Open,Semi-Open and Closed Innovators: Towards an Explanation of Degree of Openness

There is much controversy in the literature over the relationship between the openness of firms' innovation strategies and firm characteristics such as size, R&D intensity and sector. We argue that the controversy arises because, both theoretically and empirically, only a binary, open vs. closed, strategy has been considered. In this paper, we distinguish among three firm strategies: open, semi-open and closed, drawing upon a panel of Spanish firms (2004–2006) using data from Community Innovation Survey (CIS)-type surveys, and two different indicators of openness. Our results show that open innovators are smaller and less R&D intensive than semi-open ones, although larger and more R&D intensive than closed innovators. These results reduce some of the controversies, and show that two conflicting forces, absorptive capacity and a “need” effect, are at stake in open innovation strategies.     

政府主导下军民融合式协同创新的演化博弈

应用演化博弈理论,从动态角度对有限理性的政府、军工企业和民营企业间的博弈行为进行分析,探讨政府主导下军民合作创新系统中双方成员的演化稳定策略,提出促进军工领域多主体最优合作的对策和建议。结果表明,协同创新系统的超额收益、研发总成本以及背叛收益等因素对双方的策略选择具有直接的影响。政府通过建立完善的激励、监督和惩罚机制,打造良好的军民融合式发展环境,发挥宏观调控作用,能够促进创新体系向帕累托最优的方向演化。     

Break on Through: Sources and Determinants of Product and Process Innovation among UK Construction Firms

While construction is often seen as a low‐technology sector, it has witnessed substantial changes in practices, processes, technology and performance over the past 20 years. Understanding the sources of these changes is important for innovation strategy and policy to improve performance within the sector, and because it produces the capital goods—buildings and structures—to enable other sectors to develop. Logistic regression is applied to data from the UK Innovation Survey to examine sources of product and process innovation among construction firms. Results show that working with customers, suppliers and having a broad market orientation can help construction firms break through the confines of their particular industrial context. The paper concludes by exploring implications of these findings for policy and theory and by considering questions for further research.     

Optimal degree of openness in open innovation: A perspective from knowledge acquisition & knowledge leakage

Open innovation has become an important mode for firms to improve innovation performance. If the openness is too low, it will reduce the opportunity to acquire external knowledge, while too open will increase the risk of internal knowledge leakage. Therefore, the degree of openness plays a key role in the use of open innovation to improve innovation performance. We use the openness breadth and openness depth to describe the openness of innovation. We conduct an agent-based simulation methodology to study the optimal degree of openness. Our findings show that there are great differences in the optimal degree of openness under different situations. Moreover, as the situation changes, the optimal degree of openness changes regularly. More specifically, the more a firm's knowledge network structure holes, the smaller the optimal openness breadth and the greater the optimal openness depth. The higher a firm's knowledge network centrality, the greater the optimal openness breadth and the smaller the optimal openness depth. The worse the institutional environment, the smaller the optimal openness breadth and openness depth. The fiercer the market competition, the greater the optimal openness breadth and the smaller the optimal openness depth.     

煤炭产业技术创新战略的探讨

在分析和探讨技术创新及其战略理论的基础上,分析了我国煤炭产业的技术创新及其战略问题,考虑到技术发展阶段差异较大的特点,先进企业的创新战略应选择率先创新与模仿创新并存,其他大多数企业则应主要采用模仿创新战略,并形成产学研相结合、主体及模式多元化的集成创新格局。     

