Assessing the relationship between R&D subsidy,R&D cooperation and absorptive capacity: an investigation on the manufacturing Spanish case

Private companies want to eliminate outgoing spillovers while policymakers seek to maximize them. With subsidized R&D cooperation agreements both agents partially achieve their objectives. For this reason, in Europe, policymakers grant subsidies for R&D activities with the condition of establishing R&D cooperation agreements. This study explores the relationship of complementarity between R&D subsidy, R&D cooperation and absorptive capacity in the context of its contribution to labor productivity of enterprises. The data used comes from the Technological Innovation Panel (PITEC), managed by the Spanish National Statistics Institute. We selected manufacturing companies in the period 2008–2013. We evaluate the existence of complementarity through the systems approach and the interaction approach. The econometric technique that we used to estimate the coefficients of our empirical model was maximum-likelihood random effects. As a consequence of the low absorptive capacity of Spanish manufacturing firms we find that R&D subsidies and R&D cooperation agreements are not complementary variables, i.e., receiving public subsidies as a result of establishing R&D cooperation agreements has a lower impact on productivity than the sum of the individual impacts of R&D cooperation and R&D subsidies. In consequence, this result calls into question the convenience of using subsidized R&D cooperation agreements as a tool for promoting innovation in EU countries as there are notable differences between the companies in these countries in terms of absorption capacity.     

Factors influencing technology transfer: The case of China

Transferring and utilizing technology in developing economies is a vital issue for economic growth. Often the separation between R&D institutes and industrial concerns limits the transfer of technology. The People's Republic of China, which has conducted R&D in institutes separate from the potential user firms, has recently moved to facilitate domestic technology transfer from R&D institutes to R&D consumers. This study, based on the statistical analysis of 60 R&D institutes in the machinery sector in China, found that, while R&D intensity improves transfer of technology, funding and employee mobility hinders transfer. His special area is in science and technology policy. He had worked for the State Science and Technology Commission of China for six years before he came to the US.     

The role of R&D and input trade in productivity growth: innovation and technology spillovers

Productivity improvements generally are driven by technology innovation and its spillovers. This study explores the role of R&D investment and intermediate input trade in productivity growth using country-industry-level data for 25 advanced and emerging economies. This paper confirms that R&D investment and intermediate input import/export (both intra- and inter-industry) with technologically advanced economies play important roles in productivity growth in non-frontier countries. We further find that the productivity gains of technology spillovers via input trade channels are likely larger for countries/industries where technology converges to the frontier. These findings imply that the recent slowdown in R&D investment and intermediate input trade in some advanced economies may contribute to declining productivity growth. The potential productivity improvements from R&D investment and free trade as well as the importance of domestic capacity in facilitating technology spillovers should be recognized.

     

R&D spinoffs: Serendipity vs. a managed process

This paper describes some of the spinoff benefits that can result from R&D projects, and categorizes them in terms of the dimensions of market and technical newness. These dimensions are discussed with reference to two types of spinoffs: 1) alternative market applications, when the results of an R&D project are subsequently applied to a market or use that differs from the originally intended application, and 2) second-generation technologies, when the technology that was the subject of an R&D project is significantly altered or enhanced in unanticipated ways through subsequent R&D. Examples from the Department of Energy's Energy-Related Inventions Program are integrated into the results of literature review to illustrate key concepts, including core technologies, degrees of market and technology newness, technology robustness, and the nature of connections linking spinoffs to prior R&D investments. The paper concludes by discussing spinoffs as a managerial strategy.     

Tax incentives for innovation: time to restructure the R&;E tax credit

The R&E tax credit has never been effective and subsequent attempts to restructure it have not addressed the major deficiencies. Moreover, in the 25 years since the R&E tax credit was enacted, a steadily increasing number of countries have implemented or expanded competing tax incentives, which in many cases are better structured and larger in size. As a result, the relative impact of the US credit is now negative in terms of incentives to conduct R&D within the domestic economy. The inadequacy of the credit stems largely from its small size and its incremental format. The impact of an R&D tax incentive is affected by its scope of coverage, the ability of industry to take advantage of it over the entire R&D cycle, the magnitude of the incentive relative to other nations’ tax policies, and its ease of implementation. In the end, a tax incentive must sufficiently lower the user’s cost of R&D to overcome barriers to allocation of private-sector resources commensurate with the potential rates of return on such investments. As a policy instrument, a tax incentive for R&D should be most effective if its form is a flat rate applied to all R&D.

