SMEs in Regional Innovation Systems and The Role of Innovation Support--The Case of Upper Austria

In the past large firms were regarded as the main driving forces for innovation, but, more recently, the interest has shifted to SMEs as well as networks of firms. It has been recognized that SMEs innovate in a specific way and that they face size-specific barriers. To be able to rely on innovation partners and to be involved in regional or national innovation systems seems to be of critical importance for SMEs. This paper presents the empirical results of a firm survey in Upper Austria, a region with a long industrial tradition in Austria, investigating the extent to which SMEs are actually engaged in innovation networks and the role of public innovation support in this context. The findings show that SMEs which have received innovation support are more successful innovators than those which have not, and that innovation cooperations are rather rare. Most external relations are with other firms and within the region, very few with knowledge providers from science and technology. At present, innovation support instruments do not sufficiently target the deficits of non-innovative SMEs and the problems in linking up with innovation networks and broadening firms' relations beyond the region.     

Regional Innovation Systems in Central and Eastern Europe: Determinants, Organizers and Alignments

While proximity was an asset in socialism, during the post-socialist period the development of the region as a locus of innovation is essential for restructuring and sustainable growth of economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The paper analyzes the factors that determine the emergence of regional innovation systems in CEE. Based on a conceptual model of regional innovation system we explore four determinants: national, sectoral, micro and regional. These determinants operate as conditional advantages or disadvantages that require network organizers and network alignment in order to be turned into real advantages. The paper points to the important role of network organizers for enhancing regional innovation in the post-socialist economies. Policy implications of the model suggest that the emphasis should be on functions and programs rather than on new organizations.     

Regional Innovation Systems: The Integration of Local ‘Sticky’ and Global ‘Ubiquitous’ Knowledge

The paper examines how firms in three regional clusters in Norway dominated by shipbuilding, mechanical engineering and electronics industry, respectively exploit both place-specific local resources as well as external, world-class knowledge to strengthen their competitiveness. From these case-studies we make four points: (1) Ideal-typical regional innovation systems, i.e., regional clusters surrounded by supporting local organisations, is rather uncommon in Norway. (2) External contacts, outside of the local industrial milieu, are crucial in innovation processes also in many SMEs. (3) Innovation processes may nevertheless be regarded as regional phenomena in regional clusters, as regional resources and collaborative networks often have decisive significance for firms' innovation activity. (4) Regional resources include in particular place-specific, contextual knowledge of both tacit and codified nature, that, in combination, is rather geographically immobile.     

Funding the Cause: How Public Interest Law Organizations Fund Their Activities and Why It Matters for Social Change

Most of the work of public interest law organizations does not make money. How do these organizations survive, given the economic realities of law practice? Drawing on survey data from a national random sample of public interest law firms, we investigate how funding models vary across public interest organizations and how funding sources affect these organizations’ activities. We find funding structures have, over time, shifted away from foundation support toward government grants. Compared to other organizations, however, conservative organizations draw significantly less of their budget from federal and state grants, and significantly more of their budget from private contributions. Conservative organizations are significantly less likely than other organizations to rely on funding that prohibits engaging in class actions, receiving attorney's fees, or lobbying. Respondents reported that funding restrictions hamper their ability to negotiate favorable settlements, bring about systemic change, and represent vulnerable client communities. We close with a comparative institutional analysis of different funding models.     

Contextualising Regional Innovation Systems in a Globalising Learning Economy: On Knowledge Bases and Institutional Frameworks

In order to advance the understanding of which types of regional innovation system represent effective innovation support for what kinds of industry in different regions analyses must be contextualized by reference to the actual knowledge base of various industries as well as to the regional and national institutional framework, which strongly shape the innovation processes of firms. Of special importance is the linkage between the larger institutional frameworks of the national innovation and business systems, and the character of regional innovation systems. In making the arguments about a general correspondence between the macro-institutional characteristics of the economy and the dominant form and character of its regional innovation systems a link is provided to the literature on ‘varieties of capitalism’ and national business systems.     

The effects of university academic research on firm’s propensity to innovate at local level: evidence from Europe

The Journal of Technology Transfer - Universities have become key elements in building regional innovation systems. However, even though academic research is important when firms choose...     

