creation adoption and diffusion of innovations by subsidiaries of multinational corporations this paper reports some of the findings of a multi phased and multi method study on the organizational attributes that facilitate creation adoption and diffusion of innovations by subsidiaries of multinational companies comparison of results obtained through case research in nine companies multiple respondent questionnaire surveys in three companies and a single respondent survey in 66 north american and european multinationals reveal unambiguous and positive impacts of normative integration through organizational socialization and dense intra and inter unit communication on an mnc subsidiary s ability to contribute to the different innovation tasks the findings are less consistent with regard to the effects of local resources and autonomy and it appears that the influences of these two attributes are strongly mediated by the levels of normative integration and organizational communication

overcoming the dual liability of foreignness and privateness in international corporate citizenship partnerships responding to increased demands from stakeholder groups many companies have instituted corporate citizenship programs in recent years leveraging their specialized resources to create public goods and services at home and abroad significant suspicion nonetheless remains about the motives and impact of corporations acting in domains traditionally served by government and third sector organizations we argue that such ambivalence undermines the perceived legitimacy of private investments in public goods and that this fundamental liability of privateness lop constitutes a significant obstacle to corporations acting in the public domain through corporate citizenship initiatives for multinational corporations mncs the challenges stemming from the lop are further amplified by the liability of foreignness lof commonly associated with international business operations we discuss the origins of the lop and derive implications of the dual liability of lop and lof for partnering choices in mncs corporate citizenship programs we highlight limitations on the set of credible governance mechanisms available to participants in these partnerships describe a set of alternative governance arrangements that serve to realign incentives among alliance partners and link these to the severity of the lop in a particular setting we illustrate our arguments with a case description of microsoft s partners in learning program

stickiness and the adaptation of organizational practices in cross border knowledge transfers the reuse of organizational practices in multiple locations is a fundamental way in which mncs leverage knowledge to seek competitive advantage scholars approaching the issue of adaptation from both a market and an institutional perspective argue that in order to achieve fit with the local environment some degree of adaptation is advisable and the need for adaptation increases as the institutional distance between source and recipient locations increases however arguments to date have examined the effect of adaptation primarily on a subsidiary s long term performance a necessary precursor is to understand the effect of adaptation on the transfer process itself as transfer difficulty or stickiness may preclude the reuse of an organizational practice in the first place in this paper we explore how the adaptation of organizational practices affects the stickiness of cross border transfers we use structural equation modeling to analyze data from 122 internal transfers of best practice contrary to expectation we find that adaptation significantly increases rather than decreases the stickiness of cross border knowledge transfer

antitrust for high technology industries assessing research joint ventures and mergers the purpose of this paper is to analyze if and how the standard methodology of antitrust analysis should be modified to reflect the importance of r and d and innovation as competitive forces and engines of economic progress focus is on such r and d intensive business combinations as research joint ventures rjvs and horizontal mergers in high technology industries the authors do not propose a complete set of guidelines for the assessment of such combinations they present an economic model of rjvs and high technology mergers that might serve as an analytical underpinning for such guidelines one conclusion of the analysis is that rjvs ought to be accorded special treatment under the antitrust laws this special treatment should entail an explicit recognition that rjvs will be scrutinized under the rule of reason according to guidelines specific to this purpose

agricultural productivity of the spanish regions a non parametric malmquist analysis productivity growth for the agricultural sectors of the 17 spanish regions over the period 1977 88 is studied using non parametric programming techniques productivity changes based on conventional inputs are linked to other economic geographic and institutional issues average technical change in the spanish regions grew at an annual rate of 2 9 but with great regional variation this paper presents a clear characterization of areas with greater technical progress and the regions with technical regress

agriculture s environmental externalities dea evidence for french agriculture the existence of persistent technical inefficiency offers the opportunity for a free lunch not typically implied by the neoclassical theory of the firm when external effects are related to the use of particular inputs reduction of persistent technically inefficient levels of input use represents a means of reducing external impacts an important example is found in agriculture where substantial environmental impacts are generated by particular inputs within this context this paper considers the usefulness of data envelopment analysis dea for estimation of potential input reductions and assessment of potential reductions of environmental impacts of agricultural inputs an application for french cereal production provides estimates that indicate that substantial potential exists for reduction of input use and environmental impacts

