Multi-network embeddedness and innovation performance of R&D employees

Taking the perspective of multi-network embeddedness, this paper constructs the collaboration network of R&D organizations, the collaboration network and knowledge network of R&D employees based on the patent data of 879 R&D employees from 224 R&D organizations, and analyses factors that have significant impacts on R&D employees’ innovation performance. The results show that R&D employees’ knowledge combinatorial potential and knowledge diversity have significant positive impacts on their innovation performance. R&D employees’ degree centralities in the collaboration network mediate the impacts of their knowledge combinatorial potential and knowledge diversity on innovation performance. The degree centralities of R&D organizations moderate the impacts of R&D employees’ degree centralities on innovation performance.

     

Major factors affecting cross-city R&D collaborations in China: evidence from cross-sectional co-patent data between 224 cities

Scientific research activities cluster in cities or towns. Modern cities can play a crucial role in the national or regional innovation system. Strengthening R&D collaboration between cities can contribute to perfectly integrating various regional innovation systems. Using the cross-sectional co-patent data of the Chinese Patent Database as a proxy for R&D collaboration, this paper investigates the spatial patterns of R&D collaborations between 224 Chinese cities and the major factors that affect cross-city R&D collaborations in China. A spatial interaction model was used to examine how spatial, economic, technological and political factors affect cross-city R&D collaborations. The degree of centrality shows that cross-city collaborative R&D activities mainly occur in favored regions, advanced municipalities and coastal regions. The mean collaboration intensity for intra-provincial cross-city collaborations is 4.74; however, for inter-provincial collaborations, it is 0.69. The econometric findings reveal that spatial, economic, technological and political bias factors do yield significant influences on the frequency of cross-city R&D collaboration. Specifically, as evidenced by the model coefficient, it is more likely that R&D collaborations occur among cities that are connected by high-speed railways.     

Heterogeneous Partners,R&D cooperation and corporate innovation capability: Evidence from Chinese manufacturing firms

In this paper, we examine the differential impact of cooperation with heterogeneous partners on firms' innovation capabilities. We use the number of joint patent applications of Chinese manufacturing firms from 2008 to 2018 to measure cooperation with different types of partners and the number of corporate patents to measure the innovation capability of firms. The results indicate that R&D cooperation with other enterprises, universities, and research institutions all have a significantly positive impact on the innovation capability of enterprises. However, R&D cooperation with universities or research institutions has a higher positive impact on innovation capability than that with other firms. Different internal and external factors moderate the relationship between heterogeneous partners and the innovation capability of firms. Specifically, firms with higher absorptive capacity will benefit more from R&D cooperation with corporate partners. In contrast, in industries with higher market concentration or where firms are at the technological frontier, cooperation with universities will positively impact their innovation capabilities. Further research demonstrates that absorptive capacity has a more positive moderating effect when the cooperation is between firms in the same industry, compared to R&D cooperation between firms in different industries.     

An Exploration of Total Quality Management Practices In U.S. R&D Organizations

ABSTRACT

This article presents the findings of an exploratory study of total quality management (TQM) practice in selected U.S. R&D organizations. Information was obtained through a nationwide survey of 31 R&D organizations and interviews with 13 R&D organization directors. Research questions are posed through a review of the related literature, and the research method is described. The current state of TQM practice in the surveyed organizations is elaborated, and special attention is given to TQM-related performance measurement. It is shown that under TQM, the perceived success of the R&D organization is a function of the metric being used for assessment and the degree to which measurement occurs. Research topic areas for further study are also proposed.     

Impact of Intellectual Property Rights on the Governance Mode Decisions of Engineering Managers During the Establishment of Research Alliances With Publicly Funded Entities

Strengthening intellectual property rights for publicly financed research and development (R&D) ensures that research organizations maximize the full national value of the intellectual property that they generate, but potential negative spillover effects on the perceived value of a research alliance might deter an existing alliance partner from continued collaboration or a potential alliance partner from future collaboration. This study, performed in 2010 within the context of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in South Africa, aimed to develop a structural equation modeling-based value-mediation governance decision-making model that will enable engineering managers at publicly financed R&D organizations to select optimal governance modes for the research alliances they are establishing to grow their organizations’ R&D capabilities.     

