Lowering barriers to engage in innovation: evidence from the Spanish innovation survey

The literature on innovation studies has extensively examined the main drivers of innovation activity, while putting less attention on factors that are crucial in order to foster competition dynamics, as well as to attenuate systemic failures to innovation. This paper aims to filling this gap by distinguishing between firms facing deterring barriers to innovation (i.e. those barriers that deter firms from engaging in innovation activities) and firms confronting revealed barriers (i.e. those barriers that are experienced by firms alongside their engagement in innovative activities). Drawing upon the literature on innovation studies, we propose a set of hypotheses on which factors are likely to attenuate deterring and/or revealed barriers to innovation (e.g. firm size, firm age, human capital, etc.). We built a longitudinal dataset derived from four waves of the Spanish Innovation Survey (2004-2007) in order to examine the impact of the proposed factors on three types of obstacles to innovation: cost, knowledge and market barriers. Results reveal that: first, knowledge and market related obstacles play a much stronger role as deterring barriers than cost-related obstacles; second, firm size and human capital available at firms play a significant role in attenuating deterring barriers to innovation, though only the former has a significant impact on alleviating revealed barriers.

Perspectivas de la ciencia abierta. Un estado de la cuestión para una política nacional en Colombia

Objective:. To review the state of open science at a global level and establish a broad theoretical and conceptual framework with which to make general recommendations (challenges and perspectives) for a national policy on open science in Colombia. Methodology: A systematic review of the literature from both open and closed sources of information and content analysis to select the most significant contributions and formulate new theoretical and conceptual contributions. Results: At the general level, it was possible to build a theoretical-conceptual framework to describe open science and identify some challenges and perspectives related to the construction of a national policy on open science. At the specific level, as theoretical and conceptual contributions to designing a policy for open science for Ibero-America and at a global level, the article offers: 1) a comprehensive definition of open science based on authoritative international contributions; 2) an open science taxonomy translated into Spanish; 3) a timeline chronicling open science in the last three decades; and (4) an identification of the status of open science at the level of national policy or specific and prominent cases or projects in some countries

External knowledge sourcing and innovation performance: the role of managerial practices

Ingenio Working Paper SeriesIn this paper, we argue that the ability of a firm to transform external knowledge into commercial success goes beyond the firms’ technological capabilities. Thus, we underscore the role played by managerial practices (related with knowledge sharing, formalization and incentives) in the leveraging and utilization of external knowledge. We further consider that the effectiveness of external knowledge exploitation can be contingent on the types of external sources (scientific and industrial partners) and on the degree of novelty in innovations (imitative and new-to-the-market innovations). The research draws on survey data from the Spanish Ceramic Tile Industry and the main results suggest that firms adopting knowledge sharing mechanisms are more likely to attain better results in exploiting external scientific knowledge. On the contrary, formalization-based mechanisms tend to exert a detrimental effect on the exploitation of external scientific knowledge. Knowledge incentives are non significant in the case of scientific agents and negative for industrial agents.Peer reviewe

La Innovación Como Dinamizador Empresarial: Caso Hommie

In December 2018, Alonso Macías, Manager at Mayordomia, was looking for somewhere quiet to evaluate his company’s possibilities after foreseeing a projected closing with COP 14 billion less in sales than in 2016. He needed answers to all possible questions before attending a board meeting that was looking critical for him. He wondered if it was time to diversify his business, and if the conditions of the economy and his company’s power to respond, while occupying the largest share of the market at that time, would be negatively affected. The opportunity to diversify had always been there, but previous efforts had not gone well. Entering new markets with different proposals still generated certain suspicions for him that he didn’t express when telling his team that there could be no doubt about the need to exploit the company’s infrastructure in sectors adjacent to the business and institutional cleaning and maintenance service - sectors that had already been considered and included in the 2016-2019 strategic plan since 2013. “It looks like a risky option, but Adriana and her team seem to have a clearer idea of how to bring our know-how to all the different homes and cover the B2C segment,” pondered Alonso. Although he was willing to listen to the new proposals of the team led by his daughter, between positivism, uncertainty and resistance to change, he wondered if the conditions were favorable for these innovations, and if it would be possible to successfully achieve a victory early to break with the business schemes and systems that had been a part of Mayordomia for almost 30 years. Although the president of Mayordomia has been characterized as a tenacious and courageous person, this time, at 57 years of age, he sometimes feels that uncertainty overwhelms him.En diciembre de 2018 Alonso Macías, Gerente de Mayordomía, buscaba un espacio de quietud para evaluar las posibilidades de la compañía, después de ver un cierre proyectado con $14.000.000.000COP menos en ventas con respecto al 2016 y necesitaba responderse todas las dudas posibles antes de entrar a una junta directiva que pintaba crítica para él. Se preguntaba si era el momento de diversificar su negocio, y si las condiciones de la economía y la capacidad de respuesta de su empresa, que ocupaba la mayor porción del mercado en ese momento, no se vería afectada. La oportunidad de diversificarse siempre estuvo presente, pero los esfuerzos realizados con anterioridad no tuvieron buen puerto. Ingresar a nuevos mercados con propuestas diferentes le generaba todavía cierto recelo interno que no expresaba cuando decía ante el equipo que no había duda de la necesidad de empezar a explotar la infraestructura de Mayordomía, en sectores adyacentes al servicio de aseo y mantenimiento empresarial e institucional, que desde 2013 se venían considerando e incluyendo en el plan estratégico de 2016-2019. “Parece una opción arriesgada, pero Adriana y su equipo parecen tener una idea más clara de cómo llevar nuestro Know how a los hogares y abarcar el segmento B2C”, meditaba Alonso. Aunque estaba dispuesto a escuchar la nueva propuesta del equipo dirigido por su hija, entre el positivismo, la incertidumbre y la resistencia al cambio, se preguntaba si las condiciones propicias para estas innovaciones estaban dadas, y si iba a ser posible lograr con éxito una victoria temprana que rompiera los esquemas de negocio que se venían dando en Mayordomía por casi 30 años. A pesar de que el presidente de Mayordomía se caracterizaba por su tenacidad y valentía, esta vez, a sus 57 años de edad, sentía por momentos que la incertidumbre le sobreponía