subsidiary size and the level of subsidiary autonomy in multinational corporations a quadratic model investigation of australian subsidiaries we investigate the relationship between subsidiary size and subsidiary autonomy in multinational corporations mncs and conclude that a quadratic inverted u shaped model is the best fit to our data founding our arguments in resource dependence theory we propose that while the subsidiary is relatively small increasing subsidiary size will correlate with increasing resources in the subsidiary and a consequent increase in subsidiary autonomy this positive linear relationship persists until an inflection point is reached and subsidiary autonomy begins to decline we argue that this is due to increasing subsidiary size bringing increasing coordination complexity a need for greater inputs of managerial experience and expertise and growing interdependence between the subsidiary and the rest of the corporation employing a sample of 313 australian subsidiaries of mostly us uk european and japanese mncs we use a three step hierarchical regression to investigate controls only linear and quadratic effects of subsidiary size on subsidiary autonomy the quadratic inverted u model supports and extends hedlund s 1981 proposition a post hoc investigation suggested that there might be value in exploring a sinusoidal relationship between size and autonomy

autonomy and procedural justice a framework for evaluating subsidiary strategy using the well supported dimensions of autonomy and procedural justice a four quadrant model of subsidiary strategy is proposed and a four part typology hypothesized partner collaborator militant and vassal subsidiaries a clustering process is used to develop a four group taxonomy that corresponds with the induced model the four groups of subsidiaries are analysed across seven alternative strategic dimensions integration responsiveness coordination configuration market scope product scope and value added scope the external and internal validity of the framework is confirmed and its utility discussed in terms of subsidiary s movement from one strategy state to another

absorptive capacity socially enabling mechanisms and the role of learning from trial and error experiments a tribute to dan levinthal s contribution to international business research the concept of absorptive capacity ac of firms cohen and levinthal 1989 and 1990 is a foundational feature of organizational learning and adaptation that has had enormous influence in international business ib and innovation studies and management research in general in this tribute to dan levinthal we discuss the close connection between ac and learning two areas central to dan levinthal s research in relation to different contexts where ac comes into play in extant ib research we discuss four specific aspects of the nexus of ac and learning in the context of ib 1 bridging between intra and inter firm learning 2 a routine based framing of ac that emphasizes processes and capabilities underlying seeking assimilating and innovation in a global setting 3 the role of socially enabling mechanisms and 4 the logic of learning through trial and error experiments within firms and countries

mnc knowledge transfer subsidiary absorptive capacity and hrm based on a sample of 169 subsidiaries of multinational corporations mncs operating in the usa russia and finland this paper investigates the relationship between mnc subsidiary human resource management hrm practices absorptive capacity and knowledge transfer first we examine the relationship between the application of specific hrm practices and the level of the absorptive capacity second we suggest that absorptive capacity should be conceptualized as being comprised of both employees ability and motivation further results indicate that both ability and motivation absorptive capacity are needed to facilitate the transfer of knowledge from other parts of the mnc

managing the mne subsidiary advancing a multi level and dynamic research agenda abstract multinational enterprise mne subsidiaries abroad are important organizations in their own rights they typically hold some of the mne s most critical resources and operate at the forefront of complex international environments in this review we identify and organize theoretical and empirical research on subsidiary management based on over 600 articles in leading academic journals we develop a conceptual framework that integrates complementary streams of theoretical and empirical research with the subsidiary as its focal unit of analysis in particular we review six lines of research on subsidiary scope practices knowledge management engagement with local market and nonmarket actors performance and individuals within subsidiaries we highlight theoretical perspectives that have contributed to and been advanced by research on mne subsidiaries based on the review we explore future research agendas linking the contemporary research themes with two main thrusts first subsidiary management is a multi level phenomenon that would benefit from more microfoundational research second subsidiary management operates at key interfaces of technology paradigm shifts and of disruptions in the political and institutional environment research into the dynamics of subsidiary management would thus enhance our understanding of international business in a volatile global economy