Strategy first in international joint ventures

International technology- based joint ventures are proliferating despite their inherent complexity and high risk of failure. US firms continue to employ international joint ventures as a vehicle for collaborative research and development (R & D); foreign investors prefer the joint venture for investing in the emerging market economies of Eastern Europe. Tipping the balance in favor of successful joint ventures requires a strategic approach from the very advent of entering into an international R&D arrangement: an approach in which clear objectives are set and alternative ways to reach these objectives are systematically evaluated. Several frameworks are presented that clarify and facilitate the decisionmaking process during the initial phases of considering a joint venture in which project objectives are developed, alternative R&D arrangements are evaluated, and potential partners are identified and eventually selected.     

Location choices within global innovation networks: the case of Europe

Rapid growth in internationalization of corporate R&D has spurred considerable interest since the 1990s. Foreign R&D is still mainly driven by the expansion of international production, but technology sourcing has become an increasingly important driver of dispersion. Actually, differences across sectors and companies tend to obscure the mix of motivations behind the development of global innovation networks. This paper distinguishes the various drivers of the international dispersion of corporate R&D in order to elaborate a typology of foreign R&D units, including in emerging countries. This typology is used to discuss the emergence of differentiated global innovation networks and the location choices by type of R&D unit. It is applied to foreign R&D projects in Europe in high and low cost countries between 2002 and 2005. It is then used to discuss the weakening attractiveness of the European Union for R&D activities and the relevant policies that countries can design to attract different types of units.

China��s exports in information communication technology and its impact on Asian countries

This paper analyzes the export growth of China??s information communication technology (ICT) products in two major markets Japan and the US from 1995 to 2008 and its competition with six East Asian countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Korea. The analysis shows that China has emerged as the largest single supplier of ICT products to both markets. By 2008, China??s exports accounted for 44 and 38% of total Japanese and the US ICT imports respectively. On the other hand, market shares of the six East Asian countries either remained stagnant or decreased substantially. The analysis by destination markets and by product categories indicates that, there exist significant negative correlations between market shares of China and that of the six East Asian countries, implying that the rapid expansion of China??s ICT exports crowded out exports of its East Asian competitors.     

Technology transfer practice in japanese corporations: Meeting new service requirements

Japanese corporations are undergoing radical transition: they have begun to reassess the role, organization, and management of their internal R&D and technology commercialization activities in response to changing market, business, and technical conditions. From large consumer electronics firms such as Matsushita and Sony to the semiconductor and computing conglomerates such as Fujitsu and NEC, these organizations are under considerable pressure to both invent and innovate more rapidly and cheaply than ever before. As technologies become more complex and integrated—such as the convergence of electronics, computing, video, and broadcast television—it is no longer practical to assume that all of a firm's R&D needs can be met internally. This paper looks first at how major Japanese corporations have embraced technology transfer mechanisms such as licensing, joint collaboration, and the outsourcing of R&D to manage these changes dynamically and effectively. Secondly, this paper looks at why Japanese firms' record of managing collaboration and licensing, particularly on an international basis, has been disappointing because of a number of problems and barriers. These difficulties, which are compounded by the further externalization of research and technology and by increased licensing activity, have given rise to a need for new technology transfer services which, until recently, have not been available either within the organization or through local consulting firms in Japan. This paper concludes by outlining strategic and operational guidelines for managing licensing and collaboration arrangements between U.S. and Japanese firms which are also applicable in the general case. These insights are based on the experiences of managing licensing and collaboration programs between Japanese and U.S. organizations from the dual perspectives of two licensing firms—Innovation Partners, kk. in Japan and Competitive Technologies, Inc. of the United States.     

Technology dissemination programmes and extramural R&;D support in India

This article offers a brief overview of the programmes in place for the provision of financial support to entrepreneurs and R&D organizations for technology commercialization and dissemination in India. Financial assistance is provided under these programmes to the industrial enterprises and R&D organizations by the Government of India for undertaking the development of new technology based products. Technology financing under these programmes is provided in the form of: grants, loan, and/or equity with the aim to strengthen the linkages of R&D laboratories with industry, as well as for the production of technology based products for the domestic and global market. Extramural funding agencies of the central government departments such as DSIR & DBT are involved in mainly the provision of financial support for R&D.     