When should a firm collaborate with research organizations for innovation performance? The moderating role of innovation orientation,size, and age

Little is known about the conditions strengthening or weakening the impact of a firm’s collaboration with research organizations on innovation performance. Thus, this study uses a sample of 542 manufacturing firms in Korea to examine how innovation orientation and firm size and age as internal characteristics influence the relationship between collaboration with research organizations and innovation performance. The results show that collaboration with research organizations has a positive impact on innovation performance. More importantly, this effect is stronger (weaker) for firms with a strong orientation toward exploration (exploitation). In addition, older or larger firms obtain greater benefits from collaboration with research organizations. This study contributes toward clarifying a firm’s collaboration with research organizations.     

A control group study of incubators’ impact to promote firm survival

It is widely unclear as to whether start-up firms supported by publicly-initiated incubator initiatives have higher survival rates than comparable start-up firms that have not received support by such initiatives. This paper contributes to the underlying discussion by performing a large-scale matched-pairs analysis of the long-term survival of 371 incubator firms (after their graduation) from five German incubators and a control group of 371 comparable non-incubated firms. The analysis covers a 10-year time span. To account for the problem of selection bias, a non-parametric matching approach is applied to identify an appropriate control group. For neither of the five incubator locations, we find statistically significant higher survival probabilities for firms located in incubators compared to firms located outside those incubator organizations. For three incubator locations the analysis reveals statistically significant lower chances of survival for those start-ups receiving support by an incubator. The empirical results, therefore, raise some doubts regarding the impacts of incubation on long-term firm survival.     

Extension services and intermediaries: Brokering federal technologies to smaller firms

Extension services and other organizations that assist small and medium-size firms can play an important role in brokering technology from federal laboratories and other R&D sources. They can help the firms identify and define their technology needs and can help interpret and apply federal-laboratory technologies to meet those needs. These are some of the conclusions of a recent Federal Laboratory Consortium project, designed and managed by INNOVATION ASSOCIATES and overseen by the National Association of Management and Technical Assistance Centers. Major recommendations resulting from the project include: a re-examination by Congress of the federal technology-transfer structure to eliminate redundancies and fill gaps; funding extension services to facilitate hiring of dedicated technology-transfer staff; and providing additional incentives and creating informal mechanisms that encourage federal laboratories to work with small firms. The author also recommends that extension services view relationships with federal laboratories as long-term development rather than short-term “fix-its,” provide proactive and continuous follow-up of small firms working with federal laboratories, and act as an advocate on behalf of small firms. The following article discusses the project and its findings. Observations, issues, and recommendations are found at the end of the article.     

Promoting university startups: international patterns, vicarious learning and policy implications

Anecdotal evidence indicates universities around the world fashion programs to permit or encourage university-linked start ups, in pursuit of improved regional wealth and job creation, often influenced by the iconic vision of Silicon Valley. This paper explores whether these programs are leading to a pattern of similar startups across the world, and gradually improving performance, or to ongoing variation in activities and outcomes, with potential for both harmful and serendipitous unintended outcomes. We use a theoretical lens of research on multiple organizations trying to learn from others—or repeated vicarious organizational learning. The paper first suggests that while startup programs share similar goals they do not generate similar startups across regions and time, with important variation in structure, links to home schools, and localization. It then posits that these programs appear to have varied outcomes in terms of their economic goals, and stresses the difficulty and importance of evaluating this issue. Finally, the paper details important potential unintended (collateral) outcomes, both harmful and valued. Dangers noted include not only traditional concerns with science norms or faculty time, but also the potential impact on humanities and the social sciences. Potential collateral benefits include facilitating the ability of students and citizens to create new forms of value more broadly. Theoretically, the paper speculates that ongoing vicarious learning by multiple organizations in this context may increase or at least sustain variation in outcomes, leading to some excellent but many indeterminate or harmful outcomes rather than homogenization among startups or outcomes. From a policy viewpoint, our review suggests that policymakers should abandon the search for a ‘secret sauce’ that will assure regional growth from startups. Instead, we suggest that they tailor programs to local skills and experience, actively monitor economic and non-economic impact, and expand the overall vision to include values and skills of autonomy and the creation of new forms of value more broadly.     