When does the diverse partnership of R&D alliances promote new product development? The contingent effect of the knowledge base

Diverse R&D alliance partnerships not only provide access to broad external knowledge but also bring considerable expenses caused by transaction costs and absorption problems. The effective utilization of external knowledge in developing new products is closely related to the internal knowledge base. This study examines how firms' knowledge base properties influence the relationship between diverse R&D alliance partnerships and NPD performance. We empirically find that increases in firms' knowledge complementarity reinforce the positive impact of diverse alliance partners on NPD performance, but increases in firms’ knowledge substitutability attenuate. These findings offer valuable managerial implications that firms should commit more seriously to their internal knowledge base so that they can achieve higher NPD performance when establishing R&D alliances with external actors.     

R&D and firm performance in the semiconductor industry

While the semiconductor industry is still dominated by large vertically integrated firms, fabless firms, which outsource their manufacturing, are gaining market share. Fabless firms are considered to have an advantage in product innovation, as they can focus their innovation efforts on chip design and can benefit from investments in process innovation made by their manufacturing partners. However, there is little empirical evidence of the performance of fabless firms compared to vertically integrated firms. This research empirically examines the relationship between R&D and the financial performance of fabless and vertically integrated firms from 2000 to 2010. Our results show that fabless firms maintain higher gross and net margins, earn a higher return on assets (ROA) and have greater intangible value (Tobin’s q) than vertically integrated firms when controlling for size, capital intensity and R&D ratio (R&D/sales). This supports the argument that fabless firms achieve greater performance by focusing on one part of the innovation process. The relationship of R&D ratio to net margin is negative for the whole sample, suggesting that the industry may be overinvesting in R&D. Notably, the negative relationship is greater for fabless firms, which spend a higher amount of their sales on R&D. The relationship of R&D ratio to ROA and Tobin’s q is negative, and there is no significant difference between fabless and integrated firms. We conclude that fabless firms outperform integrated firms overall, but are somewhat worse in terms of increasing profits and creating value from their R&D investments.     

Note on R&D expenditures and fixed capital formation

In this paper we deal with the fixed capital nature of the means of production and labour employed in research and development which generate scientific and technological knowledge. We argue that these R&D current expenditures typically have the nature of fixed investments. We then present an empirical analysis which shows that expenditures on industrial R&D are more strongly linked to the formation of fixed capital than to the formation of capital in general. Applying this conclusion to the economics of research and innovation would make it possible to analyse investments in the production of scientific and technological knowledge with a higher degree of clarity and precision.     

Bibliometric indicators and the competitive environment of R&D laboratories

The R&D laboratory organization attempts to shape and is influenced by complex and changing environments. New contexts affect the types of evaluation required. Traditional approaches to the R&D laboratory evaluation are thus to be questioned. The changing competitive contexts of R&D organization suggest four worlds of innovation: (i) technology races, (ii) efficiency in technological systems, (iii) technical parity and (iv) market contests. In the emerging competitive arena, the R&D laboratory is evolving toward a network type of organization linked to many different partners and acting as a semi-autonomous business unit. New roles are expected from these kinds of laboratories. They have to develop core strategic competencies, offer competitive outputs, meet clients specifications, create new technology standards and maintain or increase their leadership positions. Bibliometric analysis need to be used in complement with many other methods.     

The formation of status asymmetric ties: a perspective of positive externality and empirical test

Previous studies have investigated the circumstances that motivate firms to form status asymmetric ties. However, these studies have mainly focused on firm attributes or environmental factors. Deviating from prior works, we propose that firms can take advantage of alliance portfolios to trade resources with potential partners’ status. Specifically, a firm that can access high-quality portfolio technological resources can better realize exchanges with partners’ status. The degree of positive externality depends on the relationships of focal firms with existing partners and their capabilities to utilize external knowledge resources. Data of alliances formed in the computer industry in the USA reveal that a focal firm is more likely to ally with a high-status partner if it can access high-quality portfolio technological resources. Such positive externality of portfolio technological resources is stronger when the focal firm has more repeated ties with its existing partners and when they utilize more external knowledge resources.     

Modes of inbound knowledge flows: are cooperation and outsourcing really complementary?

