Globalisation and trends in international R&D alliances

The growth of collaborative activity is greatly influenced by the process of globalisation. This paper focuses on the narrow area of collaborative R&D activity, and takes a ‘macro,’ as well as a firm perspective of the effects of these developments. Globalisation has affected the need of firms to collaborate, in that firms now seek opportunities to cooperate, rather than identify situations where they can achieve majority control. The use of collaboration is particularly acute in capital- and knowledge-intensive sectors. These are also the sectors where firms have expanded internationally fastest, as they need to compete in various markets simultaneously, but also to exploit and acquire assets and technology that may be specific to particular locations. The increasing similarity of technologies across countries and cross-fertilisation of technology between sectors, coupled with the increasing costs and risks associated with innovation has led firms to consider R&D alliances as a first-best option in many instances.     

Casting a Wide Net for Innovation: Mediating Effect of R&D Human and Social Capital to Unlock the Value from Alliance Portfolio Diversity

This paper examines the performance effects associated with different alliance portfolio configurations in terms of geographical location and partner type. Based on these distinctions, the authors hypothesize that more diverse alliance portfolios enable firms to gain and exploit innovation opportunities. Additionally, the mediating effects of R&D human and social capital on the R&D alliance portfolio diversity–innovation performance relationship are explored. The authors reason that the absorptive capacity of R&D intellectual capital determines a firm's potential gains from highly diverse alliance portfolios. From panel data of manufacturing firms in Spain for the period 2008–2013, the results confirm the inverted U‐shaped relationship between alliance portfolio diversity and firm innovation performance, implying that both insufficient and excessive alliance portfolio diversity may be detrimental to firm innovativeness. Additionally, R&D human and social capital partially mediates the R&D alliance diversity–innovation performance relationship, emphasizing the importance of internal capabilities to leverage the benefits of highly diverse alliance portfolios. These findings add a dynamic dimension to the conceptualization of alliance portfolios and how firms create value by balancing explorative and exploitative alliances.     

External Knowledge Sourcing and Firm Innovation Efficiency

This study examines the relationship between external knowledge sourcing and firm innovation efficiency. We build on the organizational learning theory to propose that this relationship follows an inverted U‐shape: as the level of external knowledge sourcing increases from low to moderate, firm innovation efficiency increases; as the level of external knowledge sourcing increases from moderate to high, firm innovation efficiency declines. Further, we explore the moderating role of different contextual factors and contend that this inverted U‐shaped relationship is flattened in firms that operate in high‐tech sectors and in firms that face high internal constraints for innovation. Our empirical analysis is based on a sample of 3,204 Spanish firms over the period 2004–2015, and our results provide support for these contentions. We used data envelopment analysis methodology to estimate firm innovation efficiency relative to industry best performers, and truncated regression models for panel data with bootstrapped confidence intervals to test our hypotheses.     

Resisting Organizational Inertia: The Evolution of Industrial Districts

Industrial district success in Italy is often explained as a function oftraditional, homogenous communities, where close social ties and communityinstitutions supposedly create the trust necessary for collaborativeinter-firm relationships among small firms. However, such a functionalistapproach fails to explain why some districts prosper over time bydeveloping new process and product innovations, while others stagnatebecause they fail to respond to rapidly changing markets. We argue thatgreater attention to firm networks – both those internal and external to the district – and the role of key firms represents a more usefulanalytical method for understanding the evolution and formation ofindustrial districts.     

Developing new innovation models: Shifts in the innovation landscapes in emerging economies and implications for global R&D management

Over the past two decades, there has been a substantial shift in the global innovation landscape. Multinationals from developed economies are increasingly globalizing their R&D activities and are developing an “open innovation” model to source innovations from outside the firm, including from emerging economies such as those in Asia. In addition, emerging economy firms, which traditionally have played a secondary role in the global innovation landscape, have now begun to catch up in developing their own innovative capabilities. This study explores the implications of this new innovation landscape for CEOs of multinationals and emerging economy firms, as well as for international management scholars and educators. While the multinationals might appropriate rents from their existing capabilities and source new ones in emerging economies, they may be threatened by weak intellectual property rights regimes and unintended knowledge spillovers to local firms, creating potential competitors. Firms in the emerging economies can learn from and catch up with investing multinationals, but to do so they need to develop their own innovative capabilities and move from a process to a product focus and from imitation to innovation.     

