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Achieving good sustainability performance requires balancing higher economic profits with better environmental and social performance. Knowledge plays a key role in improving corporate sustainability performance, but this knowledge is becoming increasingly complex, specific and dispersed among many scientific, technological and business actors. Science and technology parks (STPs) are infrastructures designed to host varying types of organizations that can bring together new, disruptive knowledge. Our purpose is to unveil how these spaces can be drivers of sustainability performance for companies.

We test our hypotheses on a longitudinal database of Spanish companies over the period 2009–2016 using structural equation models (SEMs).

This research confirms that a firm’s location in an STP helps improve its sustainability performance, provided that conditions are optimal in the STP. These optimal conditions are based on an abundance of knowledge spillovers available to the firm and the firm’s ability to harness them, especially those of a more disruptive nature, through absorptive capacity.

Results of this study yield implications for academia in the form of future lines of research and practical implications for policymakers and managers of both STPs and the organizations that host them.

若要取得良好的可持續發展績效，我們必須以更佳的環境和社會績效來平衡更高的經濟利潤。知識在改善企業的可持續發展績效上發揮關鍵作用; 但知識對很多科學的、技術性的和商業的參與者來說，變得越來越複雜、特殊和分散。科技園是為集合嶄新而帶有顛覆性知識的各種不同組織提供軟硬體支援而設計的基礎設施。本研究擬顯露這些設施和場地如何能為企業推動其永續發展績效。

我們以結構方程模式、去測試有關涵蓋2009年至2016年期間西班牙企業的縱向數據庫的研究假設。

研究結果確認了只要在科技園內有最優良的環境和條件，企業在園內的位置是有助改善其永續發展績效的。這些最優良環境和條件是基於企業可得到的豐富的知識外溢，以及它們可透過其吸收能力去控制知識外溢的能力，特別是那些具更強顛覆性本質的知識外溢。

研究結果為學術界就未來的研究領域提供了啟示; 研究結果亦為科技園和主辦機構的政策制定者和經理、提供了實務方面的啟示。

This paper aims to explore the interplay between industrial diversity and sustainable economic development in US counties.

Among other popularly used measures, this study uses an underused measure, Hachman index, to gauge the degree of industrial diversity in the models. To capture the impact of industrial diversity on the local community, this study estimates the relationship of two diversity measures to four traditional socioeconomic indicators: per capita personal income growth, gross domestic product per worker, income inequality ratio and poverty rate.

Statistical results suggest that industrial diversity, which is measured by Hachman index, is significantly related to the four socio-economic indicators. Industrial diversity can positively contribute to regional per capita personal income growth and mitigate income inequality and poverty stress; however, it is negatively related to the gross domestic product (GDP) per worker, which means industrial specialization may contribute to GDP per worker growth.

The findings of this study show that there is a nonlinear relationship between industrial diversity and all socioeconomic indicators. Most of the control variables, human capital variables and business and industry profile variables also display significant and positive impacts on economic development.

This paper explains the mechanisms underlying the generation of two-way knowledge spillovers through the interaction of subsidiaries with differentiated local responsibilities and domestic firms.

The study is based on firm-level panel data from a census of Colombian manufacturing firms for the period 2003–2012. The estimation procedure involves two stages. In the first one, total factor productivity (TFP) of foreign and domestic firms is estimated. In a second step, we estimate conventional spillovers (from foreign-owned to local firms) and reverse spillovers (from local to foreign-owned firms) separately, using a random effect approach.

This study’s findings reveal that only locally creative subsidiaries enjoy positive and significant two-way knowledge spillover effects. The connectivity of subsidiaries to local and international networks is reinforced by reciprocal relationships among actors that enhance bidirectional knowledge flows, these being favored by the dynamics of clustering effects.

The paper contributes with new empirical evidence about the mechanism explaining how the technological heterogeneity of subsidiaries plays a determinant role in the generation of both knowledge flows from foreign to domestic firms and to the reverse, all integrated into the same framework.

The relationship between industrial policy and exploratory innovation is imperfect.

The authors use Chinese high-tech enterprise identification policy (HTEP) as a natural experimental group to test policy impacts, spillover effects and mechanisms of action.

