Which Portuguese firms are more innovative? The importance of multinationals and exporters

In this study we test the trade Global Engagement hypothesis in which firms more globally engaged – either multinationals or exporters – are more innovative. The test is applied to 4818 Portuguese enterprises´ data for the period 2002-2004 through the use of the fourth Portuguese Community Innovation Survey. We estimated several Knowledge Production Functions assuming that knowledge outputs result from the combination of some knowledge inputs with the flow of ideas coming from existing stock of knowledge. We found that more internationally exposed firms create more knowledge output, than their domestic counterparts; indeed, more globalized firms use more inputs and have the opportunity to use a larger stock of knowledge. Notwithstand, the observed superiority of more internationally exposed firms is also the result of their globalized nature, not directly connected with knowledge inputs or information flows.Multinational firms, exporting, knowledge-production functions, Portugal

New innovation management paradigms in the knowledge-driven economy

The growing importance of knowledge as a production factor and as a determinant of innovation can be explained by the continuous accumulation of technical knowledge over time. Innovation Management Techniques (IMTs) are critical to support the process of innovation in firms and help them in a systematic way to meet new market challenges

Management consulting.

Including a lengthy, comprehensive introduction, this important collection brings together some of the most influential papers that have contributed to our understanding of management consultancy work. The two-volume set encompasses the breadth of conceptual and empirical perspectives and explores those key ideas that have helped to advance our knowledge of this intriguing area. The volumes are divided into a series of thematic sections, affording the reader easy access to a great resource of information. Professors Clark and Avakian have written an original introduction which provides a comprehensive overview of the literature

Strategic Positioning Under Agricultural Structural Change: A Critique of Long Jump Co-operative Ventures

Industrial Organization, Agribusiness,

The Impacts of Knowledge Interaction with Manufacturing Clients on KIBS Firms Innovation Behaviour

knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS), knowledge interaction, innovations systems

STRATEGIC POSITIONING UNDER AGRICULTURAL STRUCTURAL CHANGE: A CRITIQUE OF LONG JUMP CO-OPERATIVE VENTURES

Structural change in US agriculture has disrupted the traditional organization of the supply chain. Not only does the scale increase of firms common during the industrial period (1970-1995) continue, but also with the rise of a knowledge-based economy, new organizational forms and supply chain linkages are proliferating. Examples are the radical transformation of the relationship between input suppliers and producers in the biotech arena, the dominance of the swine industry by the integrated model, the rise of marketing and production contracting, and the arrival of multi-member closed producer organizations such as the new generation cooperatives and limited liability companies. The focus of this research is these new integrated producer organizations. Much of the activity and subsequent analysis of new producer organizations has focused on value-added opportunities through integration (i.e., Merrett et al, 1999). There are numerous examples from pasta plants and egg breaking, to cattle feeding, hog slaughter, and alcohol production. These value-added opportunities we define as long jump ventures. That is, they lie outside the core competencies of the principles in the firm, the producers. Strategic management theory (Prahalad, 1986,1990,1993; Quinn, 1977,1990; Mintzberg, 1987,1994,1996,1998,2000) suggests that there may be other opportunities available to producer organizations that better leverage their core competencies, short jump ventures. Short jump ventures are value-creating opportunities that involve a minimum R&D, less capital, less risk, and less direct specialized knowledge. While the economy at large is producing vast quantifies of long jump innovations in the fields of biotechnology and information, there is another revolution occurring in business involving short jump innovation in the area of service. This new field, known as; one-to-one marketing (Pepper, 1993, 1999), relationship management (Hansen, 1983), relationship marketing (Curry, 2000), and strategic partnering (Rackam, 1996), focuses on the supplier-client interface. Value is created by significant coordination between supplier and client. The boundary between firms is blurred, knowledge is actively shared, and partners are dedicated to mutual profitability. By understanding the needs of the client, the supplying firm is able to adapt its products and more importantly services. This creates a unique and more valuable business for the supplier insulating it from competitive forces and allowing greater value capture. This not only creates greater supply chain efficiency, but intra-firm and inter-firm product innovation result as well. The objective of this paper is to study strategic options for production agriculture dealing with the failure of the commodity business model. From this analysis of strategic positioning the paper introduces relationship management as a viable strategic alternative for commodity producers. Finally, a case study of the Wairarapa Lamb Cooperative, a New Zealand based firm doing business in the United States, is introduced. The case serves not only as an example of relationship management in agriculture but also demonstrates how producers can work within their own core competencies, leverage knowledge assets, and avoid highly specific fixed assets. The methodology will be: 1) Review the literature as to the types of activities in which integrated producer organizations are engaged. 2) Present a theoretical model of strategy analyzing short jump versus long jump ventures. 3) Introduce Relationship Management. 4) Employ a case study example of the theory in practice. This paper theoretically analyzes producers' vertical integration through "brick and mortar" investments, such as hog slaughter and ethanol production. A theoretical model using strategic management theory and a case study are used to critique the long jump strategy and suggest relationship management as a more viable alternative.Agribusiness,

