trade and protection in vertically related markets abstract we consider home country tariff and subsidy policies in a setting where a home firm is partially dependent on a foreign vertically integrated firm for supplies of a key input the firms are cournot competitors in the home market for the final product we show that a tariff on final product imports may cause the foreign vertically integrated firm to reduce the price charged for the input under circumstances where a simple monopoly supplier of the input would increase its price supply conditions for the input significantly affect whether imports of the input should be taxed or subsidized

nonmonetary effects of the financial crisis in propagation of the great depression this paper examines the effects of the financial crisis of the 1930s onthe path of aggregate output during that period our approach is complementary to that of friedman and schwartz who emphasized the monetary impact of the bank failures we focus on non monetary primarily credit related aspects of the financial sector output link and consider the problems of debtors as well as those of the banking system we argue that the financial disruptions of 1930 33 reduced the efficiency of the credit allocation process and that the resulting higher cost and reduced availability of credit acted to depress aggregate demand evidence suggests that effects of this type can help explain the unusual length and depth of the great depression this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

competition cooperation and innovation organizational arrangements for regimes of rapid technological progress abstract discussions of the link between firm size and innovation are outmoded because the boundaries of the firm have become fuzzy in recent decades strategic alliances constellations of bilateral agreements among firms are increasingly necessary to support innovative activities such alliances can facilitate complex coordination beyond what the price system can accomplish while avoiding the dysfunctional properties sometimes associated with hierarchy antitrust law and competition policy need to recognize that these new organizational forms are often the functional antithesis of cartels though they may have certain structural similarities a more complete understanding of bilateral contracts and agreements ought to reveal when and how cooperation can support rather than impede innovation and competition

r d and technology policy in nics as learning processes abstract this paper presents a dynamic learning perspective to research and development activity and to policies promoting these activities and technological development more generally the basic idea is that successful penetration of research and development rd multidisciplinary learning both technoeconomic and managerial organizational and learning which is cumulative through time this is especially so at an early infant phase of diffusion of this process through the economy a dynamic view of externalities and market failures is presented one that provides the basis for a catalytic perspective of technological policy this perspective is based on the distinction between an infant and a mature phase of policy where massive flexible search oriented support in the early phase sets the base for endogenization routinization of r d in the economy and for the possibility of drastic reductions in government support for traditional forms of r d in the later phase

backfiring tariffs in vertically related markets abstract this paper examines the effects on the domestic economy of domestic tariffs imposed on an intermediate good or a final good in vertically related markets which are characterized by cournot oligopolies tariffs could lead a foreign firm to enter or exit from the domestic final good market some of our results are counter intuitive it is particularly shown that tariffs on the intermediate good which induce the entry could harm domestic intermediate good producers and or benefit domestic final good producers and that tariffs on the final good which induce the exit could harm both domestic intermediate good and final good producers

financial factors and investment in belgium france germany and the united kingdom a comparison using company panel data we construct company panel data sets for manufacturing firms in belgium france germany and the united kingdom covering the period 1978 1989 these data sets are used to estimate empirical investment equations and to investigate the role played by financial factors in each country a robust finding is that cash flow and profits terms appear to be both statistically and quantitatively more significant in the united kingdom than in the three continental european countries this is consistent with the suggestion that financial constraints on investment may be relatively severe in the more market oriented u k financial system

the limits of capital transcending the public financer private producer split in industrial r d abstract a near consensus has emerged supporting the public funding of industrial r d as a solution to a host of market failures however the common policy prescription urges government to go no further than minimal market enhancing intervention largely keeping the state to the role of financer of privately conducted r d by focusing on three general issues in the context of industrial r d trust coordination and motivation this article develops an argument for a more expansive government role two models of state intervention are at the center of the analysis public production of r d and state sponsorship of inter firm and inter organizational networks it is argued that both these models have distinct advantages as well as weaknesses in addressing common challenges to industrial r d production informed by the positive experiences of different states that have moved in recent years from high technology industries periphery to the center this article explains how the two models of state intervention address the various problems associated with pure private production it is concluded that while even advanced countries with well developed markets might find it advantageous to actively intervene in industrial r d the two models should especially be considered in cases of economies that suffer from weak market signals low retention of value added functions limited professional capacities and limited institutional thickness and networks

a structuralist perspective on the role of technology in economic growth and development abstract this paper presents an integrated view of what is termed a structuralist perspective to economic growth and development that stands in contrast to the mainstream orthodox or neoclassical view in the structuralist view structural changes are causes of growth rather than outcomes of a process of capital accumulation and of rising per capita incomes moreover the growth process may be punctuated by periods of discrete shifts in resource allocation creative destruction and growth acceleration rather than being smooth throughout structural changes need not be automatic they require a skill specific infrastructure of new capabilities which when established generate new comparative advantages market failures may be pervasive due to problems of human capital accumulation critical mass and discrete choice among alternative growth paths thus in addition to creating a favorable environment for business and assuring through macroeconomic policy adequate investment successful growth may require an adequate industrial and technological policy particularly at nodes of structural change the paper surveys the structuralist insights appearing in the literature starting with the early postwar economic development literature and including recently developed formal models it also proposes a kinked or scalloped aggregate production function as a simple tool for structuralist analysis

assets and actions firm specific factors in the internationalization of u s internet firms by providing a nearly instant connection among parties at opposite corners of the world and enabling a variety of commercial exchanges the internet emerged as the technology expected to create a truly global market space internet firms faced the challenge of capitalizing on this development in this paper we examine what firm specific factors are associated with the propensity of pure u s based internet firms to enhance their international presence on the internet by developing country specific websites despite the assertion that all internet firms are born global our findings show that the pursuit of internationalization by internet firms is related to the levels of their intangible assets and strategic activity two types of intangible assets reputation and website traffic are positively related to the degree of internationalization so are the levels of competitive and cooperative activity and the interaction effects between reputation and competitive and cooperative activity these findings suggest that ideas from both resource based theory and research on competitive dynamics can contribute to understanding the internationalization of internet firms

