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Relying on mergers and acquisition transaction-level data set and adopting a more region-specific approach with a focus on industry-region pairs, this paper aims to examine how cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) have an effect, in terms of technological spillover and collaboration, on European regional clusters.

Adopting an industry-region pair approach, this study is based on a quantitative analysis of regional clusters belonging to 262 European regions and 25 patenting industries. Different thresholds of industrial specialization are used to identify clustering industries within a region. Invention performance at the regional cluster level is defined through two sets of different measurements to assess the impact of CBAs on invention quantity performance and internal and external technological collaboration.

The results reveal that CBAs have a positive and significant impact on the number of patents as well as the number of internal and external technological collaborations and that this effect is persistent over time. Furthermore, through exploring the interindustry technological spillover effect of CBAs registered in the same region of a cluster but outside the cluster itself, the authors found that CBAs in a regional cluster are inclined to produce technological spillovers within the cluster but no significant effects in the other industries of the region.

This paper is an attempt to empirically explore CBAs and technological spillover in European regional clusters. Therefore, it contributes to the debate, thanks to the use of an industry-region pair approach.

The purpose of the paper is to portrait how members of cluster organizations (COs) perceive the role of COs in enabling them to accumulate technological capability (TC) significant for their innovation.

The authors report the findings from their qualitative study based on an analysis of four COs. The organizational inertia and absorptive capacity theories are the theoretical underpinning of the research.

The study shows that the dynamics of TC of the cluster companies included in the study sample relates to their initial level of TC and cluster cooperation. The companies with relatively low initial TC increase it through COs if the clusters offer comparatively high benefits. On the other hand, those COs' members that present relatively high initial TC advance it, provided that the external knowledge and other benefits they can absorb in their clusters are suited to their technological trajectories.

The research is preliminary in nature and portrays how firms with different levels of TC cooperate within COs and how this cooperation translates into TC improvements. The findings add to the state-of-the-art knowledge on the link between TC and absorptive capacity of companies involved in COs by depicting the role of COs in providing knowledge and other cluster benefits that help cluster companies to accumulate TC and improve their absorptive capacity. Nevertheless, the applied methodology does not allow the authors to generalize the findings.

The coordinators of COs should skillfully shape the levels of cluster cooperation, matching them to the desired level of the cluster companies. They should create smaller subgroups composed of companies with similar TC, which may translate into its higher dynamic.

The knowledge about the role of COs in providing cluster benefits that help cluster companies to accumulate TC and improve their absorptive capacity is still insufficient. The study shed new light on the key role of the levels of cluster cooperation and the types of commitment related to them (i.e. technological effort), which may be a matter of importance in the dynamics of TC accumulation.

This paper systematically evaluates the existing literature of innovations in freight transport, including all modes, to uncover the key research themes and methodologies employed by researchers to study innovations and their implications in this industry. It analyses the role of transport and the impact of innovations during crises, such as COVID-19.

Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the innovations in freight transport unravels the pre-requisites of such endeavours in achieving a resilient and sustainable transport network that effectively and efficiently operates during a crisis. The authors performed keyword co-occurrence network (KCON) analysis and research focus parallelship network (RFPN) analysis using BibExcel and Gephi to determine the major resulting research streams in freight transport.

The RFPN identified five emerging themes: transport operations, technological innovation, transport economics, transport policy and resilience and disaster management. Optimisation and simulation techniques, and more recently, artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) approaches, have been used to model and solve freight transport problems. Automation innovations have also penetrated freight and supply chains. Information and communication technology (ICT)-based innovations have also been found to be effective in building resilient supply chains.

Given the growth of e-commerce during COVID-19 and the resulting logistics demand, along with the need for transporting food and medical emergency products, the role of automation, optimisation, monitoring systems and risk management in the transport industry has become more salient. Transport companies need to improve their operational efficiency using innovative technologies and data science for informed decision-making.

This paper advises researchers and practitioners involved in freight transport and innovation about main directions and gaps in the field through an integrated approach for evaluating research undertaken in the area. This paper also highlights the role of crisis, e.g. COVID-19, and its impacts on freight transport. Major contributions of this paper are as follows: (1) a qualitative and quantitative, systematic and effective assessment of the literature on freight transport through a network analysis of keywords supplemented by a review of the text of 148 papers; (2) unravelling major research areas; (3) identifying innovations in freight transport and their classification as technological and non-technological and (4) investigating the impact of crises and disruptions in freight transport.

One of the main producers of wealth and prosperity of industrialized countries is the existence of sustainable systems, capable of converting technological innovation assets into substantial levels of industrial productivity, wealth and global competitiveness. However, very little has been capitalized from these cases for less developed regions. A framework is proposed (5Ls model), capable of empowering firms from industrial sectors of developing countries to: reach competitive Leverages; to Link and aLign these industrial clusters to their empowerment external drivers (academia, banking, complementary industries and government); to benchmark the cluster performance, against the best practices and Learn from the gaps; and, finally, to Lead and integrate the well performing clusters into world class value systems. To achieve these performances, a knowledge system architecture is proposed, which includes the 5Ls model supported by an effective structure of technological innovation systems (TIS), designed to administrate the collaboration network of diverse organizations, aligned to a common goal: the economic, social, political and cultural development of developing regions.

Economic clusters are global centers of excellence in particular industries or technologies. They consist of interlinked companies, specialized suppliers, support services, and relevant institutional actors in a specific field. Multinational enterprise (MNE) R&D strategy with regard to economic clusters is impacted by two contradictory forces. MNEs locating their R&D activities within economic clusters can benefit by availing of specialized resources and by capturing location-specific tacit knowledge. However, the risks of knowledge leakage can lead to adverse selection whereby clusters attract underperforming firms that have much to gain and little to lose. Further, general disagreement exists on the measurement of performance within economic clusters. We review the literature, assess the evidence, and suggest areas for productive future research.