Absorptive capacity in technological learning in clean development mechanism projects

Technology transfer in Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects of the Kyoto Protocol has become one of the important issues addressed both in policy agenda and by academic scholars. In many CDM project host countries, technology transfer is among the key provisions of sustainable development objectives of the CDM projects. This study is an effort to investigate CDM projects' related technology transfer process from the organizational learning perspective. The prerequisite for successful technology transfer and organizational technological learning is to foster technological capabilities (TC) of an organization. In this study we used data from our survey of the CDM project host organizations in four largest CDM host countries India, Brazil, Mexico and China. We assessed TC building progress and studied various characteristics of the organizations. The present paper focuses on absorptive capacity related determinants of technological capability building in the CDM projects. Absorptive capacity is a multidimensional concept thus we investigated the effect of the dimensions such as prior knowledge, personnel qualification, and training efforts. A strong positive association was established between prior knowledge and TC building; and less for qualification variable. Besides we proved a curvilinear relationship between prior knowledge and TC building outcomes.Clean Development Mechanism, Technology transfer, technological capability building, technological learning, absorptive capacity

Learning and technological capability building in emerging economies: the case of the biomass power equipment industry in Malaysia

There is increasing recognition that the transfer of foreign technology to developing countries should be considered in light of broader processes of learning, technological capability, formation and industrial development. Previous studies that have looked at this in the context of cleantech industries in emerging economies tend to overlook firm-level specifics. This paper contributes to filling this gap by utilising in-depth qualitative firm-level data to analyse the extent to which the use of different learning mechanisms can explain differences in the accumulation of technological capabilities. This is explored via an examination of eight firms in the biomass power equipment industry in Malaysia during the period 1970-2011. The paper finds that firms relying on a combination of learning from foreign technology partners and internal learning by planned experimentation make most progress in terms of technological capability. Nevertheless, local spill-over effects were found to be important for some firms who learned principally from imitation of local competitors, although significantly, firms learning from local spillovers failed to advance beyond extra basic operating technological capabilities. Those firms who proactively pursued learning from foreign partners, on the other hand, advanced further, reaching basic innovative levels of technological capabilities. These findings are relevant for a wider range of industrial sectors in emerging economies

How Knowledge Accumulation changed the Competitive Advantage of Strategy Consulting Firms

Research evidence confirms that the accumulation of knowledge contributes to the competitive advantage of firms. In the strategy consulting industry, one of the most knowledge-intensive professional services industries, however, established firms that exploited their knowledge accumulation by adding exploitative consulting practices have found their performance has deteriorated. To investigate this phenomenon, this paper will describe how the increasing share of exploitative practices in the strategy consulting industry has attracted both established ICT-related consulting firms and new entrants, and enabled clients to expand their problem-solving abilities. We will argue that these developments in terms of competitiveness and client competencies have reduced the attractiveness of exploitative practices for established strategy consulting firms. To analyse these developments and to provide strategic options for the established strategy consulting firms, a conceptual framework will be proposed. Based on this framework, three strategic option are identified: ‘Follow the herd’, ‘Become ambidextrous’ and ‘Back to the original focus.’ In summarizing our argument, we highlight the pros and cons of these options and the implications for top management

Competitiveness, productivity and externalization: Food versus autos in Catalonia

This paper re-examines the innovation-productivity nexus on the basis of a paired comparison between Catalonia's food and auto sectors. The sectoral studies expose a set of productivity enhancement mechanisms that do not involve innovation in the sense of anything new to the world, that are grouped under the rubric of renovation and comprise: - Reaching efficient scale - Rectifying (other) obvious internal deficiencies - Replicating or imitating innovations, techniques, etc., developed by others - Replacement of inefficient incumbents by more efficient entrants - Redeployment of resources across sectors The paper also discusses the implications of this broader perspective for industrial policy, and for internationalization.Productivity; Innovation; Industrial Policy; Internationalization; Globalization; Strategy;