strategizing by firms in the presence of markets for resources strategizing by firms from the resource based view is concerned with the process through which firms acquire a distinctive bundle of resources that is costly and time consuming for competitors to duplicate or imitate a central question facing any firm therefore is its strategy for accumulating the resources that underpin its production activities in this article the process of resource accumulation is discussed as one involving potentially both internal resource development and external resource acquisition from the perspective of the strategic issues involved in making a choice between these options emerging markets for technologies and know how through licensing and other forms of resource exchange have opened up new avenues through which firms may jostle for advantage the article is concerned with three major aspects of this process illustrating the discussion with cases from biotechnology and pharmaceuticals first the strategizing by firms around the internal development vs external sourcing issue is discussed as informed by the practices of leading firms and how these lend greater variety of strategic options for firms second the potential competitive advantages as well as disadvantages to be secured by firms through the process of external sourcing as compared with the well known potential advantages accruing to incumbents through internal development such as time compression diseconomies and causal ambiguity and third the criteria to be used by firms to strategically evaluate resources individually as contrasted with the strategic evaluation of the resource bundle or totality these criteria it is argued turn on the issues of marginal value contribution resource complementarities and synergies resource variety and transferability involving intellectual property issues successful firms it is argued expand their options through blending internal resource accumulation with external resource leverage thereby deepening their distinctive dynamic capabilities this approach extends the framework of the rbv enabling it to encompass resource driven schumpeterian competition and such aspects of industrial dynamics as specialization modularization and imitative challenge copyright 2003 oxford university press

resources transactions and rents managing value through interfirm collaborative relationships this paper offers a theoretical explanation for why interfirm collaborations form yet fail and further suggests how firms might manage them for a more positive outcome based on a perspective of value we explain how a more inclusive and integrative perspective one which combines elements from transaction costs and resource based theory provides more robust insight into collaboration formation management and instability in doing so we differentiate rent yielding firm specific assets at the core of the resource based view from the transaction specific assets at the core of transaction cost theory the paper makes a crucial distinction between the potential value attainable through collaborations and its actual realization the crux of our argument is that firms enter into collaborative relationships because these are expected to yield superior value relative to alternate organizational forms in certain situations offering potentially synergistic combinations of complementary resources and capabilities yet such relationships are frequently prone to failure because the partner firms tend not to recognize ex ante the nature and extent of transaction specific investment that is required in the collaborative relationship to attain these synergies in our argument critically the relationship between organizations is seen not simply as a governance structure of a hybrid nature but more importantly as a productive resource for value creation and realization in this light transaction specific investment in what we term relational specificity becomes imperative in the search for value we explain why the transaction costs incurred in the exchange of resources are not independent of the nature of resources to be transacted and similarly why the returns realized from these resources are not independent of the relationship and transaction specific expenditures incurred in effectively combining them and maintaining the combination the interdependence between the two mediated by the quality of the relationship has direct implications for the earning of rents through collaborations these relationship specific expenditures can be of an internally generated nature endogenous to the alliance form itself and need not exceed alternative forms while the associated benefits have the capacity to potentially exceed the alternatives this translates into potentially superior value the paper contributes in three key related ways a the explicit recognition of the relationship as a value bearing asset embedded in a larger and endogenous institutional context namely a system of resource relationships both intraorganizational and inter organizational among partner firms and the collaboration b the recognition of the evolving relationship between production and exchange which at the level of the collaboration is directly dependent on the nature evolution and dynamics of the relationship among the parties to the transaction and c the provision of a nontrust explanation for why firms might knowingly forego opportunities to take advantage of their partners drawing from this the paper occasions a a shift in focus from the form to the process of governance which has direct implications for value creation and realization and b a shift in the primary identity of transaction specific and relationship specific expenditures from cost to investment in future value

distribution sensitive innovation policies conceptualization and empirical examples abstract innovation is essential to economic growth however it appears that the ways in which we pursue innovation policies generate economic inequities in this paper we explore policies that could be devised and employed with the aim of increasing growth while taking into account economic distribution we call these policies distribution sensitive innovation policies dsip following an exploratory theoretical approach the paper focuses on a specific set of dsip which are focused on particular groups of disadvantaged producers and consumers we first categorize such programs into four types and then employ a comparative approach to analyze existing programs in terms of these types first in our primary case study israel and then using the united states germany and sweden as limited shadow cases to elaborate on the finding from our primary case we conclude by arguing that although these programs are currently driven primarily by a concern for economic efficiency and not distribution they show that our approach utilizing innovation policy to reach dual economic and social policy goals has potential for success

enterprise restructuring and embeddedness a policy and systems perspective this paper presents a dynamic analysis of technological and industrial policies directed to business sector restructuring in increasingly knowledge based economies it simultaneously considers policies which are aimed at promoting restructuring directly and policies aimed at influencing the facilitating structure of largely non business institutions and organizations this paper also offers an explicit analysis of the changing portfolio of policies recognizing the complementarity of both incentives and institutional development and the likelihood of having to adopt under a broad set of circumstances a changing portfolio of horizontal and target incentives policies programs copyright 2000 by oxford university press

costly external finance corporate investment and the subprime mortgage credit crisis abstract we study the effect of the recent financial crisis on corporate investment the crisis represents an unexplored negative shock to the supply of external finance for non financial firms corporate investment declines significantly following the onset of the crisis controlling for firm fixed effects and time varying measures of investment opportunities consistent with a causal effect of a supply shock the decline is greatest for firms that have low cash reserves or high net short term debt are financially constrained or operate in industries dependent on external finance to address endogeneity concerns we measure firms financial positions as much as four years prior to the crisis and confirm that similar results do not follow placebo crises in the summers of 2003 2006 nor do similar results follow the negative demand shock caused by september 11 2001 the effects weaken considerably beginning in the third quarter of 2008 when the demand side effects of the crisis became apparent additional analysis suggests an important precautionary savings motive for seemingly excess cash that is generally overlooked in the literature

friends acquaintances or strangers partner selection in r d alliances like governance structure and alliance scope partner selection may serve to safeguard firms intellectual assets in r d alliances we categorize potential alliance partners into friends acquainta

determinants of governance structure in alliances the role of strategic task and partner uncertainties research in transaction cost economics and structural sociology has emphasized the role of opportunism and trust in the choice between equity and non equity governance forms in alliances this paper suggests that the uncertainty surrounding partner cooperation is not straightforwardly predictive of governance structure in alliances instead task uncertainty and strategic uncertainty associated with the activities performed within alliances induce coordination and adaptation requirements that are important determinants of alliance governance independently of partner uncertainty support for this view is provided based on a 12 year panel of alliances formed in the us telecommunications entertainment and computer industries

clusters entrepreneurial ecosystem co creation and appropriability a conceptual framework extant literature on clusters underplays the role of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial management in creating and co creating organizations markets and supporting ecosystems we employ transaction costs resource knowledge capabilities and power control based theories to provide a comparative static governance based perspective on clusters we embed this into a more general co evolutionary entrepreneurial theory of the emergence evolution and co evolution of markets ecosystems and clusters we suggest that clusters can involve advantages that help engender superior appropriation of co created value as compared to alternatives entrepreneurial managers faced with a degree of choice will help co create clusters and be part of them for as long as they can appropriate more value in this way than through alternatives

