title: Innovation-economic and spatial aspects of firm growth - The contribution of firm-internal and firm-external factors
title: Innovation-economic and spatial aspects of firm growth - The contribution of firm-internal and firm-external factors
title: Innovationsökonomische und räumliche Aspekte des Firmenwachstums - Der Beitrag von Firmen-internen und Firmen-externen Faktoren
Creators: name: Schimke, Antje
Publisher: name: Philipps-Universität Marburg
Year: 2013
Subjects: Räumliches Firmenwachstum
Firm-internal factor
Geografie, Reisen
Firm-external factor
Innovationsökonomisches Firmenwachstum
Spatial firm growth
Firmen-interne Faktoren
Firmen-externe Faktoren
Innovation-economic firm growth

description: This thesis is explorative in
      nature. Based on empirical investigations of different
      research fields (i.e. Geography and Economics), it analyses
      firm growth in terms of factors and sources that come
      internal and external to firms. This book deals with the
      integration of different growth related dimensions, in
      particular with factors and knowledge sources for
      investigating and analysing growth processes of firms. Firm
      growth is important for the economic competitiveness and
      technological progress as well as for the regional
      development. Therefore, it can be considered as a
      heterogeneous process with high complexity and idiosyncratic
      characteristics. This idiosyncrasy is partially caused by the
      high number of dimensions, growth factors and knowledge
      sources which are basically involved in the growth process.
      An important purpose of this doctoral thesis is to combine
      different key dimensions and determinants of the firm growth
      process. Within this multidimensional concept, various growth
      factors and knowledge sources appear which potentially
      contribute to the growth of firms. In order to analyse and
      improve the understanding of the growth process itself, it is
      distinguished between internal and external growth factors
      and knowledge sources that might influence firm growth. An
      example of the combination of these key dimensions and growth
      factors is the usage and consideration of knowledge sources
      that are internal or external to firms. It has been discussed
      that these determinants of the growth process can influence
      or even complement each other. Nevertheless, these
      determinates have often been analysed separately and
      literature concerning how to combine them is (still) limited.
      The domain of firm growth and its growth determinants is
      considered complex since the growth process is characterised
      by many factors and sources influencing each other. It aims
      at particularly highlighting the issue of agile relationships
      between space, time and economic interactions. The space
      centred geography developed specific models of space, but has
      been largely neglected the spatial and temporal features of
      economic interactions. Economic interactions were understood
      as a ‘Black-box-concept’ without any further information
      (e.g. Werlen 2000). Then, the ‘Black-box’ comprises
      deterministic assumption understanding space as homogenous
      entity (see Petersen 1944). Contrarily to the deterministic
      belief, this work understands economic features and
      relationships as realistic and relational operations, using
      space and time as agile issues of economic interactions. A
      multidimensional investigation and evaluation for exploring
      growth factors, knowledge sources and the activities involved
      in the growth process of firms is therefore developed, and
      problems and obstacles are studied. Moreover, firm growth can
      be considered as a process depending on interrelated growth
      factors and knowledge sources that influence and complement
      each other. Thus, firms operate in environments over which
      they might have full, or at least, partial influence. These
      environments are usually probabilistic with the effect that
      firm “growth results from adaptive search over a
      probabilistic fitness landscape with stochastic attractors”
      (Lee and Harrison 2001: p. 115). Hence, firms cannot expect
      the same output each time they process the same inputs. An
      important result of this property of the probabilistic
      approach is that firms operate in a multidimensional setting
      and environment where various growth-related factors and
      knowledge sources are embedded. An important result of this
      property of the probabilistic approach is that firms operate
      in a multidimensional setting and environment where various
      growth-related factors and knowledge sources are embedded.
      The following more suitable definition was provided by Alex
      Coad (2009 p: 110): “Firm growth is indeed a multifaceted
      phenomenon, it has a strong idiosyncratic character, and as a
      result it is difficult to generalise across firms and
      circumstances.” None of these theories and empirical studies
      can provide a comprehensive explanation of the different key
      dimensions of firm growth. Moreover, different key dimensions
      of firms’ growth processes can be revealed, reflecting the
      fact that firm growth is driven by heterogeneity and
      complexity. A multidimensional concept of firm growth might
      be defined as a complex system containing a set of different
      dimensions and growth related factors which interact with or
      complement each other in order to reach their respective goal
      (e.g. employment growth, innovativeness). This thesis
      contributes to the existing knowledge by determining three
      different key dimensions of firms’ growth processes:
      temporal, spatial and organisational dimensions.
      Additionally, literature mostly distinguishes between the
      firms’ growth characteristics in terms of firm-internal
      growth (i.e. innovation effort, export orientation) and in
      terms of firm-external growth factors (e.g. Acar 1993).