MAKUNAIMA, O MEU AVÔ EM MIM!

ResumoEu aconteço, artisticamente falando, acredito, dentro de um processo que nos convida a pensar criticamente a decolonização, a apropriação cultural, o cristianismo, o monoteísmo, a monocultura e todos os dilemas do existir globalizado. Ou não? O meu surgimento vem junto com a expectativa que se cria em volta de outro termo, no Brasil ao menos, a arte indígena contemporânea. Não a moderna, a passada e extinta, nem a por vir, mas a deste início do século XXI. Ensaio escrever para socializar um pouco o socializável da minha relação com meu avô, esse que não é gente exatamente para não sê-lo. Portanto Makunaima é meu avô e o gênero, a forma e o conteúdo têm seus lugares de ação como vamos citar sempre, pois são fundamentais, mas é preciso ir além. Makunaima está além e prova isso ao transformar-se continuamente. Não, ele não é transformista. Vamos dissociar aos poucos o existir-atuação de Makunaima dos efeitos cognitivos do gênero em nossas mentes. Sim, nas mentes. Aos leitores é requerido um vácuo total interior, um nudar-se por dentro para ter espaço. Em uma grande concepção, é requerido um esvaziamento total de um ser para outro ser caber.Palavras-chave: Makunaima; Arte Indígena Contemporânea; Gênero; Literatura AbstractI happen, artistically speaking, I believe, in a process that invites us to think critically about decolonization, cultural appropriation, Christianity, monotheism, monoculture and all the dilemmas of globalized existence. Or not? My emergence comes along with the expectation that is created around another term, in Brazil at least, contemporary Indian art. Not the modern, the past and extinct, not yet to come, but the beginning of the twenty-first century. Essay writing to socialize a little the socializable of my relationship with my grandfather, the one who is not exactly people to not be. So Makunaima is my grandfather and the genre, form and content have their places of action as we will always quote, because they are fundamental, but we must go further. Makunaima is beyond and proves this by continually transforming himself. No, he is not a convert. We will gradually dissociate Makunaima's existing-action from the cognitive effects of gender in our minds. Yes, in the minds. Readers are required to have a total interior vacuum, a nudge inside to have room. In a grand design, a total emptying of one being is required for another to be fit.Key words: Makunaima; Contemporary Indian Art; Genre; Literatur

Improving writing in middle school through computer assisted genre-based pedagogy

The use of computer software to help students’ written work in the EFL classroom has emerged as a significant way to address the language learning within the last decade. This paper discusses the application of a computer assisted genre-based pedagogy in a middle school, the contribution to students’ written work and the characteristics of the students’ written argumentative texts, pedagogy perception of both teacher and student, benefits and difficulties of combining CALL and genre-based pedagogy for the development of writing skills and the characteristics of the methodology implemented. This research project was carried out at La Enseñanza School which is a private and catholic institution located in the northern part of Barranquilla, the chosen group was tenth grade. The research was based on needs analysis which was carried out in the first stage of the study to identify students’ difficulties in the language. In the second stage, a qualitative method was selected which was action research and the techniques to collect the data were through the implementation of class observations, students’ interviews, students’ and teacher’s journal, and students’ artifacts. Students considered that the applied methodology was dynamic and it helped them in term of participation, concentration, motivation and collaborative work. Also, they wrote better argumentative texts compared to the students in the first stage. The analysis of the application demonstrated that students use the CALL resources to approach their language learning and support their argumentative text recognition and work. Our research highlights the relationship between genres and technologies

University industry links and product innovation: cooperate or contract?

The role of universities in product innovation has received considerable attention over the past decade. However, little is known about how the type of formal university-firm interaction predicts innovative performance and the degree of novelty of new products. This research differentiates two forms of firm high-relational interaction with universities: R&D contracting and cooperation. We exploit the panel structure of a dataset of 5,858 Spanish manufacturing firms with fixed-effects models. The empirical analysis finds that, although both contracting and cooperation predict product innovative performance, the two activities differ in the degree of novelty of new product outcomes. The implications are that the codified nature and asymmetric scope of R&D contracting is more suitable for exploitative innovation, resulting in product innovation that is incremental in nature. On the other hand, the possibility to exchange and create tacit knowledge and the explorative nature of R&D cooperation provide firms with the opportunity to better access the broad knowledge base of universities, leading to product innovations with a higher degree of novelt