organizational debut on the public stage marketing myopia and initial public offerings successful initial public offerings ipos provide firms with access to valuable resources but also put pressure on firms to impress potential investors with evidence of their current well being and prospects for future growth to impress investors ipo firms might curtail their marketing budgets which appears to inflate current earnings and provide evidence of current well being however curtailing marketing budgets unexpectedly during an ipo may be a myopic practice in that the immediate benefits of these budget cuts are offset by their longer term adverse consequences on financial well being the extent of these adverse consequences in turn may be moderated by external firm factors including strategic alliances and key customer relationships and internal firm factors such as the strategic emphasis on value creation versus value appropriation a sample of 1 095 ipos during 2000 2011 reveals evidence of myopic marketing practices in more than 37 of the sample investors seem misled during ipos bu

the revealed preferences of high technology acquirers an analysis of the innovation characteristics of their targets this paper investigates whether acquisitions involving public high technology firms are best understood in terms of acquirers taking over firms with superior innovation performance to access their assets or acquiring firms with inferior innovation performance to turn them around innovation performance is proxied by r d intensity r d expenditure over assets patent intensity patents per us million of assets i e the r d productivity of a firm s assets and the patent stock i e the accumulated r d output we find substantial overlaps between target and non acquired firm characteristics nevertheless targets have a relatively high r d intensity and a large patent stock which is consistent with acquirers targeting firms with a superior innovation performance however these targets have significantly lower pre acquisition patent intensity and hence a lower r d productivity the targets are also experiencing weak financial performance our results are consistent with a selection process in which acquirers seek out firms that have a superior past innovation performance but that are failing in terms of recent r d productivity and financial performance a comparison of the performance of the targets with their acquirers reinforces this conclusion

market stimulating technology policies in developing countries a framework with examples from east asia abstract this paper proposes an analytical framework for technology development based upon evolutionary approaches and drawing upon asian development strategies the analysis rests on the concept of market stimulating technology policies comprising a broad array of policies to promote industrial and technological development some market and others government determined these policies may be functional horizontal or vertical and can be analyzed at three levels national strategic and specific the paper suggests that strategic choices are involved at all stages that cannot be resolved entirely by recourse to free markets

the effects of corporate environmental disclosure on environmental innovation from stakeholder perspectives abstractbased on legitimacy theory and resource dependence theory using 111 listed companies among china s typically high pollution emitting listed corporations research into the effects of environmental disclosure on environmental innovation is undertaken from the perspective of stakeholders we analyse the moderating effects of different proportions of institutional investor holdings and types of enterprises on the relationship between environmental disclosure and environmental innovation the results indicate that corporate environmental disclosure has a positive role in promoting environmental innovation the proportion of institutional investor holdings has a positive moderating effect between environmental disclosure and environmental innovation however there is no significant difference between state owned enterprises and private enterprises in terms of the effect of the environmental disclosure on environmental innovation which possibly arises because both types of enterprises make full use

client profitability of diffusion segments across countries for multi generational innovations the influence of firm market and cross national differences there is scant research on the important managerial question of how to maximize returns on investments in either international business or international marketing literature we propose and test a conceptual framework using data from a large technology manufacturer service provider despite early adoption by innovators and early adopters the early majority segment is most profitable however the late majority segment and the early adopters segment are the next most profitable in the developed and emerging countries respectively we propose a decision support framework incorporating cross national distances on single generation and multi generation profitability for mnes offering multi generational products in multinational markets to be more profitable

the role of financial factors for european corporate investment abstract motivated by the debate about the reasons behind the weak investment dynamics in europe we provide new evidence on the sensitivity of investment to financial factors and fundamentals before and during the financial and sovereign debt crises specifically controlling for firm level fundamentals we evaluate whether european firms cash holdings and indebtedness affected their investment decisions over the 2006 q3 2012 q2 period and whether their influence changed with the onset of the two crises our findings obtained using a correlated random coefficient panel data model suggest that investment was primarily determined by firm level fundamentals over this period contrary to earlier studies we also find that neither cash reserves nor short term debt considered separately were significant determinants of investment prior and during the two crises however there is some evidence of a negative conditional dependence between corporate investment and short term debt net of cash reserves during the financial crisis suggesting that firms simultaneously sought to avoid liquidity problems and preserve debt capacity

cooperation and political economic performance in affluent democratic capitalism research on comparative political economic performance has traditionally followed two separate tracks one concerned with collective economic gain growth and efficiency and the other focused on distribution and redistribution cooperative institutions offer a key to understanding cross national variation among the affluent capitalist democracies in both facets of political economic performance these institutions cluster along two dimensions neocorporatism and firm level cooperation pooled time series analysis for 18 nations over 1960 89 suggests that 1 neocorporatism is a major source of distributive redistributive policies and outcomes and of several sources of collective gain 2 firm level cooperation is a key contributor to economic growth

commercialization strategies of young biotechnology firms an empirical analysis of the u s industry abstract we studied the commercialization strategies of young biotechnology companies in the united states building on previous studies by assuming that commercialization also includes intermediate forms like hierarchical or bilateral cooperation our hypotheses are derived from the resource based view transaction cost economics and property rights theory the results show that the propensity to integrate is related to the appropriability regime direct capabilities financial resources and synergies between the products our results show that the resource based view and property rights theory contribute a great deal to explaining commercialization strategies whereas transaction cost economics explains less

instabilities of strategic alliances an internal tensions perspective the instabilities of strategic alliances have been examined in the literature through a number of theoretical approaches alliance instabilities refer to major changes or dissolutions of alliances that are unplanned from the perspective of one or more partners although the literature identifies certain characteristics of strategic alliances that may lead to their unplanned dissolution the extent of our understanding of this subject appears to be fragmented and incomplete in this article we propose a comprehensive framework for adequately understanding alliance instabilities based on the notion of internal tensions we suggest that strategic alliances are sites in which conflicting forces develop and which can be viewed as being constituted by three key pairs of competing forces namely cooperation versus competition rigidity versus flexibility and short term versus long term orientation this tensions framework helps us in explaining the intrinsic vulnerability of alliances in terms of a wide range of internal contradictions and enables us to examine in an integrated manner the incidence dynamics and eventual dissipation of the inherent instabilities we discuss the interrelationships among the different internal tensions and their impacts on different types of strategic alliances we also examine the termination of alliances through mergers acquisitions and dissolution finally we suggest ways to empirically test the various ideas and propositions developed here and indicate directions for further research

reappraising the eclectic paradigm in an age of alliance capitalism this article discusses the implications of the advent of alliance capitalism for our theorizing about the determinants of mne activity in particular it argues that due to the increasing porosity of the boundaries of firms countries and markets the eclectic or oli paradigm of international production needs to consider more explicitly the competitive advantages arising from the way firms organize their inter firm transactions the growing interdependencies of many intermediate product markets and the widening of the portfolio of the assets of districts regions and countries to embrace the external economies of interdependent activities