This study examines the relationship between breadths of two different modes of external knowledge: R&D outsourcing and cooperation. Building upon transaction costs literature and literature on research partner breadth and R&D outsourcing, we hypothesise an U-inverted relationship between outsourcing breadth and innovation performance and a complementary relationship between R&D outsourcing and R&D cooperation. The model is tested on a large sample based on CIS survey for Spain. The empirical analysis confirms the U-inverted relationship between outsourcing breadth and innovation and also reveals an interesting result: the complementary effect of R&D cooperation varies with the level of R&D outsourcing breadth and it is not confirmed for low and medium levels of R&D outsourcing breadth. The results have important implications for theory on the selection of different modes of inbound open innovation and for managers and their cooperation and outsourcing strategies.     

Do R&D Spinoffs have Higher R&D Productivity? Evidence from Taiwanese Electronics Firms

The startup mode of spinoffs founded by R&D employees (R&D spinoffs) within the same industry is widespread in high-tech industries. The founders usually own specific human capital and key technological capability, enabling them to take the operational risk and to appropriate rewards of innovations under the industrial environment of rapid technological change. Whether high-tech R&D spinoffs, compared to their other spinoff counterparts, have better R&D productivity remains less well explored. According to the conceptual discussion of the advantages of intangible innovation assets embodied in company founders, this study argues that the founders' innovation cognition, knowledge externalities, absorptive capability and routine experience can help R&D spinoffs to have higher R&D productivity. We thus propose three hypotheses that are then empirically tested. Based on a sample of Taiwanese electronics firms, the empirical findings show that R&D spinoffs invest with a higher R&D intensity and on average have more patents issued. More importantly, the microeconometric estimates show that the patent and output elasticities of the R&D of R&D spinoffs are significantly higher than those of other firms, indicating that they actually have higher R&D productivity.     

The effects of internal technological diversity and external uncertainty on technological alliance portfolio diversity

This research proposes internal and external determinants that influence the diversity of a firm’s alliance portfolio. Focusing on technological aspects of the firm as well as investigating internal and external factors, we suggest that the internal technological diversity of the focal firm, as well as the technological uncertainty of the industry, affects the technological diversity of the alliance portfolio. The hypotheses are tested on a sample of U.S.-listed semiconductor firms’ global R&D alliances from 1990 to 2010. We find that the internal technological diversity of a firm has a negative influence on its technological alliance portfolio diversity. However, technological alliance portfolio diversity seems unaffected by the uncertainty of the firm’s environment. This study contributes to prior literature which has extensively studied the effects of alliance portfolio diversity on firm performance but has paid little attention to its determinants.     

Optimal diversification for R&;D project portfolios

Diversification of R&D projects not only can reduce overall risk, but also can create value-enhancement effect. A useful guideline for optimal diversification of R&D projects is important to R&D organizations. This paper extends financial portfolio analyses for R&D management particularly incorporating the technology risk. This study uses a survival model to describe the technology risk since termination of an R&D project can be caused by any technology risk factors. A formula of optimal R&D resource allocation that can dynamically achieve the greatest diversification effect is offered. Furthermore we provide an alternative method for estimating correlations between R&D portfolios, which has a critical influence on diversification effect. The method can be useful in risk assessment when measure the exposure of R&D portfolio to particular sources of uncertainty. The evaluation framework for R&D portfolios optimization also can be applied in project-selection decisions.     

Business Group Affiliation and R&D

This paper analyzes whether belonging to a business group enhances firms' propensity for and intensity of R&D based on the greater opportunities to finance and co-ordinate R&D strategies and internalize knowledge spillovers. Compared with the existing literature, this paper has the following novelties: (a) it examines how the organization and diversification of business groups influence the R&D investment of affiliated firms; (b) it analyzes the role of R&D spillovers among affiliated firms; and (c) it distinguishes between propensity for and intensity of R&D. We find that less diversified groups are more likely to centralize R&D, while in more diversified groups firms are more likely to be autonomous. We find that controlled companies are more likely to benefit from knowledge spillovers than firms at the head of the group. Finally, we find that R&D autonomy is significantly associated with both a higher propensity for and intensity of R&D in controlled companies.     

