Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore the cluster effect by decomposing the broad category of “clusters” into cluster size and technological knowledge spillovers. Further, this study questions whether all foreign firms benefit equally from participation in geographic clusters. Specifically, the paper examines the moderating roles of local ownership ties and a local market orientation with respect to the benefits of cluster size and technological knowledge spillover.

Using the Database of Enterprises in China, this study examines a sample of 2,200 Taiwanese manufacturing firms operating in China from 2005 to 2007.

The paper found that increased cluster size and technological knowledge spillovers help to enhance foreign firms’ financial performance. The analysis also shows that local ownership ties and a local market orientation have a positive moderating effect on the relationship between cluster size, technological knowledge spillovers, and performance.

This study distinguishes between the effects of cluster size and technological knowledge spillovers, which is an important step toward demystifying the “black box” of cluster benefits. Further, due to the liability of foreignness and the lack of legitimacy that foreign firms face when operating in emerging economies, this study integrates the cluster perspective and the legitimacy perspective to discuss whether foreign firms can actively adopt strategic behaviors that will help to improve their legitimacy and enable them to better capture potential cluster benefits.

This study aims to examine the complex effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on China’s agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) from 2005 to 2020. It also explores the role of absorptive capacity as a moderating factor during this period.

Employing provincial panel data from China, this research measures agricultural TFP using the Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA)-Malmquist method. The impact of FDI on agricultural productivity is further analyzed using a nondynamic panel threshold model.

The results highlight technological progress as the main driver of agricultural TFP growth in China. Agricultural FDI (AFDI) seems to impede TFP development, whereas nonagricultural FDI (NAFDI) shows a distinct positive spillover effect. The study reveals a threshold in absorptive capacity that affects both the direct and spillover impacts of FDI. Provinces with higher absorptive capacity are less negatively impacted by AFDI and more likely to benefit from FDI spillovers (FDISs).

This study provides new insights into the intricate relationship between FDI, absorptive capacity and agricultural productivity. It underscores the importance of optimizing technological progress and research and development (R&D) to enhance agricultural productivity in China.

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.

Purpose – This chapter aims at investigating the impact of cross-border knowledge spillovers on technological innovation in the renewable energy sector.

Methodology/approach – The analysis presented in the chapter assumes that technological knowledge exhibits several tacit elements and requires established connections to flow between countries. A new measure for knowledge spillovers is obtained by weighting international R&D stocks through bilateral trade flows. The country-level patenting activity is modelled through a knowledge production function. The sample includes 18 OECD countries over the 1990–2006 period. Estimates are obtained through panel data techniques.

Findings – Our econometric results show that international knowledge developed by other countries has positive effects on the focal country's innovation in renewable energy technologies. Cross-country linkages, rather than mere geographic proximity, are found to favour cross-country knowledge spillovers.

Impact – The research contributes to the design of energy innovation policies. Public R&D is confirmed to be a relevant input to energy innovation. Coordination between countries in energy R&D activities can be required, particularly when countries maintain mutual linkages.

Originality – This study adds empirical evidence on the effect of cross-country knowledge spillovers and on the channels through which technological knowledge diffuses globally. It contributes to the emerging empirical research on energy innovation.

We present an overview of research on spillover effects within firms and introduce a classification of the literature. We divide spillovers into either technological or social in nature. In our classification, a technological spillover is one in which an agent rationally responds to a cue in the workplace that does not rely on the identity or characteristics of a coworker. Social spillovers, on the other hand, may be thought of as arising from the social preferences of an individual or social norms established in the organization.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of knowledge spillover effects (KSE) on employment levels using a sample of 245 Italian Innovative startup companies created as a result of the legislative changes of Law Decree 179/12 introduced in Italy in 2012.

This study uses a parsimonious model with the employment level as the dependent variable. The paper tests for the impact that the measures of industry competition, specialization and diversity have on the level of employment in the Innovative Startup sector in Italy. The data uses a sample of 245 firms, across 20 geographic regions in Italy for three economic sectors at the 2-Dig NAICS classification.

The empirical results provide evidence in favor of regional specialization as the main force to create and transfer knowledge resulting in increased employment; while higher levels of competition and a more diverse regional production bases result in lower firm employment levels. Employment levels for these firms are also time-dependent, and thus mainly determined at the time of the firm’s creation. This study also found a lack of technological convergence across regions, that are inherent regional differences are not bridged by knowledge spillover effects.

This paper is based on a sample of Italian Innovative Startups and consequently, further research with a potentially larger sample and, perhaps, a sample across countries could also shed some light on the issues relating to KSE and their effects on employment generation and firm formation.

From a practical point of view, the results indicate that regional disparity and limited transmission of KSE across regions remain an impediment to the flow of knowledge. This in turn may limit the development of entrepreneurial activities and further development of new firms. Practical implications regarding knowledge management indicate that firms face time and spatial challenges when developing, transferring and acquiring knowledge. In sum, the evidence points out in favor of existent and persistent regional heterogeneity in terms of economic and technological specialization as sources of employment.

This research adds to the empirical evidence focusing on the effects of knowledge spillover effects in the Innovative Startup segment of the economy. This research highlights the applicability of knowledge spillover effects accounting for levels of industry competition, specialization and diversity. We also provide a measure of cluster formation and concentration at the sectoral and regional levels. Thus, the research provides a better understanding under which conditions knowledge is more likely to have positive or negative effects on employment generation.