external technology sourcing through alliances or acquisitions an analysis of the application specific integrated circuits industry in today s turbulent business environment innovation is the result of the interplay between two distinct but related factors endogenous r d efforts and quasi external acquisition of technology and know how given the increasing importance of innovation it is vital to understand more about the alternative mechanisms such as alliances and acquisitions that can be used to enhance the innovative performance of companies most of the literature has dealt with these alternatives as isolated issues companies however are constantly challenged to choose between acquisitions and strategic alliances given the limited resources that can be spent on research and development this paper contributes to the literature because it focuses on the choice between innovation related alliances and acquisitions we focus on the question of how the trade off between strategic alliances and acquisitions is influenced by previous direct and indirect ties between firms in an industry network of interfirm alliances we formulate hypotheses pertaining to the number of direct ties between two companies their proximity in the overall alliance network and their centrality in that network in so doing we distinguish between ties that connect firms from the same and from different industry segments and those that connect firms from the same or from different world regions these hypotheses are tested on a sample of strategic alliances and acquisitions in the application specific integrated circuits asic industry the findings show that a series of strategic alliances between two partners increases the probability that one will ultimately acquire the other whereas previous direct contacts tend to lead to an acquisition this is not true of previous indirect contacts which increase the probability that a link between the companies once it is forged takes the form of a strategic alliance in the case of acquisitions firms that are more centrally located in the network of interfirm alliances tend to be acquirers and firms with a less central position tend to become acquired these findings underscore the importance of taking previously formed interfirm linkages into account when explaining the choice between strategic alliances and acquisitions as these existing links influence the transaction costs associated with both alternatives

in house versus external basic research and first to market innovations this paper explores to what extent conducting internal basic research as opposed to external basic research i e outsourcing and collaboration with universities encourages firms to bring new products into the market ahead of competitors and contributes to innovation performance the analysis is based on a sample of spanish manufacturing firms over the period 2006 2012 our findings suggest that conducting in house basic research affects firm s propensity to introduce product novelties furthermore performing this activity continuously affects the probability of being product pioneer in low and medium low tech sectors collaboration with universities also helps in introducing new products ahead of competitors but contracting scientific research from universities does not lead to a pioneer strategy results also reveal the absence of complementarities

impact of global economic crisis on firm growth the global economic crisis has had an adverse effect on and may continue to affect the entrepreneurial sector all over the world however even in a recessionary period there will always be some firms growing faster than others it is therefore imperative to understand the variables and processes that make some firms grow faster or more resilient to crisis than others in this paper we focus on firm size and its contributions to growth we examine whether growth rates of manufacturing and service industries are independent of firm size during the period of economic crisis based on a large sample of surviving firms in the manufacturing and hospitality industries the results of two step dynamic panel suggest that turnover growth is positively associated with companies size during the observed period of economic recession 2008 2013 in both industries large and medium sized firms exhibit higher growth than do small firms

hierarchies markets and power in the economy an economic perspective this paper adopts the transaction cost economics perspective for purposes of examining hierarchies markets and power in the economy transaction cost economics works out of an economizing perspective in which markets and hierarchies are alternative modes of governance and the object is to ascertain which transactions go where and why the role of power in this setup is strictly limited partly because power tends to be myopic transactions are not examined in their entirety and partly because it is tautological power needs to be operationalized whereupon the refutable implications that accrue to this perspective can be derived copyright 1995 by oxford university press

trade liberalization and strategic outsourcing this paper develops a model of strategic outsourcing with trade liberalization in the intermediate product market a domestic firm may choose to purchase a key intermediate good from a more efficient foreign producer who also competes with the domestic firm for a final good this has a strategic effect on competition unlike the outsourcing motivated by cost saving the strategic outsourcing has a collusive effect that could raise the prices of both intermediate and final goods trade liberalization in the intermediate good market has a very different effect compared with trade liberalization in the final good market d 2003 elsevier b v all rights reserved

equity links and information acquisition in biotechnology alliances abstract we use a simple model of collaborative innovation to structure an empirical analysis of minority equity links in biotechnology alliances between clients and r d firms in the model an equity link is an investment in information acquisition it improves the ability of the client to learn about the r d firm s ability and the alliance project s quality the model generates several testable hypotheses about how the r d firm s project characteristics and previous alliances affect the use of equity links in new alliances we test the hypotheses using a large data set of biotechnology alliances and find empirical support

decentralization and transfer pricing under oligopoly this paper presents a simple model of a partially decentralized multinational firm mnf in competition with a rival firm it is shown that transfer pricing can be used as a rent shifting device by the mnf to compete with the rival this arises because the mnf headquarters uses the transfer price to manage different subsidiaries the specific value of the transfer price chosen by the mnf depends on whether the rival firm produces the intermediate good the final good or both and whether the rival is integrated or not in particular both decentralization and competition with a fully integrated rival result in lower transfer prices

new horizons or a strategic mirage artist led distribution versus alliance strategy in the video game industry abstract in this paper we contribute to the debate between researchers who argue that the emergence of online distribution allows content producers in the creative industries to bypass powerful publishers and distributors and other researchers who argue that this strategy cannot succeed without the complementary assets that these intermediaries provide we use a case study of the dutch video game developer dvgd bringing to market an identical game using two different but comparable distribution channels as a quasi experiment in the first release dvgd used online distribution to reach consumers directly whereas in the second it used an alliance with an established video game publisher we find that while the alliance required dvgd to share with the publisher a substantial fraction of the value appropriated by the game the alliance strategy resulted in greater absolute financial performance and relative market performance compared to the self publishing strategy we conclude that the differences in performance can be traced back to specialized complementary assets required for successful commercialization

