The distribution of R&D subsidies and its effect on the final outcome of innovation policy

Se evalúa el efecto de la política española de subsidios a la innovación sobre la intensidad en I+D de las empresas, teniendo en cuenta, subsidios procedentes de la Administración Central, de las Comunidades Autonómicas y de otros organismos. La metodología empleada permite llegar a una solución próxima a la eliminación de dos grandes problemas metodológicos en la tarea de evaluación de la política: la no estimación del estado contafactual (lo que hubiese ocurrido en ausencia de políticas) y el problema de la endogeneidad derivado del proceso de distribución de las ayudas. Este proceso no es aleatorio y sigue criterios de selección que podrían afectar la efectividad de los programas. Nosotros utilizamos un enfoque no paramétrico denominado Propensity Score Matching con el fin de superar estos problemas. Los resultados rechazan un efecto de crowding out de los fondos públicos sobre los privados

Influence of task-related diversity of R&D employees on the development of organisational innovations: a gender perspective

[EN] The paper aims to analyse the influence of workforce diversity on the likelihood that the firm will develop organisational innovations. Operationalising human resources diversity is not straightforward and the effect of such diversity has been rather overlooked in the context of non-technological innovations. We analyse the impact of task-related diversity among workers in an R&D unit and, in particular, the diversity among the women R&D workers. We employ a GLM with a binomial family and log-log extension to estimate the impact of task-related diversity on firm’s propensity to undertake organisational innovation. GLM is used to control for problems of over-dispersion, which, in models with a binary response variable, could generate erroneous standard errors estimates and provide inconsistent results. We provide three important results. First, employee diversity increases the firm’s propensity to engage in organisational innovations. Second, the influence of each facet of task-related diversity varies depending on the type of organisational innovation considered. Third, gender has an effect on the innovation process. We show that women play different roles in the production of non-technological innovations. The paper contributes to the literature in several ways. First, it makes a theoretical contribution to innovation management research by considering the influence of human resources diversity on the development of non-technological innovations. Second, we analyse the role of workforce diversity in the context of the R&D department, where the contribution of females has not been clearly defined.S

Fostering rural entrepreneurship: An ex-post analysis for Spanish municipalities

[EN] Entrepreneurs in rural areas contribute enormously to these territories, but they also face challenges not encountered by their urban counterparts. These problems include lack of basic infrastructure and fewer opportunities to exploit new technologies and engage in innovation projects. Research into the limitations experienced by rural entrepreneurs is scarce. The present study seeks to provide a better understanding of these problems through an ex-post analysis of an innovative policy designed to foster rural entrepreneurship. This policy adopts a “bottom-up” approach to promoting relationships among different parts of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Among the recipients of this policy, some also benefited from other programs aimed at promoting technological innovation, technology adoption and basic infrastructure improvements. To assess the influence of the policy we conducted a municipality (LAU-2) level analysis using unique data on some 12.6 million beneficiary projects. We employed a recently developed difference-in-difference method to estimate the causal effect of this bottom-up policy on local workers. We did not identify any spillover effects from the implementation of this policy. We found a positive impact which was effective for reducing unemployment in the treated areas. Unemployment levels also reduced significantly in municipalities that received funds for innovation and enhanced infrastructure; however, among the group that received help for technology adoption unemployment levels did not change. This points to the importance of basic infrastructure to enable innovation and increase technology adoption in rural areas. Also, the lower effects found for female workers - one of the most vulnerable groups within the ecosystem – suggest that the policy should be refined to avoid these unintended effects on rural inequality.S

Fuentes externas de conocimiento y su efecto sobre el esfuerzo innovador en los sectores industriales y de servicios en España

Hoy en día, no son los fabricantes los únicos encargados del desarrollo de nuevos productos, procesos o servicios, sino que se hace necesario reconocer la importancia que tienen otros agentes externos a la empresa como fuente de actividades innovadoras. La complejidad y dinamismo de los entornos actuales obliga a las empresas a complementar su base interna de conocimientos con otros procedentes del exterior. Estas circunstancias han llevado a distinguir entre fuentes internas y externas de innovación. Puesto que las primeras han sido suficientemente estudiadas y analizadas en la literatura, el presente trabajo pretende avanzar sobre el conocimiento de las segundas y sus implicaciones en la actividad innovadora de las empresas. Para ello se ha analizado la influencia de nueve de esas fuentes externas sobre la intensidad total de la actividad innovadora y de las actividades de I+D intramuros y extramuros del conjunto del sector productivo español durante el periodo 2001-2003, llegando a la conclusión de que los clientes son quienes mayor impacto ejercen en los tres caso