entry and competitive dynamics in the mobile telecommunications market abstract we propose an extension of the gans stern gans j s stern s 2003 the product market and the market for ideas commercialization strategies for technology entrepreneurs research policy 32 2 333 350 framework that includes entry by existing firms an incumbent firm possessing complementary assets and strong appropriability is in a formidable position teece d j 1986 profiting from technological innovation implications for integration collaboration licensing and public policy research policy 15 6 285 305 however a de alio entrant can leverage complementary assets to enter along a new technological trajectory and then develop appropriability we illustrate how several mobile telecommunications firms ericsson nokia and samsung pursued this strategy to catch up with the market leader motorola we also identify several shortcomings in motorola s approach it was too inward looking in developing technologies but ironically not inward looking enough in exploiting its most valuable patents

subsidiary expansion contraction during times of economic crisis this paper compares two real options within country growth and across country operational flexibility to examine subsidiary expansion contraction during times of economic crisis specifically we examine how the real options orientations of individual subsidiaries interact with the general characteristics of multinational enterprise networks our main findings are that a economic crises can be detrimental for subsidiaries with stronger within country orientations and advantageous for those with stronger across country orientations and b network characteristics are not the sole determinants of subsidiary expansion contraction what really matters is how the real options orientations of individual subsidiaries mesh with the overall characteristics of the network they belong to

configurations of strategy and structure in subsidiaries of multinational corporations a three fold typology of subsidiary roles world mandate specialized contributor local implementer was induced from the literature and its empirical validity was confirmed adopting a configurational approach we then explored the ways in which subsidiary structural context varies across subsidiary role types structural context characteristics were determined through a discussion of the underlying principles of the hierarchy and heterarchy models of multinational organization the key findings were a higher strategic autonomy in world mandates than in local implementers b a more internationally configured value chain in world mandates and specialized contributors than local implementers c lower levels of internal product flows in world mandates than the other two types and d a significantly lower performance in specialized contributors implications for a configurational model of subsidiary management and for heterarchy as a higher level conceptualization are discussed

r d cooperation and failures in innovation projects empirical evidence from french cis data the second french community innovation survey cis indicates that 14 of rd collaborating firms had to abandon or delay their innovation projects due to difficulties in their partnerships an outcome which we term cooperation failures controlling for sample selection on the cooperation decision our estimates show that firms collaborating with competitors and public research organizations pros especially when they are foreign are more likely to delay or stop an innovation project because of difficulties encountered in their rd partnerships more surprisingly firms collaborating with their suppliers also face a higher risk of cooperation failures at least for pros firms can reduce the risk of cooperation failures through previous experiences in partnerships larger firms and group subsidiaries are less likely to face cooperation failures and so do firms in industries with a strong appropriability regime

on the design of stable joint ventures abstract an analytical model is developed to study the problem of designing stable joint ventures aimed at jointly developing and supplying a new technology the analysis focuses on the extent to which traditional motives for joint ventures like cost sharing synergy effects or technological spillovers may shape the incentives for firms to cheat on the arrangement and hence despite larger cooperative benefits endanger the formation of a stable agreement the cheating firm although supplying the contractually specified inputs to the venture manages to keep its knowhow proprietary while benefiting from the loyal partner s know how through spillovers from the venture only if know how can be kept sufficiently proprietary within the venture will synergy effects stimulate the formation of a stable joint venture increasing the profitability of cooperation while at the same time stifling the incentives to cheat but if know how becomes difficult to appropriate synergy effects may increase the incentives to cheat resulting in no agreement at least when both parties have perfect foresight