      Generally speaking, the author argues that internal resources
      are neither sufficient nor adequate to achieve efficiency and
      firm growth. By contrast, for most firms a wide range of
      external factors is also relevant. Consequently,
      region-specific characteristics and their spatial relatedness
      engender differences in the way firms grow, and may be seen
      as substantial drivers for firm growth (e.g. universities,
      other firms, population, knowledge intensive business
      services). More precise, firm growth has many growth
      stimulation factors and sources. Some of them are analysed in
      this book. A multidimensional approach of the firms’ growth
      process is introduced. It is shown that a multidimensional
      consideration of the firms’ growth process is of high
      importance because a multiplicity of interrelated factors and
      sources influence firm growth. This thesis captures aspects
      of time, space and organisations, and deals with the mixing
      of these dimensions. The detailed insight into ‘unknown’
      factors, interrelationships and linkages is a great benefit
      in the explanation of the structure and procedure of firm
      growth processes. Generally speaking, this work allows for a
      detailed insight into the distinction between firm-internal
      and firm-external factors and knowledge sources to growth and
      controls for ‘stylized facts’ such as firm size, firm age and
      industry affiliation grounded in the previous empirical
      literature. More precisely, this book contributes to the
      literature by favouring the linkages and interrelationships
      between them: First, it analyses the interrelationships
      between firm-internal growth factors (i.e. innovation effort
      and export orientation) and time. It investigates whether
      firm characteristics, which – in literature - are related to
      firm growth, are also related to the development path of
      firms. A major conclusion is that the determinants of growth
      paths are not the same as the determinants of firm growth at
      one point of time. Obviously, the temporal structure of the
      impact of growth related factors on firm growth matters.
      Furthermore strong interrelationships and linkages between
      them exist. It is analysed whether the factors, which are
      found to be related to firm growth in literature, are also
      related to the continuous growth of firms in the medium term.
      In literature, it is usually examined whether certain
      characteristics are related to a higher average growth rate.
      In this work it is studied whether these characteristics are
      also related to the probability of various development paths,
      such as permanent growth. Hence, in this paper, the
      perspective is moved from average growth to the structure of
      development paths. Changing the perspective does not change
      the results fundamentally but provides many additional
      insights. Furthermore, the thesis examines the time structure
      of the effects of R&amp;D activities (i.e. firm-internal) on
      firm growth. Also, the discussion about whether R&amp;D
      investments are connected to firm growth in the subsequent
      periods and how this relationship depends on other firm
      characteristics (for example size and industry) is stressed.
      One main result is that, on average, R&amp;D has a positive
      effect on turnover growth, but the effect and its temporal
      structure strongly depends on firm size and industry
      affiliation. To put it differently, firm-internal factors do
      affect firm growth and the temporal structure matters hereby.
      The occurrence of growth in the short run is to be
      distinguished from growth development paths (long-run). They
      each serve as own pattern of explanation and have to be
      interpreted separately. Second, the analysis accomplished
      improves the understanding of the emerging complementarities
      between the involved factors and knowledge sources.
      Therefore, it deals with the existence and the emergence of
      complementarities and the spatial embeddedness into
      cooperation networks (i.e. cooperative and non-cooperative)
      over time. This work particularly contributes to the existing
      literature by differentiating between cooperative and
      non-cooperative R&amp;D subsidies, which are shown to have
      distinct effects. Moreover, the firms’ spatial embeddedness
      into subsidized cooperation networks is evaluated with
      respect to its importance for employment growth. The findings
      however provide some evidence for efficient
      complementarities, i.e. subsidies for cooperation that
      support interactions between firms and research organizations
      can yield positive effects. As such, growth factors can
      complement each other over time and therefore stimulate the
      spatial embeddedness into cooperation networks. Thus, the
      respective design of the implementation of growth factors
      matters. Third, this book highlights the importance of
      firm-external factors and their internalisation into firm
      activities. The analysis places growth relevant knowledge
      spillover processes (i.e. firms and universities) in a
      concrete space. Instead of imposing artificial and arbitrary
      regional delimitations and constructing imprecise measures of
      the available regional knowledge, the author looks at the
      exact geographical point locations of firms and their
      economic distance to different external sources of potential
      knowledge dissemination. As a main conclusion of the analysis
      it can be stated that both, other related firms and
      universities, are associated with firm growth. Furthermore,
      this section examines the contribution of specialisation and
      industrial variety to employment growth and therefore
      highlights the controversial discussion about Marshallian
      (technical) externalities (i.e. specialisation) and Jacobian