First, HTEP promotes exploratory innovation. In addition, HTEP has a greater impact on non-exploratory innovation. Second, HTEP has spillover effects in two phases: HTEP (2008) and the 2016 policy reform. HTEP affects exploratory innovation in nearby non-high-tech firms, and the policy effect decreases monotonically with increasing distance from the treatment group. Third, HTEP affects innovation capacity through financing constraints, technical personnel flow and knowledge flow, which explains not only policy effects but also spillover effects. Fourth, the analysis of policy heterogeneity shows that the 2016 policy reforms reinforce the positive effect of HTEP (2008). By deducting the effects of other policies, the HTEP effect is found to be less volatile. In terms of the continuity of policy identification, continuous uninterrupted identification has a crucial impact on the improvement of firms’ innovation capacity compared to repeated certification and certification expiration. Finally, HTEP has a crowding-out effect in state-owned enterprises and large firms’ innovation.

This paper contributes to the existing literature in several ways. First, the authors enrich the literature on industrial policy through exploratory innovation research. While previous studies have focused on R&D investment and patents (Dai and Wang, 2019), exploratory innovation helps firms break away from the inherent knowledge mindset and achieve sustainable innovation. Second, few studies have explored the characteristics of industrial policies. In this paper, the authors subdivide the sample into repeated certification, continuous certification and certification expiration according to high-tech enterprise identification. In addition, the authors compare the differences in policy implementation effects between the 2016 policy reform and the 2008 policy to provide new directions for business managers and policy makers. Third, innovation factors guided by industrial policies may cluster in specific regions, which in turn manifest externalities. This is when the policy spillover effect is worth considering. This paper fills a gap in the industrial policy literature by examining the spillover effects. Finally, this paper also explores the mechanisms of policy effects from three perspectives: financing constraints, technician mobility and knowledge mobility, which can affect not only the innovation of beneficiary firms directly but also indirectly the innovation of neighboring non-beneficiary firms.

This article explores whether six broad categories of activities undertaken by Canadian business scholars’ academics: publications record, citations record, teaching load, administrative load, consulting activities, and knowledge spillovers transfer, are complementary, substitute, or independent, as well as the conditions under which complementarities, substitution and independence among these activities are likely to occur.

A multivariate probit model is estimated to take into account that business scholars have to consider simultaneously whether or not to undertake many different academic activities. Metrics from Google Scholar of scholars from 35 Canadian business schools, augmented by a survey data on factors explaining the productivity and impact performances of these faculty members, are used to explain the heterogeneities between the determinants of these activities.

Overall, the results reveal that there are complementarities between publications and citations, publications and knowledge spillovers transfer, citations and consulting, and between consulting and knowledge spillovers transfer. The results also suggest that there are substitution effects between publications and teaching, publications and administrative load, citations and teaching load, and teaching load and administrative load. Moreover, results show that public and private funding, business schools’ reputation, scholar’s relational resources, and business school size are among the most influential variables on the scholar’s portfolio of activities.

This study considers simultaneously the scholar’s whole portfolio of activities. Moreover, the determinants considered in this study to explain scholars’ engagement in different activities reconcile two conflicting perspectives: (1) the traditional self-managed approach of academics, and (2) the outcomes-focused approach of university management.

This study addresses the empirical results of the spillover effect with export as the primary economic activity that enhances local businesses' total factor productivity (TFP). A learning mechanism is expected to be generated and used as the basis for the policy implication.

This study adopted the Cobb–Douglas function and multiple estimation approaches, including the generalized method of moments, the Olley–Pakes and the Levinsohn–Petrin estimation techniques. The findings were estimated based on the panel data of a Vietnamese local businesses survey conducted by the General Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO) from 2010 to 2019.

The results showed that the highest TFP belongs to the businesses in the Southeast region, the Mekong Delta region, the mining industry and the foreign-invested enterprises. The lowest impacted TFP are businesses in the Northwest region and agricultural, forestry and fishery sectors. In addition, the estimated results also show that the positive spillover effect on TFP is shown through forward and backward linkage. The negative spillover effect is expressed through the backward and horizontal channels.