Bidirectional relationship between network position and knowledge creation in Scientometrics

Based on the 3100 papers published in the international journal Scientometrics retrieved from Web of Science database over the period 1996–2015, we utilize three-stage least squares (3SLS) to investigate the bidirectional relationship between authors’ network position and knowledge creation. Furthermore, our research is of great benefit to better understanding of the interplay of knowledge and collaboration networks on knowledge creation. The empirical results confirm that the prolific co-authorship and international co-authorship have positive and significant effects on the knowledge creation. The results from the 3SLS estimation models using the number of publications and citations as dependent variables also show that the structural holes of an author in the collaboration networks and her/his knowledge elements in knowledge networks have positive effects on her/his knowledge creation. These findings suggest that structural capital of an author and his/her knowledge elements are important influence factors of the quantity and quality of research output. The results of the models in this paper suggest that authors with better performance in knowledge creation are more likely to attract collaborators and occupy structural holes. In summary, we fill the research gap in exploring the bidirectional relationship between authors’ network positions (in terms of degree centrality and structural holes) and research output.     

Research on the impact of global innovation network on 3D printing industry performance

In this study, we attempted to fill a gap that literature has yet to investigate: the impact of global innovation network on industry performance. Based on 3D printing patent data, this paper builds a cooperative innovation network of 34 economies for six years. It represents the network characteristics of each economy through 204 network attribute indicators. The panel data model is used to study the relationship between global innovation network characteristics and the R&D efficiency and the income of the main business of the 3D printing industry. The input and output data for the R&D efficiency of the 3D printing industry is derived from the Wohlers Report. R&D efficiency indicator values are measured by the Malmquist Productivity Index model based on DEA. The research results show that the global innovation network centrality indicators, structural hole indicators and clustering coefficient indicators have significant correlation with industrial performance. The research conclusions will provide theoretical support for various economies to formulate global innovation strategies and policies of 3D printing industry.

     

Vaccine R&D in Brazil: The effectiveness of push and pull regulations

Government regulations can guide the technological progress, investment in research and development (R&D), and institutional organization of a specific sector. In this context, using patent data, this study aimed to analyze the effectiveness of three laws that pertain to R&D in Brazilian pharmaceutical market for vaccines. The results reveal an increasing international interest in the Brazilian market since the promulgation of the Industrial Property Law. Despite its limitations, this study reveals significant efforts and promising results in Brazil with respect to ensuring that technological and industrial policies and strategies incorporate innovation in vaccine R&D and change the economy's competitive circumstances.     

Is there a fallacy of composition of external R&D? An empirical assessment of the impact of quasi-internal,external and offshored R&D

Empirical studies at the individual firm level often find a positive impact of external R&D on innovation. However, external R&D sourcing might produce an impoverishment of the local knowledge base and thus damage innovation production at the regional level. To address this possible fallacy of composition, we first review the various forms of ‘external’ R&D. We then use the French R&D survey to assess the impact of four different ways of transacting or collaborating on R&D: onshore affiliate external R&D, offshore affiliate external R&D, onshore non-affiliate and offshore non-affiliate external R&D. We then estimate knowledge production functions on the 94 metropolitan French NUTS3 regions observed between 1997 and 2008, differentiating internal R&D and these categories of external R&D. We obtain that the impact of onshore non-affiliate external R&D is significantly negative. The other external R&D categories are non-significant and we do not detect any complementarity between internal and external R&D.     

Knowledge convergence and organization innovation: the moderating role of relational embeddedness

Knowledge convergence is an important means of innovation. The study aims to explore how knowledge convergence influences innovation performance at an organizational level. Furthermore, we address the moderating role of network relational embeddedness on the innovation deriving from knowledge convergence. Our empirical analyses adopting negative binomial regression models employ patent counts and patent citations from the nanotechnology field. The findings reveal that the scientific intensity in the convergence between scientific knowledge and technological knowledge has an inverted U-shaped influence on innovation performance and that this association is flattened in organizations with high network relational diversity. Also, we find that the technological scope in convergence of technological knowledge self has an inverted U-shaped influence on innovation performance and that this association is steepened in organizations with high network relational strength. Our findings add understandings of knowledge convergence on organization innovation and also have important practical and political implications.