How Do Different Motives for R&D Cooperation Affect Firm Performance? An Analysis Based on Swiss Micro Data

Starting point of our analysis is the empirical fact that firms pursue different goals when getting engaged in R&D collaborations, often more than one goal at the same time. Given that firms are driven by different motives for R&D cooperation, the aim of this article is to investigate the differences related to different motives with respect (a) to the factors influencing the likelihood of R&D cooperation as postulated by theory; and (b) to the impact of R&D cooperation on firm innovativeness and firm productivity. On the whole, distinguishing various cooperation motives appears to be fruitful because it allows more differentiated insights with respect to the importance of factors determining cooperation that would remain hidden behind the overall variable R&D cooperation yes/no. Not only R&D cooperation in general but also cooperation driven by each of the seven motives considered in this paper correlate positively with the sales share of innovative products. With respect to innovativeness the characterization of cooperation by the driving motive did not add much more insights that it could be gained through the overall variable R&D cooperation yes/no. Technology-motivated collaborative activities show a weaker tendency to positive direct effects on productivity than cost-motivated cooperation. In this case, the distinction of several cooperation motives yields some additional insights as compared to the overall cooperation variable

Knowledge Base, Exporting Activities, Innovation Openness and Innovation Performance: A SEM Approach Towards a Unifying Framework

In this paper we demonstrate the complexity that regulates the innovation-exports nexus. In particular we argue that innovation and exports should be treated as latent variables in order to account for as many facets possible thus, accounting for multifaceted heterogeneity. In this context, the role of innovation openness ought to be highlighted within a unified framework, as it is considered an additional activity of firms' knowledge creation strategy. In this line, innovation and exporting orientation are ruled by the firms' strategic mix comprised of internal knowledge creation processes and the diversity of innovation openness. Theoretical and empirical links between these major components are identified and measured employing a Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach on a sample of Greek R&D-active manufacturing firms. Empirical findings corroborate the complexity of relationships and indicate that the firms' knowledge base and open innovation strategy regulate via complementary and substitution relationships firms' innovation and export performance

Is Globalization Making Us All the Same?

When I first began teaching organizational sociology to undergraduates in the late 1980s, the students could not get enough of Japan. It was obvious to them and (to come clean) to their teachers that Japan was the way of the future and that the American corporation would need to remake itself radi-cally to compete in the global economy. Japan had, for reasons of culture or history or politics, happened on a model of corporate organization that was more stable, more innovative and more productive than the warmed-over Fordism found in American firms. Change or rust, that was the lesson for America. Fast-forward a decade or so and the period of Japan worship is regarded as folly, as misplaced American self-doubt. Japan was the model for us; now we are surely the model for Japan. The new generation of undergraduates cannot get too little of Japan. It is now the poster child for crony capitalism and all that went wrong in Asia. It is obvious to the students, and (again) to their teachers, that the United States is now the way of the future. We are i

KNOWLEDGE AND INNOVATION: PROMOTING A SYSTEM APPROACH OF INNOVATION PROCESSES

This contribution intends to clarify for the current discussion about knowledge and its importance within economic systems. It relies on the complementary character of the economics of knowledge of Marshall and Hayek. One of them is useful to discuss opportunities and limits of the so-called resource-based theory of the firm in order to deal with the relationship between the governance of knowledge and firms' innovative behaviours; the other is useful to insist on the importance of knowledge channelled by and within market dynamics. As a consequence, their combination allows one to pave better grounds to current knowledge economic importance by exploring in-depth characteristics of knowledge, expressing the need to deal with the governance of technological knowledge, and promoting the localized and distributed characters of firms' innovative behaviours. This finally leads to promote an innovation-system approach based on that localized character of innovative behaviours of firms in order to depict proper use made by firms in matters of knowledge generation, use, dissemination, and trade.Knowledge governance, Innovation systems, Industry dynamics,