malmquist productivity index decompositions a unifying framework in two widely cited but unpublished working papers simar and wilson 1998 and zofio and lovell 1998 proposed an alternative decomposition of the malmquist productivity index which retained what seemed to be the strongholds of previous proposals with regard to the contribution of technological and efficiency change to productivity change namely a technical change term with regard to the best practice variable returns to scale vrs technology which is to be found in ray and desli 1997 and a scale efficiency change term that illustrates a firm s situation with regard to optimal scale benchmark technology fare et al 1994 attaining this objective required the introduction of an additional term in the malmquist productivity index decomposition which would reflect the scale bias of technical change it is our objective to provide economic rationale for this term within a theory of production context the existing decompositions and recent articles that further elaborate on this issue the ide

when do stronger patents increase continual innovation under continual innovation greater patent strength expands innovating firms profit against imitation but also shifts profit from current to past innovators we show how the impact of patents on innovation as determined by these two opposing effects varies with industry characteristics when the discount factor is sufficiently high the negative profit division effect is negligible and innovation monotonically increases in patent strength otherwise innovation has an inverted u relationship with patent strength and stronger patents are more likely to increase innovation when the discount factor or the fixed innovation cost is higher we also show how the impact of patents on innovation may change with firms innovation capability and with the intensity of competition from imitators

the intercountry agricultural production function another view factor productivity in agriculture is estimated from repeated observations on a sample of fifty eight countries under the assumption that all countries have access to the same technology technology is viewed as a collection of techniques each technique is represented by a production function the choice of the implemented techniques is determined by the state variables which represent the physical and economic environment within which the firms operate the statistical model is that of varying coefficients and it is estimated by a method which utilizes principal components and multiple comparisons

cooperation between rivals informal know how trading it has long been recognized that it is difficult for an innovating firm to fully appropriate the benefits arising from its innovations and that desired research might therefore not be performed nelson 1959 pp 297 306 one sometimes possible solution to this dilemma is cooperative r d conducted by firms who share the costs and benefits of particular r d projects johnson 1973

from the editors common method variance in international business research jibs receives many manuscripts that report findings from analyzing survey data based on same respondent replies this can be problematic since same respondent studies can suffer from common method variance cmv currently authors who submit manuscripts to jibs that appear to suffer from cmv are asked to perform validity checks and resubmit their manuscripts this letter from the editors is designed to outline the current state of best practice for handling cmv in international business research

innovation in multinational subsidiaries the role of knowledge assimilation and subsidiary capabilities subsidiaries of multinational firms play an important role in the globalization of innovation yet we have an incomplete idea of the influences on their innovative activity drawing on prior research in international business and strategy we identify two sets of factors that influence the absorption and utilization of knowledge in multinational corporation subsidiaries a the range of external and internal knowledge sources available and b the subsidiary capabilities associated with knowledge absorption and utilization we find that knowledge absorbed from the host country is useful to subsidiary innovation we also find support for the role of subsidiary capabilities both sourcing capability and combinative capability have a significant influence on the scale and quality of innovation

an evolutionary approach to understanding international business activity the co evolution of mnes and the institutional environment this paper examines the co evolution of mne activities and institutions external and internal to the firm we develop a theoretical framework for this analysis that draws on the more recent writings of douglass north on institutions as a response to complex forms of uncertainty associated with the rise in global economic interconnectedness and of richard nelson on the co evolution of technology and institutions we link historical changes in the character of mne activities to changes in the institutional environment and highlight the scope for firm level creativity and institutional entrepreneurship that may lead to co evolution with the environment we argue that the main drivers for institutional entrepreneurship are now found in the increasing autonomy of mne subsidiaries thus mne agency derives from more decentralized forms of experimentation in international corporate networks which competence creating nodes of new initiatives can co evolve with local institutions unlike most other streams of related literature our approach connects patterns of institutional change in wider business systems with more micro processes of variety generation and experimentation within and across individual firms this form of co evolutionary analysis is increasingly important to understanding the interrelationships between mne activities and public policy

technology development mode a transaction cost conceptualization technology alliances have emerged in the past decade as a significant mode for the development of innovation the present research assesses the factors explaining whether firms will engage in such technology alliances or utilize the more traditional mode of internal r d the hypotheses stem from a transaction cost conceptualization results suggest that firms which pursue technology alliances are likely to have less commitment to product category specific assets to face higher technological uncertainty to be more capable at measuring innovation performance to have more successful technology alliance experiences and to compete in lower growth product categories 1998 john wiley sons ltd