Corporate sustainability: The pivotal role of corporate scientists and gender diversity

[EN] At a time when sustainable practices are becoming increasingly important in many economies, we need a thorough understanding of the determinants of corporate sustainability. Research on the influence of human resources in this context focuses mainly on executive roles such as CEO and board member. This emphasis tends to deny the potential contribution made by other employees to fostering corporate sustainability. This is the setting for our study of the part played by corporate scientists. Their rigorous academic training and specialized research expertise endows corporate scientists with distinct attributes which could encourage more sustainable business activities. We show that the role of the corporate scientist goes beyond enhancement of the firm’s inventive capacity and find a causal effect of scientist presence on companies’ prioritization of environmental objectives. We also find that the presence of women scientists has a particularly pronounced effect. Our results have implications for policy and recruitment strategies in terms of their emphasis on sustainability and gender inclusivity.S

Safety Management System in TQM environments

[EN] Safety Management Systems continue to be a prevalent research topic nowadays, which has gone from being an incipient construct to an essential factor in new currents of business management. Organizations have perceived the importance of organizing their techniques and resources under a Safety Management System with models similar to other certification systems such as the ISO 9000 family of standards. This research is aimed at knowing the conditions that accelerate the adoption of a Safety Management System, either under the principles, beliefs and values of Total Quality Management or as a consequence of the implementation and application of essential safety management techniques, namely, risk assessment processes, assumption of safety responsibilities and safety training. It has been proven that companies operating in Total Quality Management environments are more likely to adopt a Safety Management System than those which apply key safety management practices in isolation. Results show the potential of Total Quality Management to promote a Safety Management System by itself, even in the absence of proven core practices. The results are robust and suggest maintaining principles of the quality paradigm when pursuing more ambitious models based on total management such as Total Safety Management.SIThis work was supported by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under research project ECO2015-63880-R. INSHT (Spanish National Institute of Occupational Safety and Hygiene). National Survey of Safety and Health Enterprises Management (2009)

PhD trained employees and firms’ transitions to upstream R&D activities

[EN] This paper investigates the relationship between firms’ transition towards upstream-R&D activities and the availability of R&D employees with PhD training. Doctoral trained employees have distinct motivations for research: some have stronger preferences for intellectual freedom and autonomy, while others reveal greater aspirations for targeted research and opportunities for development of new products and processes. These contrasting profiles among PhD trained employees lead to ambiguous predictions about whether a greater presence of employees with a doctoral training enhances the capacity of firms to initiate upstreamoriented R&D. We examine this question by studying a large sample of Spanish manufacturing firms which are active in development activities, and investigate the effect of PhD trained R&D employees on the propensity of firms to initiate upstream-oriented R&D. Our results show that a higher proportion of PhDs in R&D functions has a positive and significant influence on the firm’s initiation an upstream-oriented R&D strategy.SIAndrés Barge-Gil acknowl edges funding from projects ECO2014-52051-R, S2015/HUM-3417 and ECO2017-82445-R. Pablo D’Este acknowledges funding from projects ECO2014-59381-R and RTI2018-101232-B-I00. Liliana Herrera acknowledges funding from project ECO2015-63880-R

Current state of fiberglass post

En la reconstrucción de dientes tratados endodónticamente tenemos muchas posibilidades clínicas y esto se debe al avance de los materiales y las técnicas. Es labor del profesional estar capacitado para realizar los procedimientos actuales modificando sus protocolos. Los materiales más comúnmente utilizados para la cementación de postes son los ionómeros de vidrio, los ionómeros de vidrio modificados con resina y los cementos de resina. Y para todos estos materiales necesitamos obtener una capa homogénea, delgada y carente de fisuras o burbujas. Estas características son difíciles de lograr sobre todo en el conducto radicular por las características del mismo. Se presenta una revisión de literatura sobre los materiales y técnicas más utilizados en la cementación de los postes prefabricados y se propone un protocolo que puede orientar al clínico para la obtención de resultados predecibles y confiables en el tiempo.In the reconstruction of endodontically treated teeth we have many clinical possibilities and this is due to the advancement of materials and technologies. The job of the professional is to be qualified to accomplish the current procedures modifying its protocols. The most commonly materials used for cementing posts are glass ionomer, resin modified glass ionomer and resin cements. For all these materials we need to obtain a homogeneous, thin layer without cracks or bubbles. These characteristics are difficult to achieve because of especial characteristics of root canal. A review of literature on the materials and techniques commonly used in the cementation of prefabricated post is presented and a protocol that can guide the clinician to obtain predictable and reliable results over time is proposed

