Can we assess teaching quality on the basis of student outcomes? A stochastic frontier application

This paper proposes a new application of Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) for estimating the student performance gap and how this can be used to assess changes of teaching quality at the individual unit-of-study level (module-level). Although there have been other examples in the literature that assess ‘efficiency’ in student outcomes, this is the first study that proposes the use of SFA specifically at the module level and with the goal of creating an aggregate measure of ‘quality’, thus avoiding the known issue of the statistical inconsistency of unit-specific SFA estimates. A case study is presented on how the approach can be applied in practice, with discussion on potential implementation issues. This paper is targeted to academics and policy makers that are interested in the quantitative assessment of student outcomes and specifically to those who want to assess how changes in module structure and/or delivery have affected said student outcomes

Research on Markets for Inventions and Implications for R&D Allocation Strategies

Several streams of literature have examined the phenomenon of “markets for inventions”, that is, the trade of elements of knowledge which are “disembodied” from individuals, organizations, and products. The aims of this paper are to bring together the various streams of research in this area and discuss their major assumptions and limitations, in order to provide a comprehensive framework for understanding the phenomenon, and identify promising paths for future research. We start our review by identifying the object of market exchange—that is, an invention whose knowledge has been codified and disembodied from individuals, organizations, or artifacts. We then identify those factors that enable firms to trade inventions, distinguishing between institutional-, firm-, and industry-level factors. We close our analysis of the extant literature by discussing the implications of markets for inventions for firm behavior and performance. Against this background, we highlight an important avenue for future research. A neglected implication of the development of invention markets is that firms are confronted with a wide variety of technological paths from which to choose, because the opportunity to acquire technologies on the market offers them a greater variety that can their internal R&D departments. However, the streams of research on markets for inventions and on R&D allocation strategies have been surprisingly disconnected so far. Hence, in the final section, we start to establish and explore the link between these literatures, and to identify a research agenda in this domain

Absorptive capacity and innovation: When is it better to cooperate?

Cooperation can benefit and hurt firms at the same time. An important question then is: when is it better to cooperate? And, once the decision to cooperate is made, how can an appropriate partner be selected? In this paper we present a model of inter-firm cooperation driven by cognitive distance, appropriability conditions and external knowledge. Absorptive capacity of firms develops as an outcome of the interaction between absorptive R&D and cognitive distance from voluntary and involuntary knowledge spillovers. Thus, we offer a revision of the original model by Cohen and Levinthal (Econ J 99(397):569-596, 1989), accounting for recent empirical findings and explicitly modeling absorptive capacity within the framework of interactive learning. We apply that to the analysis of firms' cooperation and R&D investment preferences. The results show that cognitive distance and appropriability conditions between a firm and its cooperation partner have an ambiguous effect on the profit generated by the firm. Thus, a firm chooses to cooperate and selects a partner conditional on the investments in absorptive capacity it is willing to make to solve the understandability/novelty trade-off. © 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Complexity is in the eye of the beholder: Lessons from the tyre industry,

In our view, the empirical content of the ‘complexity’ debate needs to be sought in the emergence of new ways of co-ordinating and integrating specialised learning processes, that focus on different disciplines and occur within independent, yet interconnected, organisational settings. We argue that knowledge should be characterised not only at the source but also at the point of application. We discuss in this article the systemic knowledge base of an industry, developing in particular the distinction between sources, users and integrators of knowledge and contributing capabilities. We then develop this approach by applying it through empirical analysis to the tyre manufacturing industry over the period 1974 to 2000. From this fuller account of the scale, scope and distribution of the knowledge base, we reflect on the importance and processes of knowledge specialisation and consider future avenues for research in this are

Exploring the Miracle: Strategy and management of the knowledge base in the aeronautics industry

We consider here the governance of learning and the diffusion of technological knowledge in the civil aircraft industry. We describe a systemic process by which specialization in 27 knowledge encourages depth whilst breadth is captured through the integration of contributions by the lead manufacturer, which acts as systems integrator. We explore the 29 boundaries of the knowledge bases related to airframe structure and systems and aircraft instrumentation by using patents as tracers, considering the range of scientific and 31 technological disciplines related to the industry as well as the sources of that knowledge. We conclude by introducing the research questions to a more detailed case study: the 33 governance of knowledge in aviation electronics, or avionic