National Systems of Innovation: a bibliometric appraisal

The literature on NSI is a relatively new field of research with a quite impressive diffusion rate in the last 15 years. Although the concept of NSI is nowadays widely used both in academic and policy contexts, and a set of comprehensive theoretical surveys were published in the most recent years, no ‘quantitative’ survey exists on this matter. The present paper aims to fill this gap. We offer a complementary, ‘quantitative’, description of the state-of-the-art in the literature resorting to bibliometric methods. Our exercise shows that the time evolution of articles published was quite irregular, and that the NSI contributions have not converged to an integrated framework. We further evidence that historically detailed descriptions on NSI à la Freeman are rare, and analyses using more rigorous and diversified quantitative methodologies for assessing the performance of NSI are on demand. The huge increase in the share of ‘Conceptual/critical meta-literature on NSI’ in the latter (2001-2007) periods interestingly documents the conceptual dynamism and methodological-analytical challenges faced presently by NSI approach.National Systems of Innovation, Bibliometrics, Econlit

Mapping the (In)visible College(s) in the Field of Entrepreneurship

Despite the vitality and dynamism that the field of entrepreneurship has experienced in the last decade, the issue of whether it comprises an effective network of (in)formal communication linkages among the most influential scholars within the area has yet to be examined in depth. This study follows a formal selection procedure to delimit the ‘relational environment’ of the field of entrepreneurship and to analyze the existence and characterization of (in)visible college(s) based on a theoretically well-grounded framework, thus offering a comprehensive and up-to-date empirical analysis of entrepreneurship research. Based on more than a thousand papers published between 2005 and 2010 in seven core entrepreneurship journals and the corresponding (85 thousand) citations, we found that entrepreneurship is an (increasingly) autonomous, legitimate and cohesive (in)visible college, fine tuned through the increasing visibility of certain subject specialties (e.g., family business, innovation, technology and policy). Moreover, the rather dense formal links that characterize the entrepreneurship (in)visible college are accompanied by a reasonably solid network of informal relations maintained and sustained by the mobility of ‘stars’ and highly influential scholars. The limited internationalization of the entrepreneurship community, reflected in the almost total absence of non-English-speaking authors/studies/outlets, stands as a major quest for the field.Invisible College; Entrepreneurship; Bibliometrics

The importance of Intermediaries organizations in international R&D cooperation: an empirical multivariate study across Europe

Despite the large number of publications related to business cooperation in R&D and the wide perception of the importance of intermediary institutions in the R&D cooperation process, empirical studies on its role are scarce, scattered and fragmented. Moreover, the academic work developed in this area is basically of a theoretical nature, whereas the international perspective of R&D cooperation is seldom approached. Departing from a unique database that includes 473 R&D cooperation projects developed within the 6th Framework Programme, involving firms and intermediaries from all European Union countries, this paper gauges the determinants of the importance attached to Intermediaries, through a direct survey to the organizations involved. Based on an estimation of the multivariate model, this study demonstrates that the importance given to Intermediaries depends more on project features than on the characteristics of the participating organizations. In particular, the nationality of participating organizations and the promoter emerged with a strong explanatory power: ceteris paribus, projects with at least one participant from the United Kingdom tend to assign greater importance to intermediaries in international R&D cooperation. Unambiguously, results evidence that the innovating capacity of an organization emerges (both positively and significantly) associated with a greater importance attached to Intermediaries.R&D Cooperation; Intermediaries; International projects; Europe

One size does not fit all… An economic development perspective on the asymmetric impact of Patents on R&D

Innovation is the building block of competitive advantages and thus economic policies are increasingly focused on creating stimulus to increase a country’s innovative performance and growth potential, namely through knowledge accumulation in general and R&D in particular. In this context, current policy trend seems to support the strengthening of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), in particular, patent protection, with the argument that positive effects will emerge and would be extensive to all countries regardless their level of development. In this paper we question this “one size fits all” policy and assess how patent thicket affects knowledge productive investment taking into account countries’ development levels. Based on a panel of 95 countries over a ten-year period (1997-2006), our results show that patents have asymmetric impacts across countries development stages, evidencing pervious effects on technological leaders and positive ones on some laggards. Such evidence sustains that innovation policies be adjusted to countries development stages.growth models; R&D; patents; economic development

Does Patenting negatively impact on R&D investment?An international panel data assessment