区域创新体系建设的国际比较及启示

区域创新是区域发展的必由之路,创新能力和创新体系建设正成为一个区域获取竞争优势的决定性因素。早在20世纪80年代,西方各国就争相把建立区域创新体系作为提升其国际竞争力的一项国家战略。通过分析美国、日本、韩国、印度等国家在区域创新体系建设中的科技资源配置、政府管理模式和创新体系建设等方面的做法,全面总结其经验和模式,为我国区域创新体系建设和管理提供有益的借鉴。     

Never mind the quality feel the width: University–industry links and government financial support for innovation in small high-technology businesses in the UK and the USA

In this paper we use a size and industry matched sample of over 1,900 UK and US businesses for the period 2004–05 in the manufacturing and business services sectors to analyse the relative “strength” of the university–industry ecosystems in which these firms operate in the two economies. Our analysis shows that in both countries universities per se play a quantitatively smaller role as a source of knowledge for business innovation than either the business sector itself or a variety of organisations intermediating between the university and business sectors. Our analysis reveals a much more diffuse university–industry ecosystem in the UK in which a higher proportion of businesses claim links external to themselves in their pursuit of knowledge for innovation and a higher proportion report directly connecting with universities. US firms are more likely to access knowledge through a combination of business and intermediary sources and are less likely to have established formal collaborative or partnership agreements in the 3 years prior to the survey. We also find, however, that a higher proportion of US firms place a very high value on the connections they have with universities and are much more likely to commit resources to support such innovation related university interactions. A similar pattern of diffuse but weaker links characterise the supply of public sector financial assistance for innovation in our sample firms. UK firms are more likely to be in receipt of assistance, but receive far less per firm in absolute terms and relative to their R&D expenditures. It appears that the UK university–industry ecosystem is characterised by a greater width than quality of interaction.     

世界三大湾区的跨域治理机构:模式分类与比较分析

跨域治理机构是因应和解决区域公共问题,协助政府开展跨域事务治理的不可或缺力量。世界三大湾区在长期的演进发展过程中,逐步建构生成了类型多样、功能各异的跨域治理机构。依据"类同度"和"依存度"两个分类维度,可以对世界三大湾区的跨域治理机构做不同的划分,识别出官方型、半官方型、专区型、协会型、商会型跨域治理机构。通过对五种模式的代表性机构的比较分析,总结其优缺点、共性与差异及适用性,进而找寻出对粤港澳大湾区跨域治理机构建设的几点启示:一是借鉴东京湾区经验,建立健全类同度和依存度都较高的官方型或半官方型跨域治理机构;二是吸收旧金山湾区和纽约湾区启示,创设类同度较低、依存度较高的协会型跨域治理机构;三是探索建设商界驱动的商会型跨域治理机构,从而形成以政府为核心、多元主体参与的大湾区跨域协作治理体系。     

Fostering industry-science cooperation through public funding: differences between universities and public research centres

This paper analyses behavioural additionality of subsidies by regional and EU framework programme public funding granted to business enterprises in terms of the ??instalment?? of research cooperation between industry and science. Acknowledging their specificities in terms of research orientation, research scale, and management of research, the science component is divided in universities and public research centres. Drawing on firm level data provided by the OECD bi-annual business R&D surveys of 2004 and 2006 for Belgium, the main result is that funding by regional governments fosters the instalment of industry-science research cooperation. However, this positive effect is limited to the case of cooperation with public research centres (and not with universities). The prerequisite of commercialisation of research in the case of funding by regional governments could explain this. Public funding provided by the EU framework programme did not exert an impact on the instalment of industry-science cooperation, neither with universities nor with public research centres. This could be due the fact that EU funding is targeted at firms that are already cooperating and does not favour the set-up of new cooperation.     

White-Collar Crime and Police Crime: Rotten Apples or Rotten Barrels?

In the research literature on white-collar crime, there seems to be a tendency to claim individual failure rather than systems failure. Occupational crime is often emphasized at the expense of corporate crime. In the research literature on misconduct and crime by police officers, however, there seems to be a tendency to claim systems failure. It is argued that police crime is a result of bad practice, lack of resources or mismanagement, rather than acts of criminals. Based on two empirical studies in Norway of business and police crime, this paper is concerned with the extent to which the rotten apple theory versus the rotten barrel theory can explain crime in business organizations and police organizations.     

Creating value through external intellectual property commercialization: a desorptive capacity view

In open innovation systems, capturing value through external intellectual property (IP) commercialization is an increasingly important strategy for firms to keep pace with competitive changes. However, many firms have major difficulties in creating value through external patent exploitation. To understand these challenges, this paper explores how firms manage their external patent exploitation based on a multiple case study research design with fourteen firms from the pharmaceutical and chemical industry. Adopting a desorptive capacity perspective we find four main factors influencing the firms’ management of external patent exploitation: the type of value creation, the organizational structure, the locus of initiative, and the extent of know-how transfer along with the patent. Based on these factors, three archetypes of external patent exploitation with different levels of desorptive capacity are identified. The article extends the concept of desorptive capacity and existing literature on intellectual property management in the context of open innovation. Managerial implications helping firms to implement external IP commercialization structures are discussed.     