persistence of innovation in dutch manufacturing is it spurious this paper studies the persistence of innovation and the dynamics of innovation output in dutch manufacturing using firm data from three waves of the community innovation surveys cis pertaining to the periods 1994 1996 1996 1998 and 1998 2000 we estimate by maximum likelihood a dynamic panel data type 2 tobit model accounting for individual effects and handling the initial conditions problem we find that there is no evidence of true persistence in achieving technological product or process innovations while past shares of innovative sales condition albeit to a small extent current shares of innovative sales

knowledge transfer capacity and its implications for the theory of the multinational corporation this study updates and extends research on foreign entry modes by examining the impacts of knowledge transfer capacity and knowledge tacitness research on international corporate expansion has long emphasized that deploying intangible knowledge based assets is required for successful international expansion more recently research from a knowledge based perspective has addressed the role of tacitness in constraining a firm s ability to transfer knowledge internationally we combine these perspectives to describe how knowledge tacitness affects the relative suitability of four archetypal entry modes exporting licensing establishing an alliance and wholly owned entry we then examine and develop conceptually a seldom studied firm characteristic knowledge transfer capacity we offer predictions that describe the combined effects of knowledge tacitness and transfer capacity on entry mode choice we distinguish between the transfer capacity of the organization that develops knowledge source transfer capacity and that of the organization that seeks to access that knowledge recipient transfer capacity the discussion addresses how our model generalizes to knowledge seeking strategies and to the study of ongoing multinational networks the study enriches and reconciles multiple theoretical perspectives on entry strategy it brings together the study of knowledge characteristics and firm heterogeneity in the theory of the multinational corporation and in international and strategic management more generally journal of international business studies 2003 34 356 373 doi 10 1057 palgrave jibs 8400037

managing knowledge transfer in mncs the impact of headquarters control mechanisms in this paper we explore the impact of organisational mechanisms on inter unit knowledge flows in multinational corporations mncs a comprehensive model based on agency theory and socialisation theory is tested on a sample of 134 finnish and chinese mnc subsidiaries our findings indicate that mncs can influence inter unit knowledge transfer by specifying the objectives of the subsidiary and by utilising corporate socialisation mechanisms however we found no support for the hypothesised impact of management compensation systems and the use of expatriate managers on the extent of knowledge transfers from foreign subsidiaries to other parts of the mnc

centralization vs decentralization in a multi unit organization a computational model of a retail chain as a multi agent adaptive system a computational model of a retail chain is developed in which store managers continually search for better practices search takes place over a rugged landscape defined over the space of store practices the main objective of this research is to determine how the amount of discretion given to store managers as to how they run their stores influences the rate of innovation at the store level we find that greater decentralization enhances firm performance when stores markets are sufficiently different the horizon is sufficiently long and markets are sufficiently stable

implementing global strategy characteristics of global subsidiary mandates implementing a global strategy requires coordinating subsidiary activities across country locations the assumption often made is that such coordination must be managed at headquarters however an alternate approach is decentralized centralized responsibilities in which different subsidiaries within the multinational are given worldwide mandates to manage specific products or products lines this study identifies subsidiary characteristics that are associated with receiving a global mandate by examining foreign subsidiaries located in france germany japan u k u s and canada

building a process model of local adaptation of practices a study of six sigma implementation in korean and us firms the strategic transformation of asian firms into global players has involved the adoption and adaptation of many organizational practices developed in the west we build a process model of adaptation by observing how an organizational practice is adapted to a local setting different from its locus of origin through inductive methods and case studies of six sigma implementation in korean and us firms based on these cases we propose a cascading sequential pattern to the local adaptation of the conceptual social and technical dimensions of organizational practices reconciling conflicting views in the literature on whether or not to adapt our theoretical model highlights the importance of considering the different degrees of contextual influence on different underlying dimensions of a practice and of configuring each dimension accordingly further we suggest that the sequence and configuration of adaptation across different practice dimensions matter to the successful implementation of a practice across borders