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

why reputation favors joint ventures over vertical and horizontal integration a simple model abstract this paper investigates the effect of reputation in a model where two parties make noncontractable contributions to an economic undertaking it is shown that the optimal allocation of ownership between the parties is more similar in a repeated than in a one shot version of the model this implies that unified ownership and reputation are substitutes low discount rates and repeated investment decisions thus favor subcontracting and joint venture arrangements of the type commonly observed in japanese industry while full integration is more likely to be optimal when reputational forces are weak

a catalytic and evolutionary approach to horizontal technology policies htps abstract this paper presents an evolutionary framework for horizontal technology policies htps especially market friendly ones involving project based incentives e g rd and they complement the more specific and well known selective and vertical policies aimed at individual sectors and technologies the analysis is conducted within a learning to innovate framework with emphasis on collective organizational learning search and market building the outcome is a technology policy cycle with distinct infant growth and mature phases proactive generation of a critical mass of projects for efficient learning and diffusion of innovation routines becomes the aim of the infant phase while the mature phase of the policy should focus on policy restructuring including drastic reductions in the support of routi projects and enhanced support of more complex types of innovation the paper also emphasizes the importance of a neutrality component in incentives in the infant phase of increasing selectivity and of building policy capabilities for efficient policy design and implementation

innovation and cooperation implications for competition and antitrust n k robel laureate robert solow and his colleagues on mit s industrial productivity commission recently noted dertouzos lester and solow 1989 p 7 undeveloped cooperative relationships between individuals and between organizations stand out in our industry studies as obstacles to technological innovation and the improvement of industrial performance and later p 105 that interfirm cooperation in the u s has often though not always been inhibited by government antitrust regulation these striking conclusions warrant further exploration unfortunately industrial organization textbooks still discuss horizontal cooperation and competition almost exclusively in terms of standard cartel theory on the other hand vertical cooperation contracting is viewed differently and some textbooks provide treatments of supplier buyer relationships in which cooperation is viewed as enhancing efficiency both in the textbooks and in policy discussion among economists cooperation among competitors is highly suspect being perhaps the last bastion of what was once referred to as the inhospitality tradition in antitrust as a result very little literature addresses how cooperation among competitors can promote competition notwithstanding that cooperation among competitors may sometimes be essential if innovating firms are to compete in today s increasingly global markets imai and baba 1989 such cooperation is already important in japan and in europe 1

multinational experience and the creation of linkages with local firms evidence from the electronics industry the paper focuses on the nature and determinants of multinational firms creation of linkages with local firms with specific reference to the electronics industry the study of the recent evolution of international operations in this sector seems to highlight a relevant and somewhat generalisable pattern of industrial organisation and dynamics it is argued that the nature and intensity of multinational companies involvement into linkages with local counterparts are strongly influenced by a combination of factors that are partially inter dependent but still rely on different decision making centres on the one hand host countries long term investment policies in the field of human capital training and accumulation and on the other hand firms decisions to take roots in local contexts through the creation of foreign subsidiaries it is further suggested that human capital and subsidiaries will particularly favour the development of collaborative linkages with local firms compared to previous work of the authors on this subject this paper utilises an expanded and updated data set covering international operations of the top european and us electronics companies over the 1984 1995 period and attempts a more detailed and in depth analysis concerning the nature determinants and evolution in time of international growth strategies

the transformation of competitive advantage in east asia an analysis of technological and trade specialisation summary in recent years there has been considerable interest in the relationship between a country s export competitiveness and the role played by technology in strengthening and maintaining competitive advantage a central feature of recent empirical work mainly focused on the oecd countries has rested on examining patterns of export and technological specialization between economies and sectors this paper moves attention away from the advanced industrialized economies to examine the trends for trade and technological specialization among the east asian developing economies in particular two aspects of specialization are examined first to what extent have patterns of competitive advantage changed over time and second to measure the relationship between patterns of trade and technological specialization important differences are found in the patterns of specialization and in the relationship between them among the advanced east asian economies and those catching up

transnational firms and the changing organisation of innovative activities it is suggested that a transition is taking place towards new modes of organising transnational corporations innovative activities first different units of multinational firms including foreign based subsidiaries are increasingly involved in the generation use and transmission of knowledge secondly multinationals are developing external networks of relationships with local counterparts through which foreign affiliates gain access to external knowledge sources and application abilities as a result of this evolutionary process multinationals organisation is subject to both centripetal and centrifugal forces considerable efforts are then necessary to innovate coordination procedures and mechanisms in order to enhance the generation circulation and use of knowledge a number of empirical works are reviewed providing some evidence of the evolutionary process discussed in the paper 1 transnational companies as networks of innovators economists have long viewed innovation as being primarily generated by firms in their home countries classic contributions in the economics of multinational corporations have consolidated this view referring mainly to the us based multinationals vernon 1966 kindleberger 1969 and stopford and wells 1972 theorised a quasi colonial relationship between the parent company and foreign subsidiaries wherein the latter are in charge of replicating the former s activities abroad with strategic decisions including r d and innovation strategies being rigidly centralised particularly vernon emphasised that coordinating international innovative activities would be too costly owing to the difficulties of collecting and controlling relevant information across national borders host countries and foreign subsidiaries would then play a role almost exclusively in the adoption and diffusion of centrally created technology this view was supported mainly by us economists and based on us evidence from the early post world war ii period but it was very influential for the development of studies on the economics of transnational companies tncs and the internationalisation of

technological flows and choice of joint ventures in technology alliances abstract this paper analyses the influence of technological flows in the choice of joint ventures as a governance form of technology alliances using a theoretical framework based on transaction costs economics and the economics of intellectual property rights we argue that the formation of a joint venture is only necessary in situations for which technological flows make the monitoring of alliance activities and the distribution of cooperation rents difficult our hypotheses have been confirmed using a sample of technology alliances created by companies from the european union between 1992 and 1999

the functions of technology infrastructure in a competitive economy abstract governments of industrialized nations play varied but important roles in providing the diverse technology infrastructure that supports a modern competitive economy an understanding of the structure and impacts of these roles as well as efficiency differences among alternative implementation schemes is particularly important at this time as competing industrialized nations are revamping their technology infrastructures in response to major shifts in thescope as well as the content of their growth strategies these shifts in scope can be described as evolutionary changes from single stage to multi stage strategies in that several modes of technology based competition are simultaneously pursued that is whereas an economy may have focused on innovation manufacturing high volume or niche markets etc most if not all of these must be pursued together in the future in order to diversify risk and achieve economies of scope effective implementation of the more complex multi stage growth strategy requires a consensus model of the appropriate functions for infrastructure and its institutions such a consensus model is necessary to efficiently guide strategic planning in both industry and government in particular a conceptual basis is needed for defining the critical interfaces between the government and industry roles including effective long range planning communication and cooperation the required technology infrastructure policy model is derived from a microeconomic model of the typical technology based industry existing national strategies have demonstrated the importance of efficiency at the production and market development stages as well as at the r d stage but the trend is towards promoting simultaneous efficiency at all these stages that is the model and the derived infrastructure functions must cover all stages and interfaces in the technology and related product life cycles

the effectiveness of tax incentives for r d i in developing countries the case of argentina abstract there is increasing interest in developing countries in granting tax incentives in order to encourage private investment in research development and innovation r d i however evidence on the effectiveness of such schemes in achieving policy goals in weak innovation systems contexts is still very scarce this paper aims at narrowing this knowledge gap by focusing on the effects of a tax credit scheme for promoting firm level innovation investment in argentina the analysis applies dynamic panel data techniques to a novel dataset merging several waves of the national innovation survey collected by the national institute of statistics and censuses the results suggest that the elasticity of r d i investment to its user cost of capital is a greater than 1 in absolute terms which implies that the intervention has been effective in increasing firms innovation efforts however effects vary depending on the type of innovation investment being subsidized industrial sector and size of the firm moreover when innovation investment is divided into innovation related capital goods expenditures and only r d the results suggest that the absolute value of the elasticity for the r d component of the innovation investment is less than 1 these heterogeneous effects should be exploited for further policy design