The paper aims to investigate the role of specialization and agglomeration forces on industry performance in an emerging market, namely, Thailand. In particular, the impact of clusters and the influence of complexity will be tackled.

The methodology used is based on the work of Delgado et al. (2014). Industries and clusters are assigned to a certain category according to their respective level of specialization and complexity. Performance measures are then computed for each category.

It was found that the agglomeration of similar industries and co-located and related industries increase the performance of firms in terms of gross output per employee and remuneration per employee. Moreover, the increase of performance induced by the complexity level of an industry was closely related to the level of specialization.

Building on a cluster mapping, this study brings new insight on the effect of specialization and agglomeration on performance in emerging markets. In fact, the paper show how performance can be enhanced in less sophisticated and developed economies.

This paper examines the issues and barriers that inhibit faculty from using technology in instruction. It uses the diffusion and adoption theory as a means to understand and explain how individuals and organisations react when an innovation is introduced into their environment. The framework proposed combines the empirical data from research using concept mapping with the theoretical factors identified from the literature to create a structured process that identifies the priority issues and barriers to technology adoption. Multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis were used to analyse the data gathered from the brainstorming session. A barrier definition and classification scheme was created and used to connect issues to barriers of adoption. Descriptive mixed methods approach was also used to develop a pictorial multivariate conceptual framework for understanding the relationships between issues and barriers to adopting instructional technology. Findings suggest that as a higher education institution in the early adoption phase of using instructional technology approaches critical mass of faculty users, it must address the issues of the critical mass, in order for the mainstream faculty to see the utility in the use of instructional technology in the classroom. This research lays the foundation for further research into the development of a systematic process or approach for managing the diffusion and adoption of technology in instruction at an institute of higher education.

The aim of this research is to analyze the knowledge transfer process in technological innovation clusters. The problem of the study addresses how organizations can act in a network to enhance experiences and gains, particularly in the aspect of knowledge management.

The study is qualitative, applied through a case study, cross-sectional and multiple sources of evidence – semistructured interviews, nonparticipant observation and analysis of documents and secondary institutional data. The case analyzed was the Technology Park of São José dos Campos, in Brazil, involving private companies, governmental organizations, universities and research institutions.

The results reinforce the arguments that the transfer of knowledge is influenced by factors, facilitators or inhibitors such as: cooperation, relationship with institutions, workforce mobility and geographical proximity, influencing the competitiveness and performance of the organizations in the cluster.

This study advances the knowledge management literature in network environments, especially in technological innovation clusters, systematizing and highlighting the facilitating and inhibiting dimensions of knowledge transfer.

The present work has a direct dialogue with the managers and actors involved in the governance of these organizational arrangements with regard to increasing the capacity for creation and the dissemination of knowledge among organizations, educational institutions, government and companies.

There is a presence of aspects indicating that knowledge goes beyond borders through dynamic and collaborative structures, reinforcing the premise that clusters must be perceived as an evolutionary system, whose result of interactions leads to a superior joint capacity.

This paper addresses the geographical dimension of cross-border knowledge integration, expressed as the co-invention of patent filings and investigates the siting of patenting activities by major US corporations in China. Most importantly, the study looks into the patterns of international co-invention or the links of these locations to headquarters and other company subsidiaries.

The study explores the cases of six US multinationals that file international patent applications in China. The applications were analyzed based on the composition of invention teams and the locations of inventors.

The co-invented patent filings by US multinational enterprises (MNEs) in China demonstrate a high degree of US–Chinese subsidiary collaboration. Links with other subsidiaries are marginal, and at the same time, high levels of sole patenting by inventors in China point to competence-creating research and development (R&D) activities taking place.

The lack of subsidiary-subsidiary collaboration, especially subsidiaries in other emerging markets, indicates a less diversified strategy of leveraging internal networks of knowledge. This also implies that Chinese subsidiaries still lack attractiveness as partners in subsidiary-subsidiary co-invention. Only two companies in our sample, Procter & Gamble and Intel, demonstrate a highly diversified, integrated and transnational pattern of innovation management.

The paper contributes to the contextual understanding of the rich landscape of R&D activities of major US MNEs in China. By exploring these cases, the paper identifies a number of trends. First, the R&D activities in this sample are highly concentrated in technological clusters located in Beijing and Shanghai. Technological clustering is an important advantage of the innovation landscape in emerging markets. Second, the paper underscores the importance of differentiating between different types of co-invention. The patent applications in this sample tend to unite inventors mostly from the US and China, and so multi-country applications involving subsidiaries in other countries are rare. Thus, the level of integration outside the center-host bandwidth is low. However, Chinese subsidiaries demonstrate high levels of autonomy by filing single-country applications, which implies that they are building their own research identity.

The purpose of the work is to determine conflicts that may appear in clusters.

The methodology of the research is based on combination of systemic, institutional, and evolutional approaches, including private general scientific methods of subject-object, factor, comparative, functional and structural and descriptive analysis, classification, and modeling.

Comparison of programs of development of territorial innovational clusters is conducted, as well as comparative analysis of methodological approaches to analysis of the institutional basis of regional clusters; a ranking of target directions of regional programs of development of innovational territorial clusters is compiled. The authors’ classification of conflicts of regional clusters is offered.

The performed analysis helped to determine presence of various defects, dysfunctions, and negative effects with clusters that emphasize their high susceptibility to conflicts that have to be taken into account during formation of regional cluster policy, aimed at their conflict-free functioning.