invention and innovation under alternative market structures the case of natural resources this paper examines the interactions between market structure and resource allocation over time when there is endogenous technical progress the structures considered are a planned economy pure monopoly and competition with patent rights in an efficient allocation the date of invention coincides with the date of innovation the date at which technology is used this is also true with a pure monopoly but monopoly retards technical progress relative to the efficient level competition for patents rights to a new technology results in excessively rapid technical progress if the resource endowment of the economy is sufficiently large also competition may lead to sleeping patents where invention strictly precedes the date of innovation

perspective absorbing the concept of absorptive capacity how to realize its potential in the organization field the purpose of this perspective paper is to advance understanding of absorptive capacity its underlying dimensions its multilevel antecedents its impact on firm performance and the contextual factors that affect absorptive capacity twenty years after the cohen and levinthal 1990 paper the field is characterized by a wide array of theoretical perspectives and a wealth of empirical evidence in this paper we first review these underlying theories and empirical studies of absorptive capacity given the size and diversity of the absorptive capacity literature we subsequently map the existing terrain of research through a bibliometric analysis the resulting bibliometric cartography shows the major discrepancies in the organization field namely that 1 most attention so far has been focused on the tangible outcomes of absorptive capacity 2 organizational design and individual level antecedents have been relatively neglected in the absorptive capacity literature and 3 the emergence of absorptive capacity from the actions and interactions of individual organizational and interorganizational antecedents remains unclear building on the bibliometric analysis we develop an integrative model that identifies the multilevel antecedents process dimensions and outcomes of absorptive capacity as well as the contextual factors that affect absorptive capacity we argue that realizing the potential of the absorptive capacity concept requires more research that shows how micro antecedents and macro antecedents influence future outcomes such as competitive advantage innovation and firm performance in particular we identify conceptual gaps that may guide future research to fully exploit the absorptive capacity concept in the organization field and to explore future fruitful extensions of the concept

strategic behaviour of incumbent firms in the uk abstract the main purpose of this paper is to examine the incidence of strategic behaviour in the uk by means of a questionnaire study performed across three broad manufacturing industries food electrical engineering and chemicals of the strategies which have received substantial theoretical attention r d and advertising appear widely used patenting pricing and excess capacity much less so vertical instruments such as purchasing policy also stand out as important but possibly only a minority of firms in our sample actively pursue strategic instruments

multiple input multiple output production choices and technology in the u s wheat region duality theory motivates a translog expected profit function consistent with multiple products price uncertainty preseason climate constraints acreage control policies and possibly nonhomothetic technology although multiple outputs are allowed enterprise specific data is not necessary instead time series measures of output revenues and expected prices input expenses and prices and fixed input flows are employed appropriate measures of elasticities of choice returns to size and biases in technological change are derived results indicated decreasing returns to size rather limited though complementary responsiveness of choices to price changes and the nature of biases in technological changes

dynamic capabilities what are they this paper focuses on dynamic capabilities and more generally the resource based view of the firm we argue that dynamic capabilities are a set of specific and identifiable processes such as product development strategic decision making and alliancing they are neither vague nor tautological although dynamic capabilities are idiosyncratic in their details and path dependent in their emergence they have significant commonalities across firms popularly termed best practice this suggests that they are more homogeneous fungible equifinal and substitutable than is usually assumed in moderately dynamic markets dynamic capabilities resemble the traditional conception of routines they are detailed analytic stable processes with predictable outcomes in contrast in high velocity markets they are simple highly experiential and fragile processes with unpredictable outcomes finally well known learning mechanisms guide the evolution of dynamic capabilities in moderately dynamic markets the evolutionary emphasis is on variation in high velocity markets it is on selection at the level of rbv we conclude that traditional rbv misidentifies the locus of long term competitive advantage in dynamic markets overemphasizes the strategic logic of leverage and reaches a boundary condition in high velocity markets copyright 2000 john wiley sons ltd