This study offers original empirical evidence on the learning mechanisms via which exports contribute to productivity improvement in a developing Asian economy, so making a valuable contribution to the existing academic literature in this domain. The findings of this research make a valuable contribution to the advancement of understanding on the many ways via which spillover effects manifest such as horizontal, forward, backward and supplied-backward linkage.

The study's findings indicate that it is advisable for governments to give priority to the development and improvement of forward and supply chain linkages between exporters and local suppliers. This approach is recommended in order to optimize the advantages derived from export spillovers. At the organizational level, it is imperative for enterprises to strengthen their technological and managerial skills in order to efficiently incorporate knowledge spillovers that originate from overseas partners and trade counterparts.

This study sheds new evidence on the export spillover effect on productivity in emerging economies, with Vietnam as the case study. The paper contributes to the research's originality by adopting novel methodological aspects to estimate local businesses' impact on total factor productivity.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-05-2023-0373

Based on the density dependence theory, this paper attempts to explore how two types of interdependence among firms located in the same national high-tech zones (NHTZs) – mutualism and competition – affect entrepreneurship in the NHTZs. The authors suggest that increasing firm density can help enhance legitimacy and form mutual networks. However, as the competition becomes fierce, the above positive relationship will weaken when the firm density exceeds a certain level. In addition, the authors are interested in whether the age of NHTZs would affect their sensitivity to legitimacy and competition and whether firm density affects entrepreneurship.

This article formulates two hypotheses from the theoretical deduction. The hypotheses are examined using the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression with a unique, unbalanced panel dataset of Chinese NHTZs spanning from 2014 to 2021. Considering potential endogeneity risk among the variables, the authors attempt to lag variables and ultimately find the results are still robust.

Drawing upon the density dependence theory, the empirical results show firm density is conducive to promoting entrepreneurship, while the positive relationship between community density and NHTZs' entrepreneurship gradually weakens as the firm density surpasses a certain level. The dynamics between mutualism and competition have different impacts on NHTZs' entrepreneurship. In addition, the results demonstrate that the linkage between firm interdependence and entrepreneurship is stronger for younger NHTZs. Firm density has an impact on entrepreneurship through legitimacy and excessive competition effects.

On the one hand, the research period of this paper is 2014–2021, as the China Torch Statistical Yearbook only started to publish operating revenues in 2014, so the data period of this paper is relatively short. More research can be done in the future when more data is disclosed. On the other hand, the qualitative analysis cannot be conducted because of the limited data and materials. In future research, the qualitative analysis of entrepreneurial activities in NHTZs, such as questionnaires or case studies, needs to be supplemented, which will be an interesting direction.

Most existing research has not distinguished the differences between NHTZs (Wang et al., 2019), especially the differences in legitimacy and access to resources caused by the age of NHTZs. This article considers the heterogeneity between NHTZs, which helps to provide theoretical and practical evidence for a transition economy like China to make trade-off decisions on balancing absorbing new entrants with promoting the efficient allocation of resources based on the density and age of NHTZs.

Drawing upon density dependency theory, this paper enriches the literature on agglomeration and entrepreneurship with a new perspective and extends the study to NHTZs.

First, this paper provides new evidence on how agglomeration affects entrepreneurship from an ecological perspective with the help of mutualism and competition interdependence. Most studies have explored the role of agglomeration in entrepreneurship, focussing on social networks, knowledge spillovers or resource endowments (Acs et al., 2013; Capozza et al., 2018; Yu, 2020). Drawing upon density dependency theory, this paper enriches the literature on agglomeration and entrepreneurship with a new perspective and extends the study to NHTZs. Second, the emphasis of science parks has been primarily on qualitative or case studies (Salvador et al., 2013; Guo and Verdini, 2015; Xie et al., 2018). We have diversified the quantitative research between agglomeration and entrepreneurship by using panel data from Chinese NHTZs from 2014 to 2021. Third, most existing research has not distinguished the differences between NHTZs (Wang et al., 2019), especially the differences in legitimacy and access to resources caused by the age of NHTZs. This article considers the heterogeneity between NHTZs, which helps to provide theoretical and practical evidence for a transition economy like China to make trade-off decisions on balancing absorbing new entrants with promoting the efficient allocation of resources based on the density and age of NHTZs. Finally, this paper meticulously investigates the profound influence and underlying mechanisms of firm density within NHTZs on entrepreneurship. It discerns two distinct mechanisms at play: the legitimacy effect and the impact of excessive competition resulting from firm density. This comprehensive analysis significantly contributes to our comprehension of the intricate interplay between firm density and entrepreneurship, shedding light on the dynamics of competition and mutual benefits.

