Success potential of international R&D cooperations

Cooperation in Research and Development constitutes a new phenomena both for managers as well as for management scientists. Starting in the early Eigthies there has been an immense growth of such cooperations between Single - even competing - enterprises (Hagedoom, 1991). By pooling resources and realizing synergies firms try to gain various positive effects as e.g. generation of new ideas, saving of time and costs or reduetion of risks (Rotering, 1990). However, cooperations also encounter potential pitfalls caused by opportunistic behavior of the partners who remain independent and who pursue foremost their own interests (Bresser, 1986). The variety of arguments in favor of and against R&D-cooperations as well as the spread of de-facto successes and failures show the high complexity of the issue (Hagedoom, Schaakenraad, 1990). Due to the novelty of the phenomena, an integrated theoretical model explaining success or failure has not been developed by now. The explanatory approaches derive from different theoretical diseiplines, their conclusions are in part complementary, and in part they are controversial. This study tries to integrate key elements derived from theory. Arguments in favor and against R&D Cooperation will be analyzed simultaneously. We want to explore the relative importance of the key variables that may determine the success potential of cooperative R&D agreements as well as their interaction effects. This will be achieved by a conjoint analysis

The confounding of effects in rank-based conjoint-analysis

Basic confounding patterns for full-profile conjoint analyses based upon ranking are examined. It is shown that commonly used orthogonal main-effect designs can lead to biased part-worth estimates, especially to an underestimation of less important variables. An alternative design procedure is developed to overcome this flaw. The model is tested by means of simulation analyses and is applied to a marketing research study. Some guidelines for applications are provided

A model of ranked conjoint-data and implications for evaluation

This article examines basic features of ranked Conjoint-data, analyzes the adequacy of evaluation methods and proposes improvements for better utilizing the information provided by ranked data. It is shown that commonly used goodness-of-fit measures provide inadequate proxy measures for assessing rank consistency and internal validity of estimates. In addition, commonly used evaluation methods, such as OLS and LINMAP, are shown to be based on arbitrary propositions which do not fulfill the requisite traits postulated by the model of ranked Conjoint-data. Resulting shortcomings on estimation outcomes are evaluated with means of simulation analyses. New insights into the achievable estimation accuracy are gained and possibilities for improvement are shown

A Citation/Co-citation of Research Policy

In this paper bibliometric (co-citation analysis) and social network analysis techniques are used to investigate the intellectual pillars of the literature in Research Policy. We apply a cross-level type of analysis to provide a comprehensive picture of deeper disciplinary roots, long-term subjects and time-varying discourses. In practice, we map the research concerns at the journal, author and publication level which represent disciplines, subjects and themes. By applying this multi-dimensional view we provide insights into hierarchical and interlinked patterns of the evolving scientific discourse. We position dominant subjects around a shared common core of literature and discuss recent changes in themes in relation to possible future work. Last but not least we significantly find evidence for the discipline-spanning as well as integrating effects of the scientific discourse within research policy which justifies its characterization as a discipline of its own

Global Sensing and Sensibility : A Multi-Stage Matching Assessment of Competitive Advantage from Foreign Sources of Innovation

We focus on one of the core competitive capabilities of modern firms: the ability to deliver successful innovations in a globalized environment. Companies literally find themselves confronted with a world of ideas. The challenge remains to decide which impulses should be on top of the list and which at the bottom. Given limited resources and substantial investments, betting on the wrong horse can be risky and costly. Theoretically integrated in capability based view of the firm we investigate firms’ capabilities to assimilate, identify and prioritize valuable knowledge across national, cultural and social borders - a competence we call global sensing. We establish an analytical framework to examine whether global sensing activities generate competitive advantage. Consequently, we develop an empirical, multistage evaluation strategy. This strategy rests on a matching approach for a recent, broad sample of almost 1,700 German companies from both services and manufacturing. We find the strongest and most consistent support for global sensing as a strategic enabler for technological leadership. Apart from this strategic advantage we observe that foreign external sources of innovation are generally not superior to domestic ones

Assessment and benchmarking of innovation processes: Implications from a case study

Benchmarking of innovation processes requires the reliable assessment of nondocumented organizational characteristics. Based on key informant literature we discuss the difficulties of gaining reliable information from respondents and identify potential sources for heterogeneous perceptions among different respondents. We apply an existing benchmarking approach to critical success factors of innovation processes in a comprehensive case study of a major German industrial corporation. We find that perceptions differ substantially among the individual respondents. In particular, we observe different functional perceptions between respondents from Marketing and Research & Development. The results are consistent with expectations from interface theory. These perceptual differences have a severe impact on the managerial conclusions drawn from benchmarking. There appears to be no single reliable source of information within an organization. Furthermore, variances among informants' assessments should be recognized and regarded as valuable information for the benchmarking process. It is our recommendation that multiple informants ought to be included in the evaluation of innovation processes in future benchmarking studies

How do tourists evaluate Chinese hotels at different cities? Mining online tourist reviewers for new insights

Affected by the factors like population, economic and geographic conditions, accommodation offerings are inherently different at different cities and characterized with their specific features. This heterogeneity is not limited to the supply-side but covers the demand-side as well. For instance, business and leisure tourists may favor different travel destinations. Therefore, the development of accommodation industry needs to match the evolving demands of tourists. In this study, we utilize text mining techniques to understand English-speaking tourists’ likes and dislikes with regard to hotels at different Chinese cities. Based on the studying the titles of 96,089 English reviews collected from TripAdvisor, the study seeks to explore the hotel attributes that tourists discussed in their reviews with regard to their lodging experience at a specific city. In particular, tourists’ complaints are studied through the use of low rating reviews. In addition, hotel features favored by tourists are identified via associating hotel attributes with sentiment-featured words like ‘great’ and ‘good’. Finally, an overall perspective on customer reviews is visualized in co-occurrence maps of jointly used sentiments and key-words. The research findings offer city-level strategic insights for hotel management

Is all Internet gambling equally problematic? Considering the relationship between mode of access and gambling problems

Concerns exist that Internet gambling may increase rates of gambling harms, yet research to date has found inconsistent results. Internet gamblers are a heterogeneous group and considering this population as a whole may miss important differences between gamblers. The differential relationship of using mobile and other devices for gambling online has not been considered as compared to the use of computers. The true relationship of Internet gambling on related problems and differences between preferred modes for accessing online gambling may be obscured by confounding personal and behavioural factors. This paper thus uses the innovative approach of propensity score matching to estimate the consequence of gambling offline, or online through a computer, as compared to mobile or other supplementary devices by accounting for confounding effects of difference among groups of Australian gamblers (N = 4482). Gamblers who prefer to gamble online using computers had lower rates of gambling problems as compared to those using mobile and supplementary devices. Individual life cycle was useful to differentiate between groups, indicating age, marital, and employment status should be considered together to predict how people gamble online. This is the first empirical study to suggest that the mode of accessing Internet gambling may be related to subsequent harms.No funding was provided for this manuscript. Funding was provided for the original research to the lead author by the Menzies Foundation

Electron Sources for Future Lightsources, Summary and Conclusions for the Activities during FLS 2012

This paper summarizes the discussions, presentations, and activity of the Future Light Sources Workshop 2012 (FLS 2012) working group dedicated to Electron Sources. The focus of the working group was to discuss concepts and technologies that might enable much higher peak and average brightness from electron beam sources. Furthermore the working group was asked to consider methods to greatly improve the robustness of operation and lower the costs of providing electrons.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, summary paper from working group Future Light Sources 2012 Workshop at Newport News, Virginia, USA (http://www.jlab.org/conferences/FLS2012/