediated knowledge transfer from university research. We examine whether firms locate their R&D labs near universities, and whether those that do are more likely to co-operate with, or source knowledge from universities. We find that pharmaceutical firms locate R&D near to frontier chemistry research departments, consistent with accessing localised knowledge spillovers, but also linked to the presence of science parks. In industries such as chemicals and vehicles there is less evidence of immediate co-location, but those innovative firms that do locate near to relevant research departments are more likely to engage with universities.</p></p> |
| Keywords: | Innovation, geography, spillovers, public research |
| JEL: | O3 R11 R13 I23 |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:09/03&r=knm |
| By: | Jan Bena |
| Abstract: | Using a dynamic model of a step-by-step innovation race between financially constrained firms, I study how financial constraints affect innovation activity. The novel theoretical results derive from an analysis of the interaction between the incentive effect of competition on innovation and the effect competition has on the degree of credit rationing. I find that the negative effect of financial constraints on firm- and aggregate-level R&D investment is most pronounced at both high and low levels of competition. These predictions are supported by empirical evidence: The competition-innovation relationship has an inverted-U shape in less financially developed systems relative to the benchmark pattern observed in countries with highly developed financial systems. Innovation-enhancing policies implemented through competition reforms ought to be complemented by promoting financial development. |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fmg:fmgdps:dp629&r=knm |
| By: | Aurora A.C. Teixeira (CEF.UP, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto; INESC Porto); José Sequeira (Porto Vivo - Sociedade de Reabilitação Urbana (SRU); INESC Porto) |
| Abstract: | Traditionally, studies on the influence and impact of knowledge-producing organisations have been addressed by means of strict economic analysis, stressing their economic impact to a local, regional or national extent. In the present study, an alternative methodology is put forward in order to evaluate the international scientific impact and influence of a knowledge-producing and -diffusing institution. We introduce a new methodology, based on scientometric and bibliometric tools, which complement traditional assessments by considering the influence of a R&D institution when looking at the scientific production undertaken and the recognition of its relevance by its international peer community. Focusing on the most prolific scientific areas of INESC Porto, and resorting to published scientific work recorded in the Science Citation Index (SCI), we show that INESC Porto has enlarged its international scientific network. The logit estimations demonstrate that the wide geographical influence of INESC Porto scientific research is a result not of its international positioning in terms of co-authorships, but rather a result of the quality of its scientific output. |
| Keywords: | Impact and influence assessment methods; R&D Institutions; Bibliometrics, Scientometrics; knowledge network; INESC Porto |
| JEL: | O39 C81 L31 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:fepwps:319&r=knm |
| By: | Martinsson, Gustav (CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, Royal Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | The motivation of this paper is the rather naive approach to debt as a financing source of R&D investment in the empirical investment literature. I focus on long-term relational debt based on its appealing contractual properties and discover a debt overhang effect for the relationship between additional long-term debt and R&D investment. I augment an error correction accelerator-profit specification to include changes in long-term debt as a transitory determinant of R&D investment as has been done with internal finance previously. Firms with previous period debt levels around 0.60 display a positive relationship between additional long-term debt and R&D investment. |
| Keywords: | Econometrics; Financial Economics; Financial Markets; R&D; Financing Constraints |
| JEL: | C01 O16 O30 |
| Date: | 2009–03–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0174&r=knm |
| By: | ELENA REVILLA (Instituto de Empresa) |
| Abstract: | In today´s more complex multinational and technologically sophisticated environment, the group has re-emerged in importance as the project team. Work teams are important to organizations in general, but are especially critical in product development because they span many functional areas including engineering, marketing, manufacturing, finance, etc, and new product teams must frequently be composed of individuals from different backgrounds and perspectives. In these circumstances, this paper addresses the contingency role that knowledge strategy plays in explaining the relationship between team vision and product development performance. After studying the team vision on 78 new product deve |
| Keywords: | Product development , Team vision, Knowledge strategy |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emp:wpaper:wp09-02&r=knm |