社会创新设计研究进展可视化分析

目的 为了更好地了解和把握国内外社会创新设计研究进展,对相关文献产出分布、研究热点、基础知识及前沿趋势进行分析。方法 以CNKI数据库及Web of Science核心合集数据库作为国内外数据来源,通过可视化文献分析软件VOSviewer及Citespace对国内外相关文献进行分析。结论 国内外研究基本同步,主要以DESIS网络中的院校合作为主,国外研究热点集中于以社区为对象,设计管理、社会创新设计方法、生态设计、可持续设计;国内主要以城市和乡村社区服务设计、设计教育、设计战略、社会创新设计方法为主要对象。社会创新设计的演进经历了设计思维的发展及设计对象的转变两个阶段。国外研究前沿趋势为以社区为对象的可持续设计,国内前沿趋势为以乡村为对象的社会创新设计、可持续设计、服务设计等。在突发的全球疫情背景下,医疗健康、公共卫生也是国内外的前沿趋势。     

The Recent Growth Performance of US Firms in the Industrial Design Sector: An Exploratory Study

This paper assesses the competitive factors associated with company growth in the US industrial design sector. This small but technologically advanced sector delivers critical innovation inputs to firms that produce durable goods. Evidence from a survey of 85 US design companies suggests that competitive success hinges upon service diversity. Specifically, the most commercially buoyant companies have diversified their service offerings beyond product or component design. These firms have developed strategic competencies in fields such as contract research, prototype development, product testing, technological forecasting, market analysis and even advertising. Although most US design companies are small-to-medium-sized enterprises, successful firms do not differ from their less successful counterparts in terms of employment size, occupational structure, regional location or market focus (client sectors). Instead, the key differences lie in service diversity and the quality of human capital. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of the empirical findings for future research on the dynamics of the design industry.     

Choosing the right collaboration partner for innovation: a framework based on topic analysis and link prediction

Selecting the right collaboration partner is one of the most important contributors to success in collaborative innovation. Accordingly, numerous methods for selecting an appropriate partner have been developed to guide would-be collaborators in their search. Most rely on bibliographic information, which may be easier for that data is readily available and relatively normalized. However, with the benefit of today’s text mining and fusion techniques, it is possible to mine the content of papers and patents so as to result in far more nuanced and advantageous choices. In this article, we explore how to select partners for collaborative innovation by combining the characteristics of the authors of paper and patent documents as well as their content. Drawing on existing research, we developed a systematic framework that relies on topic analysis and link prediction. With a corpus of papers and patents assembled, the framework extracts correlated scientific and technological topics followed by a list of author institutions and a list of patentees. These organisations are parsed and evaluated using two indicators of innovation—capability and openness—to result in two separate ranked lists. Two integrated collaboration networks that include both author institutions and patentees are then built, and a link prediction method identifies missing links with a high likelihood of fruitful cooperation. A case study on hepatitis C virus research shows that the ranking procedure and the link prediction method can be used either together or separately to effectively identify collaborative innovation partners. Our results provide significant quantitative evidence for policymakers who are looking to foster cooperation between research institutions and/or high-tech enterprises. Our research may also serve as the basis for further in-depth research on collaborative innovation, R&D cooperation, and link prediction theories and methods.

     

Influences of Technical Innovation Mode on Innovation Strategy of Energy Enterprises

Technical innovation is the core for enterprise competence and sustaining. Technical innovation strategy is the policy which the enterprise carries out for technology innovation in a long term. The paper took the practice of the technology innovation strategy in PetroChina Chang- qing Oilfield Company as a case study, and illustrated the significance, function and features of the self-developed technology innovation, cooperation development technology innovation and introduction-innovation based on the strategy structure of the energy enterprises. The suggestions for technology innovation strategy structure for large energy enterprise were proposed in the paper.     