preemptive patenting and the persistence of monopoly this article takes a different tack and inquires whether institutions such as the patent system create opportunities for firms with monopoly power to maintain their monopoly power the results apply to other situations such as brand identification spatial location and capacity expansion which share the characteristic that early or preemptive actions may lower the returns to potential competitors

the effects of mnc parent effort and social structure on subsidiary absorptive capacity although the literature provides ample evidence that the global transfer and local implementation of knowledge represents a key advantage for multinational corporations mncs we lack comparable understanding as to whether knowledge creating mnc parents can actively expand the absorptive capacity of their subsidiaries using a teacher student lens this study examines the combined impact of specific structural mechanisms and motivational processes by mnc parents on the ability of 216 subsidiaries to absorb parent initiated marketing strategies the findings reveal that mnc parents can indeed cultivate subsidiaries ability to appropriate marketing knowledge through a combination of adopting specific social structures and investing in particular efforts however the effect of social structure on subsidiary absorptive capacity is indirect and accounted for by the parents intensity of effort a number of theoretical implications emerge from the findings for research on absorptive capacity in relation to the role of the knowledge source the need to examine organizational influences in relation to one another and validating the original absorptive capacity dimensions for managers in the global marketplace the findings lead to the suggestion that mncs devote attention to nurturing the absorptive capacities at different organizational levels in order to optimize the global transfer of knowledge

complementary resources and cooperative research a model of research joint ventures among competitors we present a model of research joint ventures in which if firms have highly complementary skills and resources then they prefer to cooperate in areas where the technology is highly appropriable as in applied research the model also indicates that large firms have a greater incentive to cooperate because they are better positioned to capture the benefits of a research venture these findings seem to explain why cooperative research among rival firms in japan has been applied rather than basic and conducted frequently among large companies but firms prefer as small a partner as possible to limit the sharing of research results creating a tension that may make cooperative efforts among rivals difficult to manage for this reason cooperation with organizations such as universities or nonprofit institutions may be a viable alternative for firms looking for complementary skills and resources

inter firm complementarities in r d a re examination of the relative performance of joint ventures we compare duopoly outcomes between two alternative modes of research and development rd the reverse holds for high spillovers when rjvs yield higher technological improvement they also yield higher industry profit and social welfare

firms motivations for cooperative r d an empirical analysis of spanish firms abstract the aim of this paper is to analyze the motives that have caused industrial firms to cooperate in r d there are many theoretical works devoted to the theme but few empirical studies have been carried out with large samples to analyze the factors which determine why firms cooperate in r d we first review the reasons offered by the literature to explain technological cooperation with this allowing us to determine the conceptual framework and to propose some hypotheses we test these hypotheses with a sample of 1652 spanish firms that have carried out r d activities the results obtained suggest that firms motivations for cooperative r d are the complexity of technology and the fact that innovation is costly and uncertain we find that in order to undertake cooperative r d it is necessary to have certain internal capacities in this area with our results being supported by the theory of absorptive capacity however and by contrast with the results presented in other works questions related to market access and search for opportunities do not appear to exert an influence over cooperative r d besides the large sized firms resort more to cooperation and the reasons for cooperative r d differ as between large and small sized firms

a general index of technical change this paper outlines a procedure for estimating a general index of technical change within the context of a quite general production technology specifically when panel data are available for firms in an industry time specific dummies can be combined in a nonlinear estimation procedure to yield a general index of technical change that may be both nonneutral and scale augmenting this approach offers numerous advantages over the traditional time trend representation of technical change for example the general index can serve as the basis for analysis of the determinants of technical change results for a sample of 30 electric utilities over the period 1951 78 show that the productivity decline of the 1970s can be attributed primarily to sulphur oxide restrictions and secularly declining capacity utilization due to rapidly increasing peak load demands