Measuring performance on the Healthcare Access and Quality Index for 195 countries and territories and selected subnational locations: A systematic analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

Background: A key component of achieving universal health coverage is ensuring that all populations have access to quality health care. Examining where gains have occurred or progress has faltered across and within countries is crucial to guiding decisions and strategies for future improvement. We used the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016 (GBD 2016) to assess personal health-care access and quality with the Healthcare Access and Quality (HAQ) Index for 195 countries and territories, as well as subnational locations in seven countries, from 1990 to 2016. Methods Drawing from established methods and updated estimates from GBD 2016, we used 32 causes from which death should not occur in the presence of effective care to approximate personal health-care access and quality by location and over time. To better isolate potential effects of personal health-care access and quality from underlying risk factor patterns, we risk-standardised cause-specific deaths due to non-cancers by location-year, replacing the local joint exposure of environmental and behavioural risks with the global level of exposure. Supported by the expansion of cancer registry data in GBD 2016, we used mortality-to-incidence ratios for cancers instead of risk-standardised death rates to provide a stronger signal of the effects of personal health care and access on cancer survival. We transformed each cause to a scale of 0-100, with 0 as the first percentile (worst) observed between 1990 and 2016, and 100 as the 99th percentile (best); we set these thresholds at the country level, and then applied them to subnational locations. We applied a principal components analysis to construct the HAQ Index using all scaled cause values, providing an overall score of 0-100 of personal health-care access and quality by location over time. We then compared HAQ Index levels and trends by quintiles on the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a summary measure of overall development. As derived from the broader GBD study and other data sources, we examined relationships between national HAQ Index scores and potential correlates of performance, such as total health spending per capita. Findings In 2016, HAQ Index performance spanned from a high of 97\ub71 (95% UI 95\ub78-98\ub71) in Iceland, followed by 96\ub76 (94\ub79-97\ub79) in Norway and 96\ub71 (94\ub75-97\ub73) in the Netherlands, to values as low as 18\ub76 (13\ub71-24\ub74) in the Central African Republic, 19\ub70 (14\ub73-23\ub77) in Somalia, and 23\ub74 (20\ub72-26\ub78) in Guinea-Bissau. The pace of progress achieved between 1990 and 2016 varied, with markedly faster improvements occurring between 2000 and 2016 for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia, whereas several countries in Latin America and elsewhere saw progress stagnate after experiencing considerable advances in the HAQ Index between 1990 and 2000. Striking subnational disparities emerged in personal health-care access and quality, with China and India having particularly large gaps between locations with the highest and lowest scores in 2016. In China, performance ranged from 91\ub75 (89\ub71-93\ub76) in Beijing to 48\ub70 (43\ub74-53\ub72) in Tibet (a 43\ub75-point difference), while India saw a 30\ub78-point disparity, from 64\ub78 (59\ub76-68\ub78) in Goa to 34\ub70 (30\ub73-38\ub71) in Assam. Japan recorded the smallest range in subnational HAQ performance in 2016 (a 4\ub78-point difference), whereas differences between subnational locations with the highest and lowest HAQ Index values were more than two times as high for the USA and three times as high for England. State-level gaps in the HAQ Index in Mexico somewhat narrowed from 1990 to 2016 (from a 20\ub79-point to 17\ub70-point difference), whereas in Brazil, disparities slightly increased across states during this time (a 17\ub72-point to 20\ub74-point difference). Performance on the HAQ Index showed strong linkages to overall development, with high and high-middle SDI countries generally having higher scores and faster gains for non-communicable diseases. Nonetheless, countries across the development spectrum saw substantial gains in some key health service areas from 2000 to 2016, most notably vaccine-preventable diseases. Overall, national performance on the HAQ Index was positively associated with higher levels of total health spending per capita, as well as health systems inputs, but these relationships were quite heterogeneous, particularly among low-to-middle SDI countries. Interpretation GBD 2016 provides a more detailed understanding of past success and current challenges in improving personal health-care access and quality worldwide. Despite substantial gains since 2000, many low-SDI and middle- SDI countries face considerable challenges unless heightened policy action and investments focus on advancing access to and quality of health care across key health services, especially non-communicable diseases. Stagnating or minimal improvements experienced by several low-middle to high-middle SDI countries could reflect the complexities of re-orienting both primary and secondary health-care services beyond the more limited foci of the Millennium Development Goals. Alongside initiatives to strengthen public health programmes, the pursuit of universal health coverage hinges upon improving both access and quality worldwide, and thus requires adopting a more comprehensive view-and subsequent provision-of quality health care for all populations