      externalities (i.e. diversification). The findings show that
      the level of industry aggregation has a direct impact on firm
      growth. In the case of Jacobian variety, firm size plays a
      major role. Finally, the thesis analyses the contribution of
      local knowledge endowment to employment growth in
      nanotechnology firms. Nanotechnology firm growth is
      influenced by the locations hosting the firms. The main
      conclusion of this study is that local knowledge endowment
      indeed influences firm growth in nanotechnology positively,
      while local knowledge specialisation is surely not always
      positively affecting the growth of individual firms. To sum
      up, firm-external factors can be incorporated into the
      activities of firms the consideration of exact geographical
      locations, regional specialisation or industrial variety as
      well as local knowledge endowment bridges the gap between
      external factors and their internalisation into firms’ growth
      process. The work indicates high potential for creating the
      opportunity of implementing further research directions and
      issues such as an entrepreneurial dimension. One direction of
      future work could hence be the identification of additional
      dimensions of firms’ growth processes that might be useful to
      integrate, or even complement with each other. Furthermore,
      more information about the complementarities and their
      effects are necessary in order to enhance detailed results
      and to obtain more insights into the indirect effects of
      growth related factors and knowledge sources. In particular,
      the question arises whether the impact of a firms’ position
      within a network implies any knowledge complementarities and
      whether it matters with which types of organisations they
      cooperate with. The gained knowledge would be an additional,
      valuable achievement for understanding the complexity,
      heterogeneity and idiosyncrasy of firm growth. For future
      work, changing the perspective from the micro-level to the
      meso-level of spatial aggregation might also be decisive,
      because firms’ growth properties are substantial features of
      the dynamics of regional growth. Finally, interested in how
      the particular features of the firms influence the firm
      growth processes, the empirical examinations are accomplished
      in the context of firm growth as showcase examples. Relevant
      and appropriate policy implications can only be derived for
      particular firm cohorts, while policy implications for the
      support of firms in general might fail to have a
      growth-sustaining impact. Hence, the implementation of policy
      instruments comes along seeking to regulate specific
      activities across different firm cohorts. With respect to the
      comprehensive analyses in this book, different firm groups
      can be determined requiring specific policy
      instruments.
description: In der vorliegenden kumulativen
      Dissertation werden die verschiedenen Dimensionen (räumliche,
      zeitliche und institutionelle Dimension) und Determinanten
      (firmeninterne und firmenexterne Faktoren) des
      Firmenwachstums analysiert. Firmenwachstum ist ein
      heterogener und idiosynkratrischer Prozess, der durch eine
      Vielzahl von Faktoren bestimmt werden kann (Coad 2009). Diese
      Faktoren sind zum Teil hochdynamisch und hängen intertemporal
      voneinander ab. Nach Werlen (2000) entwickelt die
      raumzentrierte Geographie Raummodelle, welche die räumlichen
      und zeitlichen Dimensionen des ökonomischen Handelns
      ungeklärt lassen. Die Vielfalt von ökonomischen Aktivitäten
      werden daher nicht berücksichtig bzw. werden in einer
      sogenannten 'Black-Box' reduziert (z.B. Böventer 1962, Isard
      1956, Krugman 1991, 1995). Das in dieser Arbeit entwickelte
      Modell geht über das 'Black-Box-Konzept' hinaus und
      analysiert die dynamischen Prozesse und räumliche
      Interaktionen im Wachstumsprozess von Unternehmen. Neben
      diesen zum Teil sehr heterogenen Einflussgrößen weisen die
      Firmen selbst sehr unterschiedliche Charakteristiken auf. Das
      führt dazu, dass bestimmte Faktoren Wachstumstreiber für die
      einen, jedoch Hemmnisse für die anderen darstellen. Aufgrund
      der Vielzahl bestehender Firmeneigenschaften wird in dieser
      Arbeit der Fokus auf Firmen gelegt, die entsprechend ihrer
      Größe, ihres Alters und ihrer Industriezugehörigkeit klar
      einzuordnen sind. Darüber hinaus wird im Verlauf der Analysen
      auf sogenannte stilisierte Fakten (Größe, Alter,
      Industriezugehörigkeit) überprüft. Neben detaillierten
      Untersuchungen bzgl. einzelner Wachstumsfaktoren wird in
      dieser Arbeit ein allgemeiner Analyserahmen entwickelt, der
      es ermöglicht in zukünftigen Untersuchungen bisher kaum
      berücksichtige Aspekte zu analysieren und einzuordnen. Der
      erste Teil der Dissertation analysiert den Einfluss von
      firmeninternen Faktoren auf das Wachstum von Firmen. Als
      firmeninterne Faktoren sind hier in erster Linie F&amp;E
      Aktivitäten (gemessen in explizitem Wissen u. materiellen
      Werten) und die Exportorientierung von Firmen gemeint. In den
      Untersuchungen werden zunächst die relevanten Firmen gemäß
      ihrer Wachstumspfade und Entwicklungsmuster charakterisiert,
      woraufhin der Einfluss der firmeninternen Faktoren auf
      ebenjene Entwicklungsmuster getestet wird. Darüber hinaus
      werden zeitliche Effekte, d.h. zeitverzögerte Wirkungen von
      F&amp;E Aktivitäten untersucht. Ein zentrales Ergebnis dieser
      Analysen ist, dass interne F&amp;E Aktivitäten sehr wohl
      Einfluss auf das Wachstum von Firmen haben. Präziser
      formuliert sind es bestimmte Entwicklungsmuster (Wachstum,
      Stagnation, Schrumpfung), zeitliche Effekte (zeitverzögerte
      Wirkung) sowie die Höhe interner F&amp;E-Aktivitäten
      gleichermaßen, die das Wachstum von Firmen beeinflussen, d.h.
