Enterprise Systems Adoption and Firm Performance in Europe: The Role of Innovation

Despite the ubiquitous proliferation and importance of Enterprise Systems (ES), little research exists on their post-implementation impact on firm performance, especially in Europe. This paper provides representative, large-sample evidence on the differential effects of different ES types on performance of European enterprises. It also highlights the mediating role of innovation in the process of value creation from ES investments. Empirical data on the adoption of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Knowledge Management System (KMS), and Document Management System (DMS) is used to investigate the effects on product and process innovation, revenue, productivity and market share growth, and profitability. The data covers 29 sectors in 29 countries over a 5-year period. The results show that all ES categories significantly increase the likelihood of product and process innovation. Most of ES categories affect revenue, productivity and market share growth positively. Particularly, more domainspecific and simpler system types lead to stronger positive effects. ERP systems decrease the profitability likelihood of the firm, whereas other ES categories do not show any significant effect. The findings also imply that innovation acts as a full or partial mediator in the process of value creation of ES implementations. The direct effect of enterprise software on firm performance disappears or significantly diminishes when the indirect effects through product and process innovation are explicitly accounted for. The paper highlights future areas of research.Enterprise Systems; ERP; SCM; CRM; KMS; DMS; IT Adoption; Post-implementation Phase; IT Business Value; Innovation; Firm Performance; Europe

On the Marshall - Jacobs Controversy It takes two to tango

The literature is inconclusive as to whether Marshallian specialization or Jacobian diversification externalities favour regional innovativeness. The specialization argument poses that regional specialization towards a particular industry improves innovativeness in that industry. Regional specialization allows for knowledge to spill over among similar firms. By contrast, the diversification thesis asserts that knowledge spills over between firms in different industries, causing diversified production structures to be more innovative. Building on an original database, we address this controversy for the Netherlands. We thereby advance on the literature by providing a two-level approach, at the region’s and the firm’s level. At the regional level, we compare specialized with diversified regions on numbers of accommodated innovators. At the firm level, we establish causalities between externalities and degree of innovativeness. The results suggest Marshallian externalities: specialized regions accommodate increased numbers of innovating firms and, consistently, incumbent firms’ innovativeness increase with regional specialization. Once the product has been launched, innovators in diversified Jacobian regions prove more successful in commercial terms than innovators in specialized Marshallian regions.Industrial clusters; innovation; knowledge externalities

R&D Internationalization, R&D Collaboration and Public Knowledge Institutions in Small Economies Evidence from Finland and the Netherlands

This paper investigates innovating firms’ determinants of R&D collaboration with domestic universities and public knowledge institutes in Finland and the Netherlands. Three questions – relevant for innovation policies - constitute the central part of this paper. First, are innovating foreign firms less or more involved in R&D co-operation with domestic public knowledge institutions than innovating domestic firms? Second, do innovating firms that are open to their external knowledge environment have a higher probability to co-operate with public partners than firms that are not or less open? Third, are public knowledge institutions in Finland and the Netherlands attractive R&D partners to innovative firms? Based on data from Community Innovation Surveys we find that foreign firms in the Netherlands are less likely to co-operate with domestic public knowledge institutions than domestic firms, while in Finland no significant difference can be detected. With regard to the second question our findings show that openness of innovating firms is an important determinant of R&D collaboration in both countries. Finally, the empirical results show that knowledge of public partners is considered useful by innovating firms to transform own ideas into concrete innovations in Finland, but not in the Netherlands. However, the type of knowledge – fundamental or applied - is important for R&D collaboration with Dutch public partners, but not for co-operating with Finnish public partners. This raises the issue whether Finnish innovation policies with a strong focus on R&D co-operation provide incentives for domestic public partners to put more emphasis on applied research.Multinational enterprises; innovation; R&D collaboration; public knowledge institutions; national innovation systems

The Impact of Environmental Policy on Foreign Trade: Tobey revisited with a Bilateral Flow Model

Whereas theoretical analyses of trade and environment indicate thatrelatively strict environmental policies can have a strong impact on foreign trade, empirical studies present mixed results. This study presents new empirical results that tie together two previous empirical studies employing a multicountry econometric framework, notably Tobey (1990, 1993) and van Beers and van den Bergh (1997). Such a link is useful since most empirical studies on trade and environment use unique assumptions and models, thus making a comparison of findings very difficult if not impossible. Since Tobeys study has been particularly influential on writings in this area a statistical analysis has been performed using a data set that shares many characteristics with his study. The main improvement of the approach adopted here is the use of more disaggregate data. In addition, as the effect of environmental policy on international trade is likely to differ between sectors analyses are performed for a variety of sectors. The results provide partly support for Tobey, namely no significant effects for dirty trade. Results for total trade flows, however, show a positive effect of relatively strict environmental policy on exports. This suggests that either Tobey's policy indicator is inaccurate, or essential variables are missing in the regression model, or countries employed complementary measures such as export subsidies in combination with relatively strict environmental regulations. Sector specific regressions results allow for further comparison with Tobey and provide additional support for the previous conclusions

Overview of Existing Innovation Indicators - CrESSI Working Papers

CrESSI Deliverable 3.

From Common Framework to measurement and analysis

Chapter 11 of: Deliverable D1.1: Report on Institutions, Social Innovation & System Dynamics from the Perspective of the Marginalised