Maximizing R&D investments in the Department of Energy's Environmental cleanup program

The investment made in research and development (R&D) by the Department of Energy's (DOE) Environmental Management (EM) program must result in products that will significantly benefit the Department's cleanup efforts. A customer-oriented decision-making process for managing technology development is needed to appropriately link technology development activities with cleanup operations. This paper presents a process for R&D management, which we have named the Technology Investment Decision Model.The model identifies six R&D stages leading to technology implementation. The model incorporates decision points (or “gates”) within the R&D process where projects are selected for funding. The purpose of this “stage-gate” process is to ensure early evaluation of projects against technical and nontechnical criteria in order to ensure that end products will not only provide superior performance, but also meet the acceptance requirements of the intended customers. The model addresses the technology transfer and commercialization factors that must be considered to get technological innovations into the marketplace. The model is now being implemented within the EM technology development program and is providing a common framework to align the Department's environmental R&D activities with its cleanup goals.     

Nanotechnology and the US national innovation system: continuity and change

A substantial literature on nanotechnology innovation and commercial development has characterized several elements of these phenomena as constituting new developments in the US national innovation system. Among these elements are the (asserted) “post-academic” nature of US universities’ involvement with nanotechnology R&D, and federal funding of nanotechnology R&D on goals related to economic competitiveness. This paper challenges the “novelty” of these elements, while suggesting that other elements of nanotechnology R&D, including the extensive patenting of the results of nanotechnology-related research and the emphasis within many university-industry collaborations on patent-based channels for “technology transfer,” may indeed be new and raise questions for the long-term efficiency and innovative performance of nanotechnology-related R&D.     

Measurement and Growth of R&D Within the Service Economy

Twenty-five years ago, industrial performance of research and development (R&D) was primarily an activity undertaken by large traditional manufacturing firms. Only about 3 percent of the R&D conducted in industrial labs was done by service sector firms. By the late 1990s, however, such firms accounted for approximately 30 percent of the Nation's total industrial R&D expenditures, with a fairly large amount of the effort being directed toward the development and use of information technologies. Industry's increasing reliance on research and technology outsourcing also apparently has contributed to the service sector's substantial R&D expansion. This paper documents recent trends in US non-manufacturing R&D expenditures, highlighting their growth and focus and the difficulties in measuring these trends, as available from national R&D statistics. Broad comparisons with trends and concerns identified through other countries' surveys of service sector R&D are presented.     

University and inter-firm R&D collaborations: propensity and intensity of cooperation in Europe

This paper investigates the determinants of firms’ decision to cooperate in R&D with universities and the intensity of the cooperation effort, in relation to the engagement in inter-firm R&D collaborations. Using novel survey data for seven EU countries between 2007 and 2009, our analysis accounts for unobservable factors influencing R&D cooperation forms and addresses the main endogeneity issues. We find that internal knowledge, appropriability conditions and incoming spillovers explain a large variation of the probability and of the intensity of R&D collaborations of European firms with universities (and comparably with unaffiliated companies).     

The structure and dynamics of the global network of inter-firm R&D partnerships 1989–2002

Research and development (R&D) partnerships are formed to share the risks and benefits of R&D. At the macro level, they result in a globe-spanning network that can be a valuable source of international knowledge spillovers. This network is the subject of a considerable body of literature. Often-made claims are that R&D collaboration is an important activity in a competitive environment, but that the importance of international partnerships has declined over time. Furthermore, it is claimed that collaborations are disproportionally concentrated within the developed economies. However, this literature fails to account for variations in the sizes of underlying firm populations between countries and over time. We argue that these population sizes create an opportunity structure of available collaboration partners for firms, and that ignoring variations in this structure potentially leads to erroneous conclusions about the structure and dynamics of the R&D network. To address this problem, we study the structure and dynamics of the global R&D network on an international and cross-industry scale using longitudinal data for 1989?C2002. We integrate data on public firms and their R&D partnerships and confront earlier findings with our data and a set of methods, which enables us to correct for the structure and dynamics in the firm population. While our study confirms previous findings concerning the worldwide trend in collaborative activity, it also shows that results on individual countries need correction. In particular, the importance of R&D collaboration for US companies is overestimated, while their openness towards foreign partners is underestimated.     