      beschleunigen oder sogar abschwächen können. Der zweite Teil
      der Arbeit analysiert die Wirkung von firmeninternen und
      firmenexternen Faktoren. Ziel dieser Analysen ist es,
      herauszufinden welche Rolle F&amp;E Kooperationen, gefördert
      durch direkte und indirekte staatliche F&amp;E Subventionen,
      auf das Wachstum von Firmen haben. Hierbei werden
      verschiedene F&amp;E Kooperationen (z.B. kooperierend, nicht
      kooperierend) konstruiert und evaluiert, um den Einfluss von
      firmenexternen Faktoren sowie den Effekt von räumlicher
      Verfügbarkeit von externem Wissen in Form von
      F&amp;E-Projekten zu analysieren. Wesentliches Ergebnis
      dieser Analysen ist es, dass die Wachstumschancen von Firmen
      durch F&amp;E-Kooperationen und gemeinschaftliche
      F&amp;E-Projekte entscheidend beeinflusst werden. Während das
      Wachstum von KMUs durch Interaktionen zu
      Forschungseinrichtungen wesentlich beeinflusst werden kann,
      treiben F&amp;E-Kooperation das Wachstum von größeren Firmen
      nur selten voran. Der dritte Teil dieser Arbeit beschäftigt
      sich mit der Wirkung von firmenexternen Faktoren (z.B.
      Forschungseinrichtungen, Universitäten, andere Firmen) und
      räumlichen Beziehungen (z.B. räumliche Nähe) auf das Wachstum
      von Firmen. Dafür werden Variablen wie räumliche Nähe der
      Akteure, Zugang zu Wissen in branchenähnlichen bzw.
      branchenfremden Industrien und regionale Verfügbarkeit von
      Wissen in Form von hochqualifiziertem Personal in Betracht
      gezogen und analysiert. Wichtige Ergebnisse sind, dass die
      Wirkung von externen Faktoren von den Firmeneigenschaften
      abhängen wie zum Bespiel Firmengröße, Art der Wissensquelle
      und dem Wachstumsniveau. Weiterhin können branchenähnliches
      und branchenfremdes Wissen gleichermaßen das Wachstum von
      Firmen beeinflussen. Sie sind deshalb wichtig um eine
      effektive Wissensnutzung zu gewährleisten und fachspezifische
      aber auch fachfremde Wissens-Spillover zu bieten. Die
      regionale Verfügbarkeit von hochqualifiziertem Personal,
      externem Wissen und dessen Zusammensetzung beeinflusst daher
      die Entwicklung und das Wachstum von Firmen. Unter Kenntnis
      der empirischen Resultate werden politikrelevante Aspekte
      diskutiert. Die praktische Relevanz der Dissertation weist
      verschiedene Felder auf, die von firmenspezifischen
      Aktivitäten, Investitionen und Handlungen über räumliche
      Aspekte der Verfügbarkeit der regionalen Wissensbasis bis hin
      zu politischen Fragestellungen und Implikationen reicht. Die
      Ergebnisse dieser wissenschaftlichen Arbeit können als
      empirische Grundlage für firmeninterne
      Handlungsentscheidungen sowie als Basis für politische
      Handlungsempfehlungen - insbesondere für Implikationen im
      räumlichen und regionalen Kontext – dienen. Die Arbeit ist
      unter Betreuung von Prof. Dr. Dr. Thomas Brenner am
      Fachbereich Geographie der Philipps-Universität Marburg
      entstanden und in englischer Sprache verfasst.