Technological Innovation and Employment Reallocation

The paper describes the dynamics of employment at a firm and sector level in French industry and examines how far technological innovation can give account of it. We use a sample of 15,186 firms, over the period 1986–90. The two facts we want to explain at a firm and sector level are the net change in employment and the micro turmoil (transfers between competing firms). Innovating firms and sectors create jobs more than others over the medium run (5 years). Process innovation is more about job creation than product innovation at the firm level, but the converse is true at the sector level. This paradox is probably due to substitution effects (creative destruction).     

Japanese Multinational Enterprises in China: Successful Adaptation of Marketing Strategies

Japanese international marketing has evolved. While some aspects of success (organisational abilities, long-term orientation, aggressive growth strategies, ownership, R&D) have been diffused from developed to emerging markets, others have been extended (identification of customer needs and wants, information-processing capabilities). Segmentation and positioning are fine-tuned and are significantly different from Japanese strategies in developed markets. The relatively short time-frame of foreign firms' market presence in China enables Japanese brands to address upmarket consumer clusters in parallel with Western brands. The case study approach underlines the necessity of testing received knowledge with the new realities of the international business environment. At the same time it sends out a clear warning not to over-generalise. Japanese MNEs adapt to the Chinese market in multifarious ways. It would be a mistake to characterise a ‘Japanese’ strategy for the Chinese market, as no single approach predominates. Even within our sample of three case studies, strategies vary between the three firms and within each firm they vary over time. In all three cases, the Japanese MNEs are very conscious of consumer needs in China and the dynamics of these needs. It is a fallacy to believe that because China is a poor nation then strategies have to be aimed at low-cost products. The luxury segment is large, growing, lucrative and identifiable. Each of our three firms pays great attention to the appearance, growth and sustainability of this sector and targets it precisely. Because of rapid changes in Chinese demand patterns and consumer behaviour, it is essential for firms to keep in touch with its development. However, Japanese investors in China are not just responsive to demand patterns – they are prepared to lead them. This involves taking risks with standard business formats and with cherished home country practices. This, Japanese firms are prepared to do in China. Thus, Japanese firms balance stability (safe consumer sectors) with innovation (new products). A similar balance can be seen between adaptation to Chinese conditions and the use of standardised products, formats and approaches. The first strategy attracts revenue, the second reduces costs and therefore risks. A flexibility of approach is evident from Japanese MNEs in China – witness the extent to which they are willing to modify strategies over time as conditions change. Overall, we conclude that Japanese MNEs are not ‘Western’ or ‘Japanese’ in their approach to the Chinese market, but are flexible, realistic and pragmatic.

It is a fallacy to believe that because China is a poor nation then strategies have to be aimed at low-cost products     

8.

Technology management in Indian companies     

Ashok V. Desai  Director 《Long Range Planning》1972,5(4):70-72

Since 1966, the Indian Government has progressively restricted imports of technology. Together with constraints on the growth of big business houses and of foreign firms, the next consequence of the Government's policies has been that it takes 3–5 years for a large firm to get a sanction for the import of technology and its utilization; this entails advance planning of technology imports, and advance action for the generation of alternatives within the country, should the imports not be allowed.

The restrictions on technology imports accentuated the need for internal research and development; at the same time, the recession that began in 1966, and whose effects still continue to be felt in some sectors, squeezed industrial profits and limited the resources that could be allocated to R & D. Hence large Indian firms have felt the need for methods of rational allocation of R & D resources among competing projects, and a number of them have been feeling their way towards general criteria of allocation. Some of their efforts are described here. They are essentially exploratory; but since R & D management is still a problematic area even in industrial countries, an analysis of Indian practices is perhaps of more general interest.     

9.

Characteristics of innovative activities in British industry     

Keith Pavitt 《Omega》1983,11(2):113-130

Data collected on significant innovations in the UK since 1945 show that more than half come from firms with more than 10,000 employees, and that their share is increasing. Most innovations come from firms in the same or closely related product groups, except in instruments and mechanical engineering where user firms make a significant contribution. A high proportion of innovations produced in technology-intensive product groups (chemicals, mechanical engineering, electronics) are used in a wide variety of other sectors. This data on significant innovations is