vertical foreclosure and international trade policy international differences in the cost of production of a key intermediate product can mean that a domestic firm is dependent on supplies from a foreign vertically integrated firm this paper considers the incentives for the foreign firm and foreign country to supply the domestic firm when the firms compete in a cournot or bertrand market for the final product the vertical supply decision is significantly affected by domestic supply conditions for the input and a domestic tariff on final product imports optimal policy by the exporting country may require a tax on both exports or a subsidy on both exports countries that are dependent on imports of a key intermediate product or raw material from a dominant world supplier are often concerned about the price and the availability of imports a notable current example involves the computer industry japanese suppliers with the help of the japanese government recently restricted the exports of dram semiconductors substantially raising their price these suppliers control about 80 of the market for semiconductors and the higher prices and shortage in supply have forced u s producers of computers to curtail production and increase prices vertically integrated japanese firms such as toshiba and n e c have benefitted both from increased profits in the export market for semiconductors and from the improvement in their competitive position in the market for final computers as this example indicates the price and availability of imported supplies can depend on both public and private incentives in the exporting country in this paper we first examine the private incentives for a vertically integrated firm to export an intermediate product to a higher cost rival lowering its rival s costs the exporting firm may choose vertical foreclosure thus fully cutting off supplies we then consider the public interest of the exporting country does the exporting country gain by encouraging the export of the intermediate product or alternatively might government foreclosure occur the government is in a position to affect the quantity of exports of both the input and the final product by an appropriate choice of export tax and subsidy policies

performance verifiability and output sharing in collaborative ventures this paper studies the problem of contracting between two firms when they try to exploit their complementary resources in a collaborative venture cv but their performance in the cv cannot be precisely verified by the other party or by a third party arbiter using a mathematical model that treats performance verifiability as a continuous variable the paper first establishes that a party whose performance cannot be perfectly verified has an incentive to shirk if it is paid only a flat fee and that this shirking problem is more severe as its performance is less verifiable then the paper shows in a general setting that a contract under which each party shares a fraction of the output is superior to a contract under which one of them is paid only a flat fee when performance verifiability is sufficiently low in addition with some specific assumptions about the forms of the revenue and cost functions the paper also shows that a party s share of the venture s residual output in the equilibrium is an increasing function of its productivity and a decreasing function of its opportunity cost finally the numerical examples constructed in the paper suggest that a contract which combines the self enforcing mechanism of output sharing with the third party enforcement mechanism of arbitration generally performs better than a contract that utilizes only one of these mechanisms

complexity context and governance in biotechnology alliances this study explores the effect of coordination needs on alliance governance we examine coordination needs that arise as a consequence of the characteristics and the context of the alliance we posit that alliance characteristics and contextual factors influence alliance form and equity investment levels we evaluate the effects of the complexity of technology transfer and strategic complexity of the alliance we also study contextual factors represented by the distance between the intellectual property protection regimes of the home countries of the participants the focal firm s prior presence in the alliance country and its primary expertise in the industry we offer contrasting predictions based on appropriation and coordination perspectives our results demonstrate support for a dominant coordination perspective with alliance characteristics and some contextual factors influencing alliance form appropriation concerns play a weaker role and receive less support

leveraging research and development assessing the impact of the u s advanced technology program this paper examines the factors that affect a firm s chances of winning an award from the advanced technology program atp and the subsequent impact of the award on a firm s success in raising additional funds for its research and development rd the halo effect from the award increases the success of these firms in attracting additional funding from other sources our conclusion is that the atp is leveraging activities that have a strong potential for broad based economic benefit

arms race or detente how interfirm alliance announcements change the stock market valuation of rivals most prior event studies find that the announcement of a new alliance is accompanied by a positive stock market response for the partners this result has usually been interpreted as evidence for the prevailing view that alliances are effective vehicles for partners to acquire or access new skills and thus become stronger competitors however partners should also earn positive abnormal returns if alliances are used to shape competitive interactions attenuating competitive intensity industry wide in this study we disentangle these different mechanisms by examining how alliance announcements affect the stock market s evaluation of allying firms rivals if an alliance is expected to make partner firms more competitive this should lead to negative abnormal returns for partners rivals if an alliance is expected to facilitate a reduction in competitive intensity this should lead to positive abnormal returns for rivals results from an event study analysis of research and development alliances in the telecommunications and electronics industries during 1996 2004 provide evidence consistent with competition attenuation in some alliances our research thus challenges the increasingly narrow focus on learning and resource accumulation through alliances and calls for broader consideration of the roles and effects of collaboration both for individual firms and for industry structure

more than intent a bundling model of mne sme interactions abstract as a counterpoint to prashantham and birkinshaw i present an alternative model of mne sme cooperation where either type of firms can take the role of content provider or distributor i argue that mnes will interact with smes when there are differences in optimal scale between the content creation and distribution stages of the value chain and it is not feasible or efficient for either party to vertically integrate between these two stages i then build two 2 2 bundling models one in which the sme provides content and the mne distributes it and another with the reverse configuration in these 2 2s the axes are the transactional properties of the two complementary inputs content and distribution that mnes and smes bundle to create value i show that these models can explain the forms taken by mne sme cooperation and their dynamics

coalition formation in standard setting alliances we present a theory for predicting how business firms form alliances to develop and sponsor technical standards our basic assumptions are that the utility of a firm for joining a particular standard setting alliance increases with the size of the alliance and decreases with the presence of rivals in the alliance especially close rivals the predicted alliance configurations are simply the nash equilibria i e those sets of alliances for which no single firm has an incentive to switch to another alliance we illustrate our theory by estimating the choices of nine computer companies to join one of two alliances sponsoring competing unix operating system standards in 1988

exposing strategic assets to create new competencies the case of technological acquisition in the waste management industry in europe and north america this paper presents a model that complements the research stream of transaction cost economics with the dynamic capabilities approach the paper shows that even though technological alliances involving specific assets deployed in emerging industries are exposed to high transaction costs they possess attributes that make them attractive first they facilitate the creation of tacit competencies and second they reduce the uncertainty arising from technological innovation and regulatory changes the model is empirically tested in the hazardous waste management industry by using primary data collected through the use of questionnaires the method links governance structure choices to managers perceptions of the uncertainty surrounding the acquisition of technology