Silent innovation: corporate strategizing in early nanotechnology evolution

Nanotechnology offers a rare opportunity to study the early evolution of a new generic technology in real time. This paper suggests focusing more on the market formation side, rather than technology generation, when seeking to explain technology evolution. Applying an evolutionary capabilities perspective, the paper examines how firms organize innovation in the early embryonic stages of a technology and how the market as a selective device undergoes qualitative change as part of economic evolution. The traditional Danish window chain is used as a case. A model of nanotechnology evolution is proposed which suggests that nanotechnology commercialization is significantly driven by small and medium-sized firms based on their internal knowhow, with larger firms as important suppliers of know how. These smaller firms are adept at addressing social needs which appear to be key factors in the nano-commercialization process. A taxonomy of nine enterprise strategies for entry into nanotechnology is suggested. The paper identifies a marked shift in marketing strategizing among the nanotechnology innovative companies, from being “loud” around the turn of the millennium to becoming increasingly “silent” at the present time, illustrating the unconsolidated stage of the current nanotechnology market.     

The Techno-Economic: Perspectives for Analysis and Intervention

This paper compares the macro- and micro- analyses of techno-economic change. Arguing for perspectives which are sensitive to the local flexibility of innovation but which can also provide suggestions for policy and intervention, it describes and reviews the two major contributions: work on Techno-Economic Networks, and on Techno-Economic Paradigms. It is argued that the former has greater depth of analytical sensitivity, whilst the latter is more policy-relevant. Whilst there are approaches, such as Constructive Technology Assessment, which attempt to combine the two perspectives, these are seen as failing to retain sensitivity to the power differentials between key actors such as firms, experts, governing agencies or citizens' groups. The paper concludes by advocating attention to the ‘meso-level techno-economic’—the networks of institutions and actors at work in: geographically bounded systems of innovation; scientific and technological disciplines; firms, their strategies and linkages; and the nexus between production and consumption.     

Evaluating quality or lowest price: consequences for small and medium-sized enterprises in public procurement

This study investigates the effect of evaluating the most economically advantageous tender (MEAT) in public procurement rather than lowest price. According to the European Union (EU), evaluations based on MEAT, rather than lowest price, give an advantage to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in winning public procurement contracts because such firms are viewed as sources of innovation. Thus, MEAT as an evaluation criterion is recommended throughout the EU. Using procurement data from Sweden, I find no significant effect on SME participation in procurement calls for tender as a result of the use of MEAT in firm evaluations. However, large firms significantly increase their participation when MEAT is evaluated. Even more importantly, micro, small and medium-sized firms’ probability of winning procurement contracts significantly decreases when MEAT rather than lowest price is used as an evaluative criterion. Thus, evaluation in terms of MEAT increases large firms’ bids and success rates; hence, this policy is counterproductive. The reasons SMEs are disadvantaged as a result of evaluations based on MEAT are, however, not examined in this paper and require further research.     

R&;D productivity and the organization of cluster policy: an empirical evaluation of the Industrial Cluster Project in Japan

Industrial clusters have attracted increasing attention as important locations of innovation. Therefore, several countries have started promotion policies for industrial clusters. However, there are few empirical studies on cluster policies. This paper examines the effects of the “Industrial Cluster Project” (ICP) in Japan on the R&D productivity of participants, using a unique dataset of 229 small firms, and discusses the conditions necessary for the effective organization of cluster policies. Different from former policy approaches, the ICP aims at building collaborative networks between universities and industries and supports the autonomous development of existing regional industries without direct intervention in the clustering process. Thus far, the ICP is similar to indirect support systems adopted by successful European clusters. Our estimation results suggest that participation in the cluster project alone does not affect R&D productivity. Moreover, research collaboration with a partner in the same cluster region decreases R&D productivity both in terms of the quantity and quality of patents. Therefore, in order to improve the R&D efficiency of local firms, it is also important to construct wide-range collaborative networks within and beyond the clusters, although most clusters focus on the network at a narrowly defined local level. However, cluster participants apply for more patents than others without reducing patent quality when they collaborate with national universities in the same cluster region.