How Similar is Innovation in German,Italian and Spanish Medium-Technology Sectors? Implications for the Sectoral Systems of Innovation and Distance-to-the-Frontier Perspectives

This study analyzes innovation activities in medium-technology sectors in Germany, Italy and Spain and checks whether cross-country similarities or differences prevail. The results have important implications for the Sectoral Systems of Innovation and the Distance-to-the-Frontier frameworks. While the Sectoral Systems of Innovation predicts the existence of technology-related similarities in innovative patterns in the same sectors across countries, the Distance-to-the Frontier suggests the existence of relevant differences related with the level of technological development of each national sector. Using Community Innovation Survey data and adapting an econometric strategy first devised by Griffith, Huergo, Mairesse and Peters [Innovation and Productivity Across four European Countries, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 22(4), 483–498, 2006], I test whether similarities or differences prevail across country in different features of innovation activity. The results show that relevant differences between the three countries exist in the intensity of R&D activities and in the economic impact of different types of innovations, providing support to the Distance-to-the-Frontier hypothesis. On the contrary, cross-country similarities emerge among the sources of knowledge used to develop innovations, in line with the Sectoral Systems of Innovation framework. The results highlight the importance to take into account both frameworks for a useful analysis of innovation within sectors and across countries.     

Sectoral collaboration in biomedical research and development

This paper explores the role of sectors in scientific research and development networks by drawing on bibliometric analyses and innovation systems and triple helix literatures. I conducted a bibliometric study of Vancouver Canada’s worldwide infection and immunity network and examined network structure through sociograms, social network metrics, as well as relational contingency table and ANOVA network analyses. Universities are the key network sector followed by hospitals and government organisations. The private sector plays a weak role. Most sectors show a preference for collaborating within, as opposed to across, sectors. This trend is most pronounced in hospitals and least pronounced among firms. Hospitals and universities collaborate well above statistical expectations. I discuss the implications of these findings for future science policy and studies of research and development networks.     

浙江中小企业创新机制的研究

对浙江中小企业创新机制进行研究,发现存在税负过重、创新投入效率低、技术创新的信息化水平较低等问题.于是,作者结合浙江省实际情况,提出了改革税制、提高创新投入效率和信息化水平等设想.     

市场分割会抑制企业高质量创新吗?

形成全国统一开放、竞争有序的商品及要素市场,是实现国家创新驱动发展战略的关键支点,同时是推进供给侧结构性改革这一现代化体系建设题中之义。基于上市公司2007-2017年的面板数据,采用实证分析方法研究市场分割程度对企业自主创新投入的影响效应,经检验发现:首先,市场扭曲显著抑制了企业研发创新水平。其次,从地区划分来看,相比中西部地区,市场分割对东部地区企业的研发带来更大的负向影响;从分地区的金融发展水平相比来看,市场分割对位于较高金融发展水平地区的企业创新活动产生的抑制效应更为显著;从不同的所有制看,相比国有制企业,市场分割对非国有制企业创新的负向效应更加显著。此外,进一步从市场分割对企业创新带来负向效应的影响机制来看,市场分割将会通过市场集中度下降和地区财政依赖性增强阻碍企业的自主创新。     

The idiosyncrasy and dynamism of technological innovation across industries: patent citation analysis

In general, the structural and behavioral patterns of technological innovation are idiosyncratic across industrial sectors and dynamic over time. Yet, despite voluminous amounts of previous research, patterns of innovation are hard to standardize or theorize. The objectives of this article are two-fold. One is to investigate distinctive and changing patterns of technological innovation across industries and observe dynamic trends over time. The other is to identify patterns of relationships among industries and examine the roles of respective industries. To this end, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) patent database was used and patent citation analysis applied. The idiosyncratic differences among industrial sectors are highlighted, especially between conventional manufacturing sectors and science-based sectors. We also found changing trends in technological knowledge flows across industries.     

Content and Trends in Engineering Management Literature

Abstract

Analysis investigating subject content and trends in engineering management literature from 1993 to 2000 is reported. 479 articles from Engineering Management Journal and IEEE Transactions in Engineering Management were analyzed using content analysis of article subject classifications. Results indicate a consistent effort by engineering management researchers to apply technical skills in the larger context of answering the leadership and management questions facing technical organizations today. The preponderance of engineering management research in the manufacturing and services industry sectors was confirmed. These trends were identified: decreasing research attention in the subject of strategic planning; increasing research attention in the services industrial sector; and increase in the subject of innovation. Varying emphasis on the subject of total quality/quality assurance was seen throughout the time period of this research.     

