What drives market structure? On the relation between firm demographic processes, firms? innovative behaviour and market structure

In this paper we suggest an structural model that specifies firm growth as a function of firm specific parameters and of competition for purchase power with other firms on a given market. Moreover, we explicitely model firms? innovative behaviour and distinguish between dierent innovation regimes. On the basis of a set of simulations of this model we derive a number of empirically testable hypotheses. A subset of these have already found support in the empirical literature. We take these as evidence in favour of the explanatory power of the model. In addition, we are able to derive further testable propositions on the interaction of firm-demographic processes, in-novative behaviour and market structure that go beyond the existing literature and that we suggest for further research. We conclude that the approach chosen here provides a fruitful pathway for further research. --Firm size distribution,innovation regime,technological regime,industrial dynamics,firm demography,carrying capacity,market concentration

What Drives Market Structure? On the Relation Between Firm Demographic Processes, Firms' Innovative Behaviour and Market Structure

In this paper we suggest an structural model that specifies firm growth as a function of firm specific parameters and of competition for purchase power with other firms on a given market. Moreover, we explicitely model firms' innovative behaviour and distinguish between different innovation regimes. On the basis of a set of simulations of this model we derive a number of empirically testable hypotheses. A subset of these have already found support in the empirical literature. We take these as evidence in favour of the explanatory power of the model. In addition, we are able to derive further testable propositions on the interaction of firm-demographic processes, innovative behaviour and market structure that go beyond the existing literature and that we suggest for further research. We conclude that the approach chosen here provides a fruitful pathway for further research

Norms-Based Intellectual Property Systems: The Case of French Chefs

A version of this paper with an updated license is available in the MIT Open Access Articles collection at https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/127244.In this paper we propose that norms-based intellectual property (IP) systems exist today and are an important complement to or substitute for law-based IP systems. Norms-based IP systems, as we define them, operate entirely on the basis of implicit social norms that are held in common by members of a given community. Within that community, they offer functionality similar to contemporary law-based IP systems with respect to both the nature of rights protected and the effectiveness of the protection provided. We document the existence of a norms-based IP system among a sample of accomplished French chefs. These chefs consider recipes they develop to be a very valuable form of IP. At the same time, recipes are not a form of innovation that is effectively covered by law-based IP systems. Via grounded research, we identify three strong implicit social norms related to the protection of recipe IP. Via quantitative research, we find that accomplished chefs enforce these norms and apply them in ways that enhance their private economic returns from their recipe-related IP. In our discussion, we compare the attributes of norms-based and law-based IP systems, arguing that each has different advantages and drawbacks. We also point out that the existence of norms-based IP systems means that many information commons may prove to be criss-crossed by norms-based fences, with community access controlled by community IP owners

Moteurs du renouvellement créatif dans les secteurs avec peu de propriété intellectuelle légale (Les)

À l’ère de l’économie numérique, la diffusion des œuvres est de plus en plus facile et rapide et les droits de propriété intellectuelle formels de plus en plus difficiles à faire respecter. Pour plusieurs secteurs fragilisés par le passage au numérique (musique, cinéma, presse par exemple), la question des incitations à la création doit être reconsidérée. Si les nouvelles créations peuvent être copiées illégalement et gratuitement, pourquoi investir pour les développer ? À l\u27instar de certains secteurs comme la haute cuisine, la mode ou les spectacles de magie où les droits de propriété intellectuelle sont limités ou dans lesquels les créateurs et innovateurs ne les exercent pas, comment ceux-ci tirent-ils parti de leurs créations sans pour autant exclure leur usage ? Comment s\u27articulent propriété intellectuelle et incitation à créer ? Conçue pour concilier l’intérêt privé du créateur et l’intérêt social, dans quelle mesure la propriété intellectuelle fournit-elle des incitations importantes à l’innovation et dans quels contextes l’innovation et la création sont-ils susceptibles de se développer sans propriété intellectuelle ? Revue de la littérature en économie-gestion relative à l’innovation en l’absence de propriété intellectuelle

Managing by design

This editorial written by myself and Marc Gruber of EPFL. It explores the role of design thinking in the management of large organisations, and focuses on how design principles can be applied to the design of the workplace and the nature of work itself. As Head of Service Design at the RCA, my contribution is on how to apply design thinking methods for managers and the 6 key elements described in this approach In the last decade the importance of design and the value of design thinking as a tool for innovation has been recognized by both business and government. Design has become a strategic tool for business helping to translate technological innovation into user value, connecting with consumer needs and creating compelling product and service experiences that create new business value. In this paper we consider a further application of design thinking by considering how managers can apply it to the design of the workplace experience. Many enterprises, especially those in the knowledge economy, are defined by their human resources and their capacity to attract and retain talent. In this competitive environment the design of the employee experience and the services that support them and enable them to deliver value to the clients and colleagues, is a key differentiator. Applying design thinking to the design of work itself, the systems that support it, and the physical and virtual environments in which it takes place can help business and organizational leaders to attract and retain top talent, as well as to enhance productivity and operational effectiveness. In this paper we explore the key factors and principles by which leaders and managers can apply design thinking to transform the workplace experience and we propose 6 key elements for managers to enable that transformation and enhance social capital and business and organisational performance

The L&E of Intellectual Property – Do we get maximum innovation with the current regime?

