Knowledge Transfer in Buyer-Supplier Relationships – When It (Not) Occurs

Abuyer’s technical knowledge may increase the efficiency of its supplier.Suppliers, however, frequently maintain relationships with additional buyers. Knowledge disclosure then bears the risk of benefiting one’s own competitor due to opportunistic knowledge transmission through the common supplier. We show that in one-shot relationships no knowledge disclosure takes place because the supplier has an incentive for knowledge transmission and, in anticipation of this outcome, buyers refuse to disclose any of their knowledge. In repeated relationships knowledge disclosure is stabilized by larger technological proximity between buyers and suppliers and destabilized by the absolute value of the knowledge.Knowledge Transfer, Knowledge Spillovers, Cooperation, Innovation, Repeated Games

Concubinage or Marriage? Informal and Formal Cooperations for Innovation

Based on a sample of German innovating firms that contains information on formal and informal innovation cooperation between customers and suppliers, we state that firms perceive informal cooperation as being more important than formal cooperation modes. We then investigate the determinants of firms? decisions to engage into the respective cooperation modes. In line with previous empirical work, we do not find much empirical evidence for the relevance of incoming spillovers. In addition, our results suggest that this finding holds as well for informal cooper- ations. A firm?s ability to protect its proprietary innovations, however seems to be a key determinant of formal as well as informal cooperations. Furthermor absorptive capacity and the organizational structur of in-house R&D play an important role. Another relevant driver of vertical cooperations are the innovation dynamics at the industry level. Firms who operate an R&D department and firms who are involved in costly R&D projects tend to cooperate formally rather than informally. --R&D Cooperation,Spillovers,Appropriability,Innovation

Inter-firm trust in buyer-supplier relations: are knowledge spillovers and geographical proximity relevant?

This paper empirically examines the impact of knowledge spillovers and geographical proximity on inter-firm trust in buyer–supplier relations. In particular, the effects of incoming knowledge spillovers from vertically related firms and firms’ appropriability problems are analyzed. The results suggest that there is a positive relationship between incoming knowledge spillovers from business partners and the level of inter-firm trust. Firms’ appropriability problems, however, lead to a decrease in inter-firm trust. Firms that cannot protect their technical knowledge have a greater perception of customer (supplier) opportunism. Furthermore, estimation results indicate that inter-firm trust between geographically close partners exceeds inter-firm trust between distant partners

Demography and Innovative Entrepreneurship

Demographic change will be one of the major challenges for economic policy in the developed world in the next decades. In this article, we analyze the relationship between age structure and the number of startups. We argue that an individual’s decision to start a business is determined by his or her age and, therefore, that a change in a region’s age distribution affects the expected number of startups in the region. Using German regional data, we estimate a count-data model and find that the expected number of startups is positively influenced by the fraction of individuals of working age—20–64 years old. A more detailed analysis of the working-age distribution suggests that startups in knowledge-based (high-tech) manufacturing industries are affected by changes in this distribution whereas firms in other industries are not. In particular, increases in the fraction of individuals in the 20–30 age range and individuals in the 40–50 age range have a positive effect on the number of high-tech startups.demography, age distribution, entrepreneurship, innovation, region

Concubinage or Marriage? Informal and Formal Cooperations for Innovation

Based on a sample of German inno innovating firms that contains information on formal and informal innovation cooperation between customers and suppliers, we state that firms perceive informal cooperation as being more important than formal cooperation modes. We then investigate the determinants of firms decisions to engage into the respective cooperation modes. In line with previous empirical work, we do not find much empirical evidence for the relevance of incoming spillovers. In addition, our results suggest that this finding holds as well for informal cooperations. A firms ability to protect its proprietary innovations, however, seems to be a key determinant of formal as well as informal cooperations. Furthermore absorptive capacity and the organizational structure of in-house R&D play an important role. Another relevant driver of vertical cooperations are the innovation dynamics at the he industry level. Firms who operate an R&D department and firms who are involved in costly R&D projects tend to cooperate formally rather than informally

Who Do Scientists in Public Research Institutions Cooperate with Private Firms?

As public research institutions are increasingly pressured to transfer research results to industry, evaluation of their performance is not only based on their scientific output but also on their commercialization success. Although it is well known that research cooperation activities are an important channel of knowledge transfer, the knowledge about factors driving research cooperation is limited. This paper explicitly focuses on scientist perspective and investigates the relevance of academic values and perceived costs and benefits of cooperation for a scientist's decision to cooperate with private firms. Our analysis is based on two survey waves performed with scientists in the Max Planck Society in Germany which is a publicly funded research organization focusing on basic research. Our empirical results suggest that open science identity is an important determinant of scientist fundamental decision to cooperate with private firms at all. The decision to keep on cooperating with private firms is directly influenced by cost sharing incentives and by firms' confidentiality requirements. Besides these direct effects, our results suggest that perceived reputational reward, monetary benefits, and time costs associated with cooperation influence cooperation behavior indirectly through their impact on the attractiveness of cooperation. The latter is a strong and robust predictor of cooperation behavior.

Gender differences in competitive preferences: new cross-country empirical evidence

Upon the completion of Judge William W Schwarzer\u27s half-decade as Director of the Federal Judicial Center, Professor Tobias salutes the distinguished jurist for his leadership in improving the civil and criminal justice systems. Appropriately, the lead Article in this issue focuses on one of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that Judge Schwarzer was instrumental in revising