Open Strategies and Innovation Performance

Scholarly interest in the relationship between open strategies and innovation performance has been unfailing, and in recent years has even increased. The present paper focuses on inbound open strategies and reviews various approaches (transaction costs, competences, open innovation) dealing with firms' decisions about these strategies. The different approaches result in different conclusions about the optimum level of openness. They are tested empirically taking account of the different degrees of firms' openness (closed, semi-open, open, ultra-open) and their relationship with sales of new-to-the-market products, and using a panel of Spanish firms from a Community Innovation Survey type survey for the period 2004–2008. Our results show that closed and semi-open strategies are the most common among Spanish firms and that open strategies are associated with the best performance, while semi-open strategies are correlated to a higher performance than closed ones. These results hold across different subsamples based on firm size and industry, and are robust to different ways of defining the indicators and to different estimation methods.     

Heterogeneous Partners,R&D cooperation and corporate innovation capability: Evidence from Chinese manufacturing firms

In this paper, we examine the differential impact of cooperation with heterogeneous partners on firms' innovation capabilities. We use the number of joint patent applications of Chinese manufacturing firms from 2008 to 2018 to measure cooperation with different types of partners and the number of corporate patents to measure the innovation capability of firms. The results indicate that R&D cooperation with other enterprises, universities, and research institutions all have a significantly positive impact on the innovation capability of enterprises. However, R&D cooperation with universities or research institutions has a higher positive impact on innovation capability than that with other firms. Different internal and external factors moderate the relationship between heterogeneous partners and the innovation capability of firms. Specifically, firms with higher absorptive capacity will benefit more from R&D cooperation with corporate partners. In contrast, in industries with higher market concentration or where firms are at the technological frontier, cooperation with universities will positively impact their innovation capabilities. Further research demonstrates that absorptive capacity has a more positive moderating effect when the cooperation is between firms in the same industry, compared to R&D cooperation between firms in different industries.     

Direct and indirect knowledge spillovers and industrial productivity

This paper analyses the importance of externalities related to the spread of innovation across sectors. Such spillover effects arise from R&D activities and input–output (IO) linkages among sectors in the country. We borrow Spatial Econometrics techniques to make consistent estimates of the impact of these systematic direct and indirect spillovers on sector’s productivity and the possibility of other types of productivity spillovers in the error term. We find that direct spillovers emanating from IO horizontal linkages determine sector’s productivity, while the indirect effects prove to be negligible. Furthermore, the technological intensity of IO linkages and the productive structure of the underlying economy are key factors determining the effectiveness of economic policies focused on increasing total industrial productivity.     

An analysis of the patenting activities and collaboration among industry-university-research institutes in the Chinese ICT sector

Few comprehensive and long time-span studies have examined the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector in China and its implications for China’s national and regional innovation system. Taking advantage of the patents granted by the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China from 1985 to 2010, this paper examined innovation performance in the Chinese ICT industry with the help of bibliometric techniques. The analysis has been conducted from several perspectives, including the trend and character of patent outputs, the most prolific Chinese regions and their changes, the primary innovators and their type of institutions, and the collaboration among university (U)-industry (I)-research institutes (R). The results show that the great importance that the government and domestic enterprises attach to technology R&D and patent protection has brought significant improvements in the Chinese ICT sector, and enterprises have thus gradually become the main body of technological innovation in recent years. In terms of U-I-R collaborations, I-I collaborations are the most popular pattern, followed by U-I and I-R collaborations. In the last 20 years or so, U-I-R collaborations have improved, but they are still weak. In the future, U-I-R collaborations should be further reinforced, and more universities and research institutes should be encouraged to become involved in U-I-R collaborations to help enterprises enhance their innovative capabilities.