Measuring performance on the Healthcare Access and Quality Index for 195 countries and territories and selected subnational locations: A systematic analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

Copyright © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. Background A key component of achieving universal health coverage is ensuring that all populations have access to quality health care. Examining where gains have occurred or progress has faltered across and within countries is crucial to guiding decisions and strategies for future improvement. We used the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016 (GBD 2016) to assess personal health-care access and quality with the Healthcare Access and Quality (HAQ) Index for 195 countries and territories, as well as subnational locations in seven countries, from 1990 to 2016. Methods Drawing from established methods and updated estimates from GBD 2016, we used 32 causes from which death should not occur in the presence of effective care to approximate personal health-care access and quality by location and over time. To better isolate potential effects of personal health-care access and quality from underlying risk factor patterns, we risk-standardised cause-specific deaths due to non-cancers by location-year, replacing the local joint exposure of environmental and behavioural risks with the global level of exposure. Supported by the expansion of cancer registry data in GBD 2016, we used mortality-to-incidence ratios for cancers instead of risk-standardised death rates to provide a stronger signal of the effects of personal health care and access on cancer survival. We transformed each cause to a scale of 0-100, with 0 as the first percentile (worst) observed between 1990 and 2016, and 100 as the 99th percentile (best); we set these thresholds at the country level, and then applied them to subnational locations. We applied a principal components analysis to construct the HAQ Index using all scaled cause values, providing an overall score of 0-100 of personal health-care access and quality by location over time. We then compared HAQ Index levels and trends by quintiles on the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a summary measure of overall development. As derived from the broader GBD study and other data sources, we examined relationships between national HAQ Index scores and potential correlates of performance, such as total health spending per capita. Findings In 2016, HAQ Index performance spanned from a high of 97·1 (95% UI 95·8-98·1) in Iceland, followed by 96·6 (94·9-97·9) in Norway and 96·1 (94·5-97·3) in the Netherlands, to values as low as 18·6 (13·1-24·4) in the Central African Republic, 19·0 (14·3-23·7) in Somalia, and 23·4 (20·2-26·8) in Guinea-Bissau. The pace of progress achieved between 1990 and 2016 varied, with markedly faster improvements occurring between 2000 and 2016 for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia, whereas several countries in Latin America and elsewhere saw progress stagnate after experiencing considerable advances in the HAQ Index between 1990 and 2000. Striking subnational disparities emerged in personal health-care access and quality, with China and India having particularly large gaps between locations with the highest and lowest scores in 2016. In China, performance ranged from 91·5 (89·1-93·6) in Beijing to 48·0 (43·4-53·2) in Tibet (a 43·5-point difference), while India saw a 30·8-point disparity, from 64·8 (59·6-68·8) in Goa to 34·0 (30·3-38·1) in Assam. Japan recorded the smallest range in subnational HAQ performance in 2016 (a 4·8-point difference), whereas differences between subnational locations with the highest and lowest HAQ Index values were more than two times as high for the USA and three times as high for England. State-level gaps in the HAQ Index in Mexico somewhat narrowed from 1990 to 2016 (from a 20·9-point to 17·0-point difference), whereas in Brazil, disparities slightly increased across states during this time (a 17·2-point to 20·4-point difference). Performance on the HAQ Index showed strong linkages to overall development, with high and high-middle SDI countries generally having higher scores and faster gains for non-communicable diseases. Nonetheless, countries across the development spectrum saw substantial gains in some key health service areas from 2000 to 2016, most notably vaccine-preventable diseases. Overall, national performance on the HAQ Index was positively associated with higher levels of total health spending per capita, as well as health systems inputs, but these relationships were quite heterogeneous, particularly among low-to-middle SDI countries. Interpretation GBD 2016 provides a more detailed understanding of past success and current challenges in improving personal health-care access and quality worldwide. Despite substantial gains since 2000, many low-SDI and middle- SDI countries face considerable challenges unless heightened policy action and investments focus on advancing access to and quality of health care across key health services, especially non-communicable diseases. Stagnating or minimal improvements experienced by several low-middle to high-middle SDI countries could reflect the complexities of re-orienting both primary and secondary health-care services beyond the more limited foci of the Millennium Development Goals. Alongside initiatives to strengthen public health programmes, the pursuit of universal health coverage hinges upon improving both access and quality worldwide, and thus requires adopting a more comprehensive view - and subsequent provision - of quality health care for all populations