Cooperation with public research institutions and success in innovation: Evidence from France and Germany

We evaluate the impact of cooperation with public research institutions on firms' inno-vative activities in France and Germany, using data from the fourth Community Innova-tion Survey (CIS4). We propose an original econometric methodology, which explicitly takes into account potential estimation biases arising from self-selection and endoge-neity, and apply it to both process and product innovation. We find a positive effect of cooperation on both types of innovation. This effect is significant in both countries, but much higher in Germany than in France. Drawing on a comparison of the institutional context of cooperation across both countries, we interpret this difference as a conse-quence of the more diffusion-oriented German science policy. Finally, our robustness checks confirm the importance of controlling for selection and endogeneity. We show that these problems can be serious, and may lead to inconsistent estimates if ne-glected. --Public/private research partnerships,University/industry linkages,Innova-tiveness,Heckit procedure with endogenous regressors

Concentration on the few? : R&D and innovation in German firms 2001 to 2013

Innovation activities in the German enterprise sector showed two opposing trends over the past two decades: While total innovation expenditures grew substantially, the number of firms conducting innovation activities fell sharply. Innovation expenditures hence oncentrate on fewer firms. In this paper we analyse the evolution of firms’ innovation and R&D activities. Based on panel data from the German part of the Community Innovation Survey covering a 13 years period (2001 to 2013) we use continuous-time Markov-Chains to analyse the changing properties of the firms’ choices to conduct R&D and non-R&D innovation activities. Our findings are threefold. As compared to the pre-crisis period 2001-2007 there is a considerable change in innovation and R&D behaviour of German firms from 2008 onwards with an increasing number of firms exiting R&D and innovation activities. Smaller firms are the main driver behind this process, particularly with regard to quitting non-R&D innovation activities. Although smaller firms were also less likely to move to higher levels of innovativeness and R&D engagement and more likely to fall back in the pre-crisis period, these trends have been more pronounced in the crisis and even in the post-crisis period. Both public innovation support and better financial capabilities can increase the rate chances to move to higher levels of innovativeness and reduce the chances to fall back

Patents and the financial performance of firms - An analysis based on stock market data

The following article systematically analyzes the question of how the results of R&D and its protection - or so to say, the technology base of a firm - can influence its market value and profits. Based on theoretical arguments it is hypothesized that large and highly valuable patent portfolios of firms have significant effects on their competitiveness in the long run. For the empirical testing a panel dataset including 479 firms from 1990 to 2007 based on the DTI-Scoreboard is used, which contains data on R&D expenditures, market capitalization, turnover etc. and structural information like firm-size and industry sector. To this database the relevant information on patenting behavior and financial performance are added, so effects of firm characteristics can be calculated. To assess the value of a firm's patent portfolio, different value measures like the number of received patent citations, opposed patents, number of inventors etc. are being applied. The results suggest that at least at the firm level, especially forward citations and family size positively influence market value. Concerning the Return on Investment, especially oppositions and family size show positive effects. This leads to the conclusion that securing international markets has a positive effect on the value of the firm in the home market. --

Tests and confidence intervals for a class of scientometric, technological and economic specialisation ratios

In economic, scientometric, and innovation research, often so-called specialisation indices are used. These indices measure comparative strengths or weaknesses as well as specialisation profiles of the observation units with respect to certain criteria, such as patenting and publication or trade activities. They allow question like: Is Germany specialised in the export of motor vehicles? Or is the UK specialised in biotech patents? Unfortunately, little is known about their statistical properties, which makes valid inferencing difficult. In this article we prove asymptotic normality for a certain class of scientometric, technological, and some economic, though non-monetary, specialisation indices. We provide asymptotic confidence intervals and demonstrate in an example how to obtain statistically sound results. We will also address the problem of normalisation of these indicators. All procedures proposed are provided in an add-on package for R statistical environment

The impact on innovation off-shoring on organizational adaptability

We analyze the effects of captive off-shoring of innovation activities on the firms’ ability to adapt their organizational processes and structures. Starting from complexity theory, we use three consecutive waves of the German part of the Community Innovation Survey to test our hypotheses. We find an inverted u-shape of innovation off-shoring on the effectiveness of organizational adaptability, implying an optimal threshold value of innovation off-shoring. This value is 11% for share of off-shored R&D, 15% for downstream innovation activities such as local market adaptation, and 34% for design activities. We also analyze several contingency variables. In particular we show that the costs of innovation off-shoring in terms of reduced organizational adaptability are exacerbated by a strong focus on R&D and a strong embeddedness in on-shore networks. Smaller firms find it easier to deal with the management complexity induced by geographical dispersion of innovation activities because of their greater flexibility