learning dynamics in research alliances a panel data analysis the aim of this paper is to empirically test the determinants of research joint ventures rjvs group dynamics we develop a model based on learning and transaction cost theories which represent the benefits and costs of rjv participation respectively according to our framework firms at each period in time weigh the benefits against the costs of being an rjv member rjv dynamics can then be interpreted as a consequence of this evolving trade off over time we look at entry turbulence and exit in rjvs that have been set up under the us national cooperative research act which allows for certain antitrust exemptions in order to stimulate firms to co operate in r d accounting for unobserved project characteristics and controlling for inter rjv interactions and industry effects the tobit panel regressions show the importance of group and time features for an rjvs evolution we further identify an average rjvs long term equilibrium size and assess its determining factors ours is a first attempt to produce robust stylized facts about co operational short and long term dynamics a neglected dimension in research co operations but an important element in understanding how collaborative learning works

practical implications of game theoretic models of r and d the purpose of this paper is to survey recent game theoretic models of research and development and to ask whether they yield practical implications or testable hypotheses the papers i will be discussing have been written or published within the past five years they have a good deal in common relying upon similar assumptions and building upon each other because of this the literature surveyed here may seem narrow and some relevant work has probably been inadvertently omitted i apologize for these omissions for want of space i will not discuss the normative conclusions of this literature

adaptive learning in international business building on daniel levinthal s seminal theories on learning adaptation and innovation this article elucidates an adaptive view of organizational learning undertaken by multinational enterprises mnes levinthal s perspectives have tremendous implications for theorizing and examining processes pathways and mechanisms of dynamic learning for mnes competing in a complex environment this article extends these perspectives considering unique organizational traits and environmental characteristics facing mnes for a more nuanced understanding of contexts in which adaptive learning creates global competitive advantage discussion also includes levinthal s perspectives that are not yet adequately extended to but valuable for ib research such as learning mindfulness cognitive search organizational architecture for adaptation and co evolution with technological change we offer additional research questions as well as possible solutions to adaptive learning for international business

human capital in multinational enterprises does strategic alignment matter this research proposes a strategic human capital alignment framework to examine whether the alignment between subsidiary strategy i e export oriented vs local market oriented strategy and human capital i e parent firm vs local specific human capital is positively related to subsidiary performance in multinational enterprises mnes we further explore two important exogenous i e foreign exchange rate change and endogenous i e mne international experience boundary conditions since they may adjust the positive effect of strategic human capital alignment on performance the analysis based on 5604 subsidiary observations of 423 mnes from 1990 to 2012 confirms the positive synergic effect of aligning subsidiary strategy and human capital and shows the moderating effects of foreign exchange rate change and mne international experience by presenting the importance of subsidiary strategy global staffing alignment and the roles of external economic environments and internal organizational capabilities as boundary conditions the strategic human capital alignment framework suggests that what makes human capital valuable for the firm is its alignment with strategic orientation thus managers should carefully deploy the appropriate type of human capital to fulfill the requisite organizational strategy and take into account changing external and internal contextual conditions in applying the framework

searching locally and globally applying daniel levinthal s scholarship to international business daniel a levinthal has made several important contributions to the fields of strategy and management his research has been pivotal in enhancing our understanding of interactions between the internal and external contexts that organizations face as well as the roles of experience search and learning processes despite substantial overlap between the core issues in international business ib and levinthal s work the ib field has yet to fully embrace key tenets of his research we aim to bridge this gap by providing a number of concrete suggestions for areas in which ib research may benefit from levinthal s work and vice versa

analyzing literature based innovation output indicators the italian experience abstract this paper presents the results of a study on the product innovations introduced in the italian market in 1989 and reported in a selected number of trade journals the analysis of data collected by means of this literature based counting procedure confirms that r d oriented industries and large firms do not in italy have a marked competitive advantage in innovation the country appears to be instead characterized by a significant presence of consumer goods industries and small firms in innovation our data indicate a statistically significant association between trade competitiveness and strength in product innovation and show the comparatively higher capacity for product innovation of some of the industries in which italy achieves a positive performance in international trade moreover the presence of spillovers at the regional level from both private and public r d expenditures proves to be positively correlated with the development of product innovations finally small firms with fewer than 50 employees appear to be more innovative than is usually believed to be the case