Starting from intention–behaviour models and building upon the growing evidence that aggregated internet search query data represent a good proxy of human interests and intentions. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that the internet search traffic information related to the selected key terms associated with establishing new businesses, reflects well the dynamics of entrepreneurial activity in a country and can be used for predicting entrepreneurial activity at the national level.

Theoretical framework is based on intention–behaviour models and supported by the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship. Monthly data on new business registration from 2018 to 2021 is derived from the open database of the Russian Federal Tax Service. Terms of internet search interest are identified through interviews with the recent founders of new businesses, whereas the internet search query statistics on the identified terms are obtained from Google Trends and Yandex Wordstat.

The results suggest that aggregated data about web searches related to opening a new business in a country is positively correlated with the dynamics of entrepreneurial activity in the country and, as such, may be useful for predicting the level of that activity.

The results may serve as a starting point for a new approach to measure, monitor and predict entrepreneurial activities in a country and can help in better addressing policymaking issues related to entrepreneurship.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is original in its approach and results. Building on intention–behaviour models, this study outlines, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first usage of big data for analysing the intention–behaviour relationship in entrepreneurship. This study also contributes to the ongoing debate about the value of big data for entrepreneurship research by proposing and demonstrating the credibility of internet search query data as a novel source of quality data in analysing and predicting a country’s entrepreneurial activity.

The rise of emerging economies in the innovation landscape has often been attributed to the positive spillovers of innovation capabilities from multinational corporations (MNCs). However, it is less certain that their innovative capabilities imported from the home country function effectively in the host country from the outset. This study examines the performance of the innovation capabilities of MNC subsidiaries in emerging economies over time by considering the gradual process of their learning about host countries.

We employed stochastic frontier analysis to measure innovation capabilities, our focal construct. For regression analysis, we applied the Mundlak estimator, a variant of the fixed-effects panel estimator, to a sample comprising subsidiaries of MNCs from technologically advanced nations operating in Korea between 2006 and 2016.

Our results indicate that the innovation capabilities of MNC subsidiaries initially underperform those of local firms but improve over time, eventually surpassing the capabilities of their local counterparts. Furthermore, our findings reveal that institutional distance amplifies the underperformance of the innovation capabilities of MNC subsidiaries.

This study contributes to the literature by extending both theoretical development and empirical measurement of innovation capabilities in cross-national settings. Additionally, it deepens our understanding of whether and how MNC subsidiaries adapt their innovation capabilities to the local market environment.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the association between nonaudit services (NAS) and out-of-period adjustments (OOPAs). Over the years, the number of OOPAs has risen while the number of restatements has decreased. This could indicate an improvement in financial reporting quality. It could also indicate the use of a type of stealth restatement for opportunistic purposes. These less prominent restatements are more likely to go undetected and could perpetuate opportunistic disclosure and mitigate the likelihood of unfavorable market reactions.

The authors use a two-stage multivariate regression analysis to examine the relationship between NAS and the reporting of an OOPA. The authors use prior research on NAS to guide the model development. The authors perform several robustness checks including different types of NAS and different characteristics of OOPAs.

The results indicate that NAS has a significantly negative association with the existence of OOPAs. The core findings suggest that NAS does not impair auditor independence. Rather, greater amounts of NAS may contribute to knowledge spillover, which leads to higher financial reporting and audit quality. The results are robust to several additional tests.

The results raise interesting implications for regulators, executives, auditors, investors and future research. The authors provide insight into the relationship between NAS and auditor independence.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, prior research has not considered the effect of NAS on OOPAs. The authors contribute to the literature by providing evidence that OOPAs, a form of stealth restatements, is an important consideration in audit quality research.