The purpose of this paper is to look at the factors driving labour creation in Russia, while paying attention to the role of innovation policy. The study considers innovation variables with indicators linked to social conditions (social filter component) and geographical spillovers for 85 regions during the period 2010-2016.

In particular, the study uses latitude and longitude coordinates to compute the distance between Russian regions according to the Haversine formula. In this manner, it measures the spillovers as the weighted sum of R&D capital stock on the basis of computed distance, according to the accessibility index procedure.

The finding is very important in terms of policy implications for supporting employment. As the results stress that own innovation produces labour creation effects, while knowledge spillovers are labour-saving, the study could conclude that regional innovation policy may have undetermined the objective of an efficient level of absorptive capacity able to benefit positively from external innovation.

The study contributes to the literature by exploring whether geographical spillovers are labour-friendly or labour-saving in Russia.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of different kinds of merger and acquisitions (M&As) on domestic industries’ productivity in the form of technological change (TC) and efficiency change (EC) in the Brazilian extracting and processing industries.

Panel data analysis is employed to test the impact of different kinds of M&As spillovers on each component of productivity growth. The database contains data collected from 2007 to 2011 referring to the Brazilian industries. The estimation procedure involves two stages. The first stage decomposes TFP growth into EC and TC using a input-based Malmquist Productivity Index. In the second step, EC and TC indexes are used interchangeably as a dependent variable in panel data regressions on the M&As-spillover variables.

The results indicate a positive relationship between TC and M&As made by Brazilian majority capital acquiring foreign-held capital from a company established abroad, which is consistent with reverse spillover theory. They also suggest an inverse relationship between TC and M&A operations made by companies with foreign majority capital acquiring both Brazilian-held capital and foreign-held capital from a company established in Brazil. Only the sectors that are capable of increasing their productivity via TC are able to benefit from technology transfer.

This study is limited by the extent of data aggregation applied, which did not identify M&A transaction effects at the firm level. The available data do not allow isolating the effects of M&A processes on industry performance, given the co-occurrence of several factors that affect the performance of the industry. The study results imply that public managers must remain cognizant of the critical need to preserve and maximize competition between foreign and domestic firms while promoting a competitive environment that encourages the development of domestic technological capacities and skilled human capital.

M&A processes raise important issues with respect to organizational decisions and industrial policy. Studies of M&A transactions may be of fundamental importance to the expansion of healthy companies as they evolve through successive stages of growth and development. Liberalizing regulations to promote M&A transactions, and corporate market control is only justified if it promotes social welfare and economic development. Understanding the complexity and dynamics of this phenomenon and appreciating the heterogeneity of possible outcomes can lead to more relevant discussion regarding their contributions.

Results found in this study indicate the need for greater efforts to understand how M&A operations, especially those associated to foreign-held capital, interact with local owned enterprises in developing economies and what benefits can be achieved through public policy. M&A operations need to be well evaluated by considering the kinds and intensities of externalities they might generate, whether and how local firms can potentially internalize those gains, building up absorptive capacities in order to achieve productivity spillover gains.

This study not only offers a more accurate understanding of the diverse nature and effects of M&A operations, but also stimulates a more relevant public policy discussion related to both foreign direct investment and OFDI incentives in Brazil. The growing economic importance of the activities of developing emerging countries’ multinational enterprises is making governments more inclined to re-evaluate their political strategies. Indeed, governments are beginning to recognize that markets need to be created, monitored and nurtured.

Although the theoretical arguments provide several channels through which innovation affects export, empirical validation of this relationship is scarce. Further, the impact of the diverse channels of domestic and foreign research and development (R&D) on export is assessed in isolation by previous studies. This paper empirically investigates the impact of technological innovation on export capacity and intensity of industrial enterprises in emerging countries by considering three channels of domestic innovation and foreign R&D spillovers, namely internal R&D, embodied knowledge and disembodied knowledge in a unified framework.

Data on China's industrial enterprises in the manufacturing sector are extracted from the China National Bureau of Statistics (NBSC), the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MST) and the UN Comtrade database for the period from 1998 to 2020. The instrumental variables two-stage least squares (IV-2SLS) and three-stage least squares (IV-3SLS) methods are used to control for the possible endogeneity bias and the problem of cross-equation correlation between residuals.

The results show that internal R&D is a critical factor to enhance the export performance of enterprises in emerging countries, while the effect of embodied spillovers and public–private collaboration on export capacity and intensity of industrial enterprises is substantial. Further, disembodied knowledge that is acquired through licensing of technology from advanced countries does not directly contribute to the export performance of enterprises but requires a threshold level of internal R&D capability. This study’s results also report a greater effect of embodied knowledge spillovers on export capacity and export intensity than internal R&D in emerging countries. The results are consistent to changes in the sample period and the estimation methods. The findings of the paper suggest that developing countries can speed up the process of export upgrading by relying on both domestic and foreign R&D efforts.

The findings would help policymakers to keep in mind the relative importance of internal R&D and embodied and disembodied knowledge spillovers for export performance before formulating a catch-up strategy and the outcome would encourage them to consider prior related knowledge in terms of internal R&D capability while acquiring external technology.

This study fills the gap in the existing literature by providing empirical validation of the innovation–export interplay and simultaneously assessing the effect of three diverse channels of technological innovation on the export performance of industrial enterprises. This paper enunciates important policy lessons for emerging countries' smooth transition to a knowledge-based economy.