corporate debt and investment a firm level analysis for stressed euro area countries abstract this paper investigates the link between corporate debt and investment for a group of five peripheral euro area countries using firm level data from 2005 to 2014 we postulate a non linear corporate leverage investment relationship and derive thresholds beyond which leverage has a negative and significant impact on investment the investment sensitivity of debt increased after 2008 when financial distress intensified and firms had a lower capacity to finance investment from internal sources of funds our results also suggest that even moderate levels of debt can exert a negative influence on investment for smaller firms or when profitability is low

the employment effects of credit market disruptions firm level evidence from the 2008 9 financial crisis this article investigates the effect of bank lending frictions on employment outcomes i construct a new data set that combines information on banking relationships and employment at 2 000 nonfinancial firms during the 2008 9 crisis the article first verifies empirically the importance of banking relationships which imply a cost to borrowers who switch lenders i then use the dispersion in lender health following the lehman crisis as a source of exogenous variation in the availability of credit to borrowers i find that credit matters firms that had precrisis relationships with less healthy lenders had a lower likelihood of obtaining a loan following the lehman bankruptcy paid a higher interest rate if they did borrow and reduced employment by more compared to precrisis clients of healthier lenders consistent with frictions deriving from asymmetric information the effects vary by firm type lender health has an economically and statistically significant effect on employment at small and medium firms but the data cannot reject the hypothesis of no effect at the largest or most transparent firms abstracting from general equilibrium effects i find that the withdrawal of credit accounts for between one third and one half of the employment decline at small and medium firms in the sample in the year

interbank liquidity crunch and the firm credit crunch evidence from the 2007 2009 crisis we study the credit supply effects of the unexpected freeze of the european interbank market using exhaustive portuguese loan level data we find that banks that rely more on interbank borrowing before the crisis decrease their credit supply more during the crisis the credit supply reduction is stronger for firms that are smaller with weaker banking relationships small firms cannot compensate the credit crunch with other sources of debt furthermore the impact of illiquidity on the credit crunch is stronger for less solvent banks finally we find no overall positive effects of central bank liquidity but instead higher hoarding of liquidity

antitrust policy towards co operative r d ventures this paper surveys the theoretical literature on r d cartels and the empirical literature on problems of appropriability in order to evaluate the case for encouraging antitrust authorities to treat r d cooperative ventures leniently the case for r d cooperative ventures trades potential gains from internalizing technological spillovers off against a possible reduction in output market competition but the empirical evidence suggests that r d spillovers can easily be exaggerated this suggests that the design of antitrust policy towards r d cooperative ventures is likely to be of major importance if they are to yield net social gains and the paper concludes with a critical examination of the ncra introduced in u s and block exemption introduced in europe in the 1980s copyright 1993 by oxford university press

governance and uncertainty the trade off between administrative control and commitment this study elaborates upon the motives for initiating equity based collaborations vs acquisition of another firm already having a desired technology we characterize both minority direct investments and joint ventures as options to defer either internal development or acquisition of a target firm in domains where learning about growth opportunities dominates investment activity this incremental mode of governance economizes on the cost of committing resources to a technology with an uncertain value using a sample of 402 transactions in the biotechnology industry we find strong support for the theoretical model the findings suggest that the cost of commitment in the face of technological uncertainty may offset the administrative benefits of hierarchical governance 1998 john wiley sons ltd

mapping public support for innovation a comparison of policy alignment in the uk and france this paper proposes and tests a three dimensional model of public support design as a framework to compare public incentives for innovation in firms through time and across countries and consequently to compare forms of policy alignment of innovation objectives in an economy using data on 149 french and british policy programmes from the early 1980s to 2002 this paper shows that policy makers implement programmes within a different three dimensional design space in order to align several distinctive objectives and consequently strengthen the impact of governmental measures moreover as the objectives of the national players and policy makers evolved the portfolio of innovation policies also evolved in their separate ways nevertheless some similar trends are also observed

growth beyond gibrat firm growth processes and strategies firm growth studies have been focused on the question of whether firm growth is independent of firm size this shadow of gibrat s law has drawn attention to the randomness in firm growth however it has also clouded relevant research avenues that enquire into the role of firm growth processes and strategies this paper takes stock of the current state of the art of firm growth studies in small business economics and makes a plea for more specific research approaches that highlight the nature of the firm organization and growth paths this rejuvenation of firm growth studies comprises a search for necessary mechanisms and contingent conditions for the growth of firms

who co operates for innovation and why an empirical analysis abstract in recent years there has been growing interest in co operative arrangements for innovation with some commentators arguing innovation is no longer the province of individual firms but depends increasingly on collective action this paper examines the response to the uk s version of the second european community innovation survey cis 2 to investigate the patterns of co operation between innovating firms and external partners the analysis shows the relationship between innovation and co operation is not straightforward from a subjective i e firm based perspective it is clear that most firms still develop their new products processes and services without forming formal co operative arrangements for innovation with other organisations however firms that engage in r d and that are attempting to introduce higher level innovations i e new to the market rather than new to the firm innovations are much more likely to engage in co operative arrangements for innovation consequently if an objective i e innovation based perspective is taken which weighs innovations by their significance then it is likely that a significant proportion of high level innovations are developed through co operative arrangements although unfortunately the cis 2 does not indicate the direct significance of these arrangements to the development of the innovations in summary the extent of co operative arrangements for innovation appears to depend on the type of firms being considered and on what is meant by innovation

competition cooperation and the neighboring farmer effect abstract in this paper we propose a model that explains how cooperation can emerge spontaneously between firms in a highly competitive market environment the basic idea is that the more competitive is the market the less costly it is for firms to help each other like good neighbors cooperation takes the form of sharing technical know how which speeds up the adoption of new technologies normally developed elsewhere that spur industrial development the model comports with the development history of japan s first example of successful industrial development its cotton spinning industry whose conditions match those of firms in small open economies today

co operative r d why and with whom an integrated framework of analysis abstract firms use r d partnerships to access knowledge and build global r d networks this article develops an integrated framework to examine the determinants of the choice of partners with which firms co operate on r d this resource based perspective underscores the interactions between three major questions why co operate who does and with whom it argues in particular that the choice of partners is dictated by the complementary resources which the latter command the framework is then expanded to predict the relative efficiency of r d co operation with different partners including suppliers clients rivals academic institutions and foreign firms the empirical analysis which is based on responses to france s version of the second european community innovation survey cis 2 strongly supports the overall framework of analysis

corporate investment and bank dependent borrowers during the recent financial crisis abstract we use the recent financial crisis period to analyse the effect of bank credit tightening on firm investment we derive a new set of credit tightening indexes from the ecb bank lending survey combining these with annual balance sheet data from germany france italy spain belgium and portugal we exploit the heterogeneity in the dependence on bank finance of different industries to identify real effects of credit tightening we show that in response to tightening investment falls substantially more in bank dependent industries