Bestimmungsgründe des Innovationserfolgs von baden-württembergischen KMU

Das Forschungsprojekt hatte zum Ziel, die Innovationsperformance von KMU in Baden- Württemberg im Vergleich zu KMU aus anderen deutschen Bundesländern zu untersuchen und die Faktoren zu analysieren, die für eine möglicherweise überdurchschnittlich hohe Innovationsperformance der baden-württembergischen KMU verantwortlich gemacht werden können. Es wurden fünf mögliche Erklärungsansätze betrachtet: eine größere Verbreitung von Nischenmarktstrategien, eine stärkere Ausrichtung auf Kunden mit einer hohen Innovationsnachfrage, eine häufigere Verfolgung einer auf Technologieführerschaft ausgerichteten Innovationsstrategie, eine stärkere Zusammenarbeit mit Wissenschaftseinrichtungen aus der Region sowie eine günstigere Kreditfinanzierungssituation durch eine höhere Bedeutung von Sparkassen und genossenschaftlichen Banken als Hausbank. Die Analysen wurden für einen repräsentativen Querschnitt von KMU aus Baden-Württemberg aus Industrie, wissensintensive Dienstleistungen, Logistik, Finanzwirtschaft, Medienwirtschaft und Energieversorgung durchgeführt. Als Datenquelle diente das Mannheimer Innovationspanel (MIP) des ZEW. Das Innovationsverhalten der baden-württembergischen KMU wurde mit dem von KMU aus anderen deutschen Bundesländern verglichen

Can European productivity make progress?

Since the Lisbon European Council in 2000, the European Union has been working to improve its industrial and innovation policy, with the aim of turning the European economy into the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economic system in the world. Its initiatives have been mainly driven by concern about the lower productivity of European companies in comparison with their United States competitors. Therefore, European policy makers have advised member countries to strengthen their knowledge base in order to foster productivity and support economic growth. Yet, despite the substantial shifts in policies during the last two decades, the productivity gap between European countries and the US has not been signifi cantly reduced

Technology sovereignty as an emerging frame for innovation policy. Defining rationales, ends and means

In recent years, global technology-based competition has not only intensified, but become increasingly linked to a more comprehensive type of competition between different political and value systems. The globalist assumptions of the post-Cold War era that reliable mutually beneficial agreements could be reached with all nations, regardless of ideology, have been shattered. A previously less visible, mostly political, risk dimension has been brought to the fore by recent geopolitical and geo-economic developments. Against this background, the notion of technology sovereignty has gained prominence in national and international debates, cutting across and adding to established rationales of innovation policy. In this paper, we propose and justify a concise yet nuanced concept of technology sovereignty to contribute to and clarify this debate. In particular, we argue that technology sovereignty should be conceived as state-level agency within the international system, i.e. as sovereignty of governmental action, rather than (territorial) sovereignty over something. Against this background, we define technology sovereignty not as an end in itself, but as a means to achieving the central objectives of innovation policy - sustaining national competitiveness and building capacities for transformative policies. By doing so, we position ourselves between a naive globalist position which largely neglects the risks of collaboration and the promotion of near autarky which disregards the inevitable costs of creating national redundancies and reducing cooperative interdependencies. We finish by providing a set of policy suggestions to support technology sovereignty in line with our conceptual approach

R&D and productivity in the US and the EU: sectoral specificities and differences in the crisis

Using data on the US and EU top R&D spenders from 2004 until 2012, this paper investigates the sources of the US/EU productivity gap. We find robust evidence that US firms have a higher capacity to translate R&D into productivity gains (especially in the high-tech macro sector), and this contributes to explaining the higher productivity of US firms. Conversely, EU firms are more likely to achieve productivity gains through capital-embodied technological change, at least in the medium- and low-tech macro sectors. Our results also show that the US/EU productivity gap has worsened during the crisis period, as the EU companies have been more affected by the economic crisis in their capacity to translate R&D investments into productivity. Based on these findings, we make a case for a learning-based and selective R&D funding, which, instead of purely aiming at stimulating higher R&D expenditures, works on improving the firms’ capabilities to transform R&D into productivity gains