R&D Cooperation and Innovation Activities of Firms - Evidence for the German Manufacturing Industry -

The aim of the paper is to investigate in a simultaneous equation framework the role of R&D cooperation in the innovation process under two specific aspects. First, the analysis is concentrated on the impact of R&D cooperation - in line with other factors - on firm's innovation input and output. Second, it will be analyzed how the number of cooperation partners affects the development of new products. Starting with the discussion of theoretically expected effects of successfully R&D cooperation on the innovation activities of firms, the importance of inter-organizational arrangements in R&D is empirically investigated for firms in the German manufacturing industry. The estimation results can be summarized as follows: In the German manufacturing industry, R&D cooperations are used complementary in the innovation process, enhancing the innovation input and output of firms measured by the intensity of inhouse R&D respectively the realization of product innovations. On the input side, the intensity of inhouse R&D also stimulates the probability and the number of R&D cooperations with other firms and institutions.R&D cooperation, innovation behaviour, technological opportunities, manufacturing industry

Knowledge-rich Image Gist Understanding Beyond Literal Meaning

We investigate the problem of understanding the message (gist) conveyed by images and their captions as found, for instance, on websites or news articles. To this end, we propose a methodology to capture the meaning of image-caption pairs on the basis of large amounts of machine-readable knowledge that has previously been shown to be highly effective for text understanding. Our method identifies the connotation of objects beyond their denotation: where most approaches to image understanding focus on the denotation of objects, i.e., their literal meaning, our work addresses the identification of connotations, i.e., iconic meanings of objects, to understand the message of images. We view image understanding as the task of representing an image-caption pair on the basis of a wide-coverage vocabulary of concepts such as the one provided by Wikipedia, and cast gist detection as a concept-ranking problem with image-caption pairs as queries. To enable a thorough investigation of the problem of gist understanding, we produce a gold standard of over 300 image-caption pairs and over 8,000 gist annotations covering a wide variety of topics at different levels of abstraction. We use this dataset to experimentally benchmark the contribution of signals from heterogeneous sources, namely image and text. The best result with a Mean Average Precision (MAP) of 0.69 indicate that by combining both dimensions we are able to better understand the meaning of our image-caption pairs than when using language or vision information alone. We test the robustness of our gist detection approach when receiving automatically generated input, i.e., using automatically generated image tags or generated captions, and prove the feasibility of an end-to-end automated process

Netzwerkmitgliedschaft und Innovationsverhalten von neugegruendeten und etablierten Unternehmen

The center piece of this analysis is to investigate the interdependence between newly founded firms, established firms and innovation networks. On grounds of the reflections on firms' innovation activities and technological opportunities, the influence of network-membership (among other aspects) on the innovation behavior of new firms and incumbent firms is investigated. The empirical analysis, based on the data of the "Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau (KfW)", suggests stimulating effects of network-membership on the innovation activities of start-up firms. A secondary target of start-ups is also to gain market share and thus increase their turnovers. In contrast to start-up firms, networks do not play a significant role with regard to innovation activities when we consider established firms. Network-membership as a determinant of the innovation behavior of established firms loses explanatory power according to the estimation results in this paper. The motivation of those firms, who join a network, rather is to benefit from cost-reducing and quality-improving innovations and finally, to expand their market share.Innovation network, Start-up firms, Incumbent firms, Innovation behavior, Technological opportunities

Implikationen unterschiedlicher Ausgangs- bzw. Rahmenbedingungen auf das Innovationsverhalten von neugegruendeten und etablierten Unternehmen

For newly-founded and established firms different initial or prevailing conditions apply in the innovation process. Against this background, the question arises as to what implications this has for a firm's innovation behaviour and to what extent both groups of companies differ significantly from each other as regards internal and environment-related influences. The present contribution takes this as its starting point. With the aid of discrimination analysis it is established which variables can be drawn on to describe significant group differences. Empirical investigations show clear differences in innovation behaviour between start up firms and incumbent firms. Both groups of companies differ most greatly in resource input during the R&D and innovation phase. The variables, ‚personnel expenditure per employee', ‚investment expenditure per employee', ‚R&D employment intensity'and ‚innovation expenditure per employee in the launch phase' display the highest discrimination coefficients. But also the sales share of new products as an indicator of the firm's innovation output is characterized by a significant separatory power. Environmental factors of innovation behaviour, on the other hand, (technological level of the industry, R&D cooperation behaviour) possess minor discriminatory significance.Innovation Behaviour, Newly-founded Firms, Start up Firms, Incumbent Firms

Stellenwert und Bedeutung von Innovationsnetzwerken fuer Unternehmensgruendungen

The main focus of this paper is on the examination of the role and importance of innovation networks in the decision to found a firm and after entry to the market has taken place. For newly-founded firms from business sectors with high innovation intensity, the implications resulting from the involvement of ‚start-ups‘ in a network of innovation are more closely analyzed. The examinations show, on the one hand, that contact to innovation networks has a positive effect on the decision-making behaviour of those wishing to found a firm. The empirical analysis, on the other hand, underline the fact that membership of a network plays an important role after entry to the market has taken place. By exploiting external resources, ‚start-ups‘ can expand internally available R&D capacities and reduce (financial) restrictions on resource provision. This makes it possible to a notable extent to realize synergy effects and learn strategies for the commercial exploitation of innovation efforts. Finally, multivariate estimations show that network membership has a statistically highly significant effect - measured by turnover or the development of the number of employees - on the growth and market success of newly-founded firms.Innovation Network, Start-ups, Newly-founded Firms, Innovation Behavior, Technological Opportunities

A concept for quantitative characterization of the air balance in Bavarian forest soils

Site-specific descriptions of soil water balance and soil air balance are important for tree species selection in forestry. We present a concept for describing the soil air balance for Bavaria. It is an enhancement of an empirical multiple linear regression model that explains soil oxygen deficiency in terms of topographic, climate and soil parameters. We modelled numerous combinations of site conditions with the hydrologic model LWF-Brook 90 to determine an estimator for soil oxygen deficiency. This estimator reflects water logging that persists for a certain length of time. In a second step we will develop a new regression model and combine this information with topographical information about additional water fluxes in a GIS. We aim to combine both steps in order to describe the air balance of forest soils for the entirety of Bavaria.Da neben der Beschreibung des Wasserhaushaltes auch die Kenntnis über Luftmangel für die standortgerechte Baumartenwahl wichtig ist, wird ein Konzept für die bayernweite Beschreibung des Lufthaushaltes vorgestellt. Es ist eine Weiterentwicklung eines empirischen Regressionsmodells, das die Staunässe mittels Geländeparametern, Klima und Bodendaten abschätzt. Dazu wurden mit dem Wasserhaushaltsprogramm LWF-Brook 90 zahlreiche Kombinationen von Standortsfaktoren simuliert und eine Schätzgröße für Luftmangel ausgegeben. Diese Größe beschreibt die Einschränkung des Lufthaushaltes über einen längeren Zeitraum. In einem weiteren Schritt wird dieser deterministische Luftmangelparameter über ein neues Regressionsmodell abgeleitet und mit zusätzlichen topographischen Informationen über Zu- und Abflüsse in einem GIS kombiniert. Ziel ist es, für ganz Bayern den Lufthaushalt von Waldböden zu beschreiben

Die Entstehung des Europäischen Verfassungsvertrags : Eine empirische Untersuchung kommunikativen Handelns im Europäischen Verfassungskonvent

In der Magisterarbeit werden zwei Debatten im Europäischen Verfassungskonvent auf kommunikatives Handeln im Sinne der habermas'schen Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns untersucht. Dabei wird die vorherrschende Hypothese über den Zusammenhang zwischen institutionellem Setting, kommunikativen Handeln und Verhandlungsergebnisse im Europäischen Verfassungsvertrag herausgefordert und durch die folgenden Hypothesen ersetzt: H1: Wenn ein Verhandlungsgegenstand im Verfassungskonvent distributiver Natur war, dann war der Interaktionsstil wenig diskursiv H2: Wenn ein Verhandlungsgegenstand nicht distributiver Natur war, so war der Interaktionsstil von hoher Diskursivität geprägt. Die Untersuchung anhand des Diskurs-Qualitätsindex zeigt, dass bei gleichem institutionellem Setting die Diskursivität im habermas'schen Sinne variiert und deshalb der Verhandlungsgegenstand ein stärkerer Prädiktor darstellt

International institutions in an uncertain environment : success and failure of regime formation in the context of complex policy issues

In a global risk society, two interlinked developments increase complexity on environmental policy issues: On the one hand, unilateral problem solving is often ineffective in a globalized world. On the other hand, many environmental issues themselves are becoming increasingly complex. States have addressed these challenges by forming international institutions and regimes to collectively deal with environmental problems. But why do states form international environmental regimes on some issues while they fail to do so on others? How do states deal with scientific uncertainty on complex environmental issues and to what extent can scientific uncertainty account for success or failure of regime formation process? This dissertation provides insights on regime formation on highly complex policy issues by theorizing on how scientific uncertainty frames actors' perception of an issue. It is argued that actors are tolerant towards uncertainty on some aspects of an issue while they are not on others. This argumentation is empirically tested against four cases of international regime formation, two successful ones and two failed regime formation processes. The dissertation finds evidence that actors are more tolerant towards scientific uncertainty if it only affects the assessment of benefits while costs are at the same time estimated to be low

Применение метода аналитических сетей для оптимизации процесса выбора стратегии развития пассажирского автотранспортного предприятия

В статье обозначена проблема снижения рентабельности пассажирских автотранспортных предприятий и связанные с этим сложности по реализации процедуры стратегического прогнозирования и управления предприятием. Обосновано использование метода аналитических сетей в модели поддержки принятия решений при управлении стратегией автотранспортного предприятия, представленной в работе [1], в качестве инструмента, позволяющего формализовать экспертные знания на основных этапах оценки и выбора проектов стратегического развития. Описаны основные шаги и приведены результаты расчета алгоритма метода аналитических сетей в рамках данной модели.The article outlines the problem of reducing the profitability of passenger motor transport enterprises and the associated difficulties in implementing the procedure of strategic forecasting and enterprise management. The use of the method of analytical networks in the model of decision support in managing the strategy of a trucking enterprise presented in [1] is substantiated as a tool that allows to formalize expert knowledge at the main stages of evaluation and selection of projects for strategic development. The main steps and calculations of the algorithm algorithm for analytical networks within the framework of this model are described