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

evidence on the role of cash flow for investment abstract recent work in macroeconomics argues that imperfections in capital markets may lead to business cycle fluctuations by propagating relatively modest shocks evidence for such a mechanism also known as the financial accelerator consists largely of firm level studies showing that cash flow is an important predictor of investment but this evidence is often viewed with skepticism because cash flow is also a good indicator of investment opportunities in this paper we develop a framework for estimating the extent to which the predictive power of cash flow can be attributed to its role as a fundamental versus its role in alleviating credit frictions for firms with access to commercial paper and bond markets we find that the perfect capital markets model of investment can fully account for the role of cash flow for firms with only limited access to capital markets as indicated by lack of participation in public debt markets however investment appears to be excessively sensitive to fluctuations in cash flow these results thus clarify the role of cash flow in investment equations and provide support for the existence of a financial accelerator

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

impacts of government incentives towards industrial innovation an analysis of the federal programme funding r d personnel in the federal republic of germany abstract against a background of deteriorating national and international economic conditions increasing importance is being attached by political administrations to the innovative capacities of small and medium sized firms with respect to the employment situation and to international competitiveness consequently government support of research development and innovation in these companies has taken a marked upward turn since the late seventies both in the federal republic of germany and in other industrialized western countries the actual impacts of some of these programmes are at present under study by the fraunhofer institut fur systemtechnik und innovationsforschung isi this paper is an outline of the results of a study of the largest current programme funding r d and innovation in small and medium sized firms by offering grants towards the costs of r d personnel the impact analysis is being conducted in two rounds the first round of studies which is the subject of this report took place in 1980 1981 and was designed to examine the discernible short term effects and characteristics of the programme the second round is planned for 1983 1984 as a summary of the impacts of the programme over the first five years of its term of effect the subjects of investigation are the quantitative and qualitative changes in r d activities caused by the programme in the firms under study and the contribution the programme can make to strengthen innovative and competitive capabilities the conditions underlying the programme are reviewed critically especially in order to see whether the barriers to innovation and the weak spots assumed did in fact exist in the firms examined the administrative management free rider effects and factors restricting impacts are investigated along with such questions as whether firms located in peripheral regions were reached by the programme to the same extent as firms in conurbation areas furthermore the reasons for non participation of firms are analyzed the example of the federal programme funding r d personnel thus is used in this impact analysis in an attempt to provide empirical data on the significance the range and the limits of such a government instrument promoting r d and innovation in small and medium sized firms

industrial r d as a national policy horizontal technology policies and industry state co evolution in the growth of the israeli software industry the israeli software industry has been an indisputable success since the 1990s this paper utilizes the development of the israeli industry to empirically explore the argument of the horizontal technology policies htp framework on the impact of neutral science and technology policies on industrial development the paper micro analyzes the israeli software industry and compares its unique historical development pattern with other emerging countries it describes 1 the rise of this industry as one outcome of the development of the entire it industry in israel 2 the reasons behind the industry s ability to conduct and focus on intensive rd 3 the industry s success in becoming an integral part of the american financial and it industrial sector it argues that only by understanding the intricate co evolution of state industry relations and the specific htp regime employed in israel can we understand the current behavior conditions business models and capability of the industry therefore the argument is that israel s industrial science and technology developmental agencies did not aim at creating a software industry but rather at the development of novel products r d based industry however the software industry has been significantly influenced throughout its development by the specific system of innovation which these policies fostered thus the paper argues that public policy is one of the main reasons why the industry has focused almost entirely on product r d activities in addition the paper suggests that the state s science and technology industrial policy has propelled the industry into its intimate relationship with the american financial sector 2007 elsevier b v all rights reserved

spatial proximity and firm survival in a declining industrial district the case of knitwear firms in baden wu rttemberg the literature on small firm networks in industrial districts postulates the importance of territorial proximity for business innovation and regional development but empirical research to test this proposition is sparse while there is some research on the extent of interfirm co operation little is known about the performance outcomes of co operation i develop competing hypotheses from institutional ecological and random action theories concerning the survival chances of firms located in geographic proximity and test them with data on the complete population of knitwear firms in baden wurttemberg germany for the period from 1960 to 1998 proportional hazard estimates show that location in clusters of firms in the same industry increased business failure rates and location in diversified clusters of firms operating in complementary industries reduced failure rates the empirical results are most consistent with the ecological model of localized competition in resource environments la documentation

alliance experience and governance flexibility prior work has mapped the transaction at the heart of an alliance to the risks of opportunism inherent in that alliance and ultimately to how the alliance is structured and governed we extend this approach by noting that the parties in an alliance do not necessarily perceive the same hazards as predominant and thus may have different preferences for how the alliance is structured nevertheless it is in each party s best interest to find a structure that protects its interests while also allowing its partner to protect its interests sufficiently drawing from the alliance management capabilities literature we argue that firms with more alliance experience are better able to protect their interests under any given alliance structure making the choice of structure less consequential to them the resulting governance versatility provides a competitive advantage by enabling firms to form advantageous alliances that are less available to inexperienced competitors our study of innovative alliances in biopharmaceutical industry lends support to the hypotheses allowing us to advance the literature on governance choice in alliances the literature on alliance management and their intersection

r d intensity and international joint venture performance in an emerging market moderating effects of market focus and ownership structure in this study we examine the contingent relationship between r d intensity and performance of international joint ventures ijvs in an emerging market context based on teece s 1986 arguments regarding the appropriability of innovation we identify two types of appropriability hazard related to ijvs r d activities in this context local market related and local partner related hazards we argue that a positive relationship between r d intensity and ijv performance is more likely to occur if these appropriability hazard can be mitigated results using a sample of manufacturing ijvs in china provide support for these arguments we find that r d intensity is positively related to performance in export market focused ijvs but not in local market focused ijvs in addition using a configuration approach we find that r d intensity is positively related to performance in ijvs that have an export market focus and in which the multinational companies mncs have a majority ownership but not in other market focus ownership structure configurations these findings contribute to our knowledge of r d activities of mncs overseas subsidiaries

rent shifting export subsidies with an imported intermediate product abstract this paper examines the implications of foreign or domestic imperfect competition in intermediate goods supply for strategic trade policy assuming cournot competition an export subsidy aimed at shifting rents from foreign to domestic final good producers may also shift rents to foreign suppliers weakening the incentive for the subsidy however the incentive for a subsidy tends to increase if the intermediate good industry is purely domestic or if the industry is purely foreign but the subsidy reduces the price of the imported input alternative rent shifting policies a production subsidy and an import tariff applied to the input are also considered