The R&D performance of the South African manufacturing sector, 1970–1993

In this article we undertake a detailed exploration of the research and development activities in one particular middle-income country. We explore what the data from R&D surveys can tell us about the levels, the determinants and the effectiveness of R&D in the manufacturing sector. We point to some of the broader factors that may have influenced South Africa’s drive to improve the technological capacity of its manufacturing sector, but we mostly focus on those issues associated directly with R&D. We show that the degree of interaction between the different domains of R&D activity, business, government and the tertiary sector has been weak, and that the possibility of positive spill-overs between these domains has not been fully exploited. In addition, little or no policy intervention designed to stimulate R&D activity by industry has been deployed in South Africa. We find that South African R&D activity has mainly been reactive in character and suggest that this lies at the heart of South Africa’s mixed R&D performance in relation to other developing countries.     

The effects of industry characteristics on the sources of technological product and process innovation

In order to explore the effects of industry characteristics on the sources of technological product and process (TPP) innovation, this paper considers various sources in a united framework, and identifies their cross-industry similarities and differences. It sheds light on three Chinese high technology industries, and empirically confirms that in-house R&D, technology transfer, technology spillover and back-propagation of user innovations are all effective sources of TPP innovation. However, each source creates different productivity in different industries, which may be explained by the following industry characteristics: the dependence on foreign technology, the importance attached to inventive in-house R&D, the level of domestic technology, the relative proportions of foreign and domestic users.     

Innovation capacity and economic development: China and India

Decomposing the GDP growth from 1981 to 2004, this paper finds that innovation capacity has contributed significantly to the economic growth of China and India, especially in the 1990 s. Outputs of the national innovation system, measured by patents and high-tech/service exports, demonstrate the considerable progress China and India have made in innovation capacity. The enhanced innovation capacity of China and India is primarily due to their heavy investment in the inputs of innovation system, i.e., R&D expenditure and R&D personnel, in recent decades. This paper emphasizes the role that the governments have played in promoting innovation capacity and their contribution to economic development. Both governments have transformed their national innovation systems through linking the science sector with the business sector, providing incentives for innovation activities, and balancing import of technology and indigenous R&D effort. Using case studies of domestic biotech firms in China and India, this paper also offers micro-level insights on innovation capacity and economic development: (1) innovation capacity has become essential for domestic firms?? market success and (2) global institutional factors and national government policies on innovation have considerable influence on the choice of innovation at the firm level, i.e., to conduct indigenous R&D or to import foreign technology.     

R&D Venture: proposition of a technology transfer concept for breakthrough technologies with R&D cooperation: A case study in the energy sector

At times when the market demands strong active innovation, large industrial corporations with established R&D organizations benefit from screening and developing breakthrough innovation. The ability of established organizations to absorb for future technologies is a key to successfully recognize, explore and capture breakthrough innovations. R&D Venturing is a practical way of bringing about technology transfer and exploration of future technologies through R&D cooperation, which is described in this paper by a multiple case study in the energy sector. Existing literature has been reviewed and an R&D Venturing concept will be suggested with a number of propositions for implementation. The results of the case study strongly support that different perspectives of the concept from industry, academia and the ventures themselves have to be carefully understood. Based on the results of the case study, a conceptual framework and propositions for a successful implementation have been derived. A critical discussion of the R&D Venturing concept shows the need for further empirical investigation.     

“We really don’t want to move,but...”: identity and strategy in the internationalisation of industrial R&;D

In Norway, as in many other high-cost OECD countries in a geographical and cultural periphery, policy-makers seem to have given up attempts at attracting large numbers of foreign R&D investments. Instead, a major focus of innovation policies is to help companies internationalise yet with an aim to maintain or even increase their level of R&D and other innovation activities nationally. Based on case studies of eight Norwegian companies and their motives for and experiences with internationalisation of R&D, this article questions this policy. From the perspective of the companies, many factors explain how, why and where they carry out their R&D activities.