Although the conventional R&D-patents relationship is a long stand and relatively undisputed issue within the innovation literature, the reverse causality, in particular, the potential for a negative impact of patents over R&D has only recently received wide attention boosting interesting (mainly) theoretical debates. The macroeconomic perspective on this issue, however, remains largely unexplored. In fact, no evidence exists that ruled out the possibility of asymmetric effects of patents on R&D in accordance to the level of GDP in general, and to ‘convergence clubs’ in particular. Using panel data estimation methods on a sample of 88 countries, over an eight-year period (1996-2003), and controlling for clubs of convergence to account for differences on countries’ stages of economic development, we found mix support to the negativity of patent on R&D investment. The accumulated patents positively impact on R&D intensity for the set of less developed countries whereas no statistically significant effect emerges in the case of higher developed converge clubs; restricting the highest developed convergence club down to countries with a R&D intensity above 3%, the negativity reverse causality arises, corroborating the asymmetric impact of patents on R&D investment. We further demonstrate that albeit causality appears to be stronger in the most intuitive appealing traditional direction, evidence supports the theoretical conveyed double causality between R&D and Patent.Patents; R&D; panel data; convergence clubs

Assessing the influence of R&D institutions by mapping international scientific networks: the case of INESC Porto

Although scientometric and bibliometric studies embrace a much wider perspective of the linkages/networks of R&D institutions than standard economic studies, to the best of our knowledge, these studies have not yet made use of scientometric tools to analyse the influence and impact of R&D institutions. Moreover, the international perspective has so far been neglected both in standard and bibliometric studies. Based on networks of 1239 foreign co-authorships and 13035 foreign citation linkages, we demonstrate that INESC Porto international influence has considerably expanded since 2003, a year that coincided with the implementation of an internal policy of granting monetary prizes to publications in scientific international journals. In terms of co-authorship, the network of INESC Porto more than duplicated (13 countries in the initial period to 27 in 2004-07). In terms of citations, INESC Porto’s network encompassed almost 40 countries during the whole period (1996-2007). Its more prolific units (optoelectronics, energy and multimedia) presented a rather distinct pattern both in terms of size and evolution of the corresponding network boundaries. The network size of foreign co-authorships was not much different between the three units by the beginning of the 2000s (around 10 countries) but it evolved quite distinctly. The most remarkable pattern was registered by the multimedia (UTM) unit, whose network size rose exponentially to 21 countries in 2004-07. This contrasted with the decline (down to 8 countries) of the energy (USE) unit. The citation network of the optoelectronic unit (UOSE) was by far the largest, until 2003, involving 34 distinct countries, which contrasted with the size of USE (12 countries) and UTM (1 country). But again, after 2003, the size of the citation network of USE and UTM converged spectacularly to that of UOSE’s, reaching in the last period 21 and 16, respectively. The influence of INESC Porto reaches all five continents, especially when we consider citation networks. Indeed, excluding the citations from authors affiliated in Portuguese institutions, those that most cite INESC Porto’s (and UOSE’s) works are affiliated in institutions located in China, the UK and the US. The scientific works produced by USE influences mostly authors affiliated in institutions located in India, China and Spain, whereas for UTM the corresponding countries are the US, Germany and Italy. We infer from the evidence analysed that not only did the boundaries of INESC Porto’s scientific network substantially enlarge in the period of analysis (1996-2007) but its ‘quality’ also evidenced a positive evolution, with authors affiliated in institutions located in the scientific frontier countries citing works of INESC Porto (and its units). Length: 64 pagesBibliometrics, Knowledge networks; R&D Institutions

Is human capital relevant in attracting innovative FDI to China?

The impact of human capital on foreign direct investment (FDI) has been assessed in an essentially descriptive manner. In general, most quantitative studies focus on the macroeconomic level, that is, the level of countries. Microeconomic studies, with firms as the unit of analysis, are scarce internationally and even more so in the case of China. Based on a survey performed on several innovative firms in China, this study assesses the importance of human capital in attracting FDI to China, and estimates is corresponding impact. This impact is analyzed based not only on the direct, but also the indirect effects of human capital, through the firms’ Research and Development (R&D) efforts and contacts with universities. Using a sample of 77 firms, and considering two proxies for human capital (general and specific), we concluded that even though human capital does not constitute a direct factor in attracting FDI to China, it is a positive indirect factor by way of R&D efforts. We have also established that knowledge infrastructures (universities) and physical infrastructures (transport network) comprise important factors to attract FDI.Foreign Direct Investment (FDI); Human Capital; Research and Development (R&D); China

Returns on R&D investment: A comprehensive survey on the magnitude and evaluation methodologies

As technology and innovation seem to be contingent upon each other a great deal of attention has been given to the importance of assessing the contribution of R&D investment to firm and industry performance and, ultimately, to the economic performance of countries and regions. In industrialised societies not only private but also public agents have allocated increasing amounts of their resources to R&D activities, often considered the key path to innovativeness. At the same time, due to advances in empirical research, increasingly more focused on the micro (firms) rather than on the macro (country) level, old myths about the relationship between R&D, innovation and success began to fall down. Firstly, the idea that innovation is much broader than R&D has gained large support and has made it possible to identify other sources of innovation, beyond excellence in R&D, which had been largely hidden or neglected. As result, perceptions about small firms - or the so-called low-tech industries, which either do not carry out any significant R&D activities or are likely to perform them outside formal classifications - started to change. Secondly, the idea that more R&D investment is always automatically bond to success - whatever criteria one may choose to define success – has become nothing more than a utopia. In this paper we carry out an analysis of the literature on the magnitude and evaluation of R&D, and, possibly, of innovation. We identify the methodologies used and analyse to what extent the magnitude of (eventual) R&D returns is dependent on the methodology pursued and the level of analysis - firms (micro), industry (meso), and regions/countries (macro) - considered. We conclude that methodological approaches and levels of analysis determine, to a certain extent, the type of results obtained and, thus, variances between them.Innovations and R&D indicators; Methodologies; Macro, meso and micro levels; R&D payoff

Bridging University-Firm relationships and Open Innovation literature: a critical synthesis

Open Innovation is understood as a flow of incoming and outgoing knowledge and technology which allows, at the level of a firm, the acceleration of the innovation process, as well as a faster establishment and access to new markets, for external use of that same innovation. This type of innovation includes technological innovation, which comes from internal and external sources, as well as different modalities of accessing the market and, therefore, commercializing the innovation. Resorting to a bibliometric analysis, using Open Innovation as the search keyword, we found that the majority of the existing studies on OI is of conceptual character. On the one hand, from the scarce existing empirical studies, the issue of the relation University – Enterprise (U-E), one of the components of the open innovation model, is analyzed in a relatively superficial way neglecting, or not referring in the most appropriated way, the mechanisms by which companies could obtain (via innovation) competitive advantage through the exploration of a more open model of innovation based on the relationships with universities. On the other hand, the existing studies on U-E relations do not highlight, at least in an explicit way, the question of the open innovation model. Such studies are still highly directed to a unidirectional profit optic, that is, are too centred on the advantages which the enterprises will be able to obtain from the relation with the universities, failing taking into account the value that potentially goes to universities from such links.Open Innovation; U-E relations; Emergency; Sustainability; Benefits

Where are the poor in International Economics?

Despite the fact that a very significant proportion of the human population is living with financial difficulties and other constraints typical of poverty, scientific studies in the areas of Economics and especially in International Economics that address the issue of poverty and of poor countries are very few. Using bibliometric techniques, we measured the attention paid by authors from the field of International Economics to poverty and poor countries. To this end, we sorted and analyzed all articles published in the most important journal in the field, the Journal of International Economics (JIE) over the last forty years. Evidence shows that the authors who have published articles in the JIE have mostly developed studies focused on ‘Meso (industry, region) and microeconomic policies and issues of ‘International Trade’ and ‘International Finances’, and are usually of the ‘Formal’ and ‘Formal and Empirical’ types, where the topic ‘Poverty’ is very marginal (only 13 articles published in the JIE, less than 1% of the total, address this matter in any of its dimensions). Furthermore, in the more empirical articles, no country among those included in the group ‘Less Developed Countries’ deserved particular attention. The neglect of poverty and of the poor contrasts (and is related to) with the significant weight of articles that make use of formalization (more than 80%). Despite the trend for a decrease in exclusively ‘Formal’ articles, without any applied/empirical component, the (still) excessive focus on ‘mathematical’ accuracy (i.e., formalization), and the concomitant limited capacity to deal with the (social) problems of the real world, is an effective challenge to authors in the field of international economics and, in particular, to those who publish in the JIE, which must be overcome if we do not want international economics to become a “cyborg” science.International Economics; Poor Countries; Poverty; Bibliometrics