Innovation is crucial to economic growth – the essential path for lifting much of the world population out of dire poverty and for maintaining the living standard of those who already have. To stimulate innovation, the legal system has to support the means through which innovators seek to get rewarded for their efforts. Amongst these means, some, such as the first mover advantage or 'lead time,' are not directly legal; but secrets and intellectual property rights are legal institutions supported for the specific purpose of stimulating innovation. Whilst the protection of secrets has not changed very much over recent years, intellectual property (or IP) has. IP borrows some features from ordinary property rights, but is also distinct, in that, unlike physical goods, information, the object of IP, is not inherently scarce; indeed as information and communication technologies expand, the creation and distribution of information is becoming ever cheaper and in many circumstances abundant, so that selection is of the essence ('on the internet, point of view is everything'). Where rights on information extend too far, their monopolising effect may hamper innovation. The paper investigates the underlying structure of IP rights and surveys what we know empirically about the incentive effects of IP as about industries that flourish without formal IP

Exploring environmental entrepreneurship: identity coupling, venture goals, and stakeholder incentives

On the basis of a qualitative study of 25 renewable energy firms, we theorize why and how individuals engage in environmental entrepreneurship, inductively defined as: the use of both commercial and ecological logics to address environmental degradation through the creation of financially profitable organizations, products, services, and markets. Our findings suggest that environmental entrepreneurs: (1) are motivated by identities based in both commercial and ecological logics,(2) prioritize commercial and/or ecological venture goals dependent on the strength and priority of coupling between these two identity types, and (3) approach stakeholders in a broadly inclusive, exclusive, or co-created manner based on identity coupling and goals. These findings contribute to literature streams on hybrid organizing, entrepreneurial identity, and entrepreneurship’s potential for resolving environmental degradation

Research on Markets for Inventions and Implications for R&D Allocation Strategies

Several streams of literature have examined the phenomenon of “markets for inventions”, that is, the trade of elements of knowledge which are “disembodied” from individuals, organizations, and products. The aims of this paper are to bring together the various streams of research in this area and discuss their major assumptions and limitations, in order to provide a comprehensive framework for understanding the phenomenon, and identify promising paths for future research. We start our review by identifying the object of market exchange—that is, an invention whose knowledge has been codified and disembodied from individuals, organizations, or artifacts. We then identify those factors that enable firms to trade inventions, distinguishing between institutional-, firm-, and industry-level factors. We close our analysis of the extant literature by discussing the implications of markets for inventions for firm behavior and performance. Against this background, we highlight an important avenue for future research. A neglected implication of the development of invention markets is that firms are confronted with a wide variety of technological paths from which to choose, because the opportunity to acquire technologies on the market offers them a greater variety that can their internal R&D departments. However, the streams of research on markets for inventions and on R&D allocation strategies have been surprisingly disconnected so far. Hence, in the final section, we start to establish and explore the link between these literatures, and to identify a research agenda in this domain

Evaluation of a commercial-grade camera for line field spectral-domain optical coherence tomography

We investigate the utilization of a high frame rate, 2-D commercial-grade camera in a spectral domain (SD) OCT system driven by a super-luminescent (SLD) light source, using parallel illumination on the sample with a line focus (line-field SD-OCT, LF-SD-OCT). To this goal, several regimes of operation of the camera are evaluated, for different values of the exposure time, ISO and image size, assessing their suitability for depth resolved imaging. A-scans and B-scans of specular and scattering samples are produced, albeit of lesser quality than those we obtained in the past with a relatively expensive, high bit-depth, scientific camera. A comparative study involving several of the camera parameters and their impact on the system's imaging range and resolution is presented

Alliances and the innovation performance of corporate and public research spin-off firms

We explore the innovation performance benefits of alliances for spin-off firms, in particular spin-offs either from other firms or from public research organizations. During the early years of the emerging combinatorial chemistry industry, the industry on which our empirical analysis focuses, spin-offs engaged in alliances with large and established partners, partners of similar type and size, and with public research organizations, often for different reasons. We seek to understand to what extent alliances of spin-offs with other firms (either large- or small- and medium-sized firms) affected their innovation performance and also how this performance may have been affected by their corporate or public research background. We find evidence that in general alliances of spin-offs with other firms, in particular alliances with large firms, increased their innovation performance. Corporate spin-offs that formed alliances with other firms outperformed public research spin-offs with such alliances. This suggests that, in terms of their innovation performance, corporate spin-offs that engaged in alliances with other firms seemed to have benefitted from their prior corporate background. Interestingly, it turns out that the negative impact of alliances on the innovation performance of public research spin-offs was largely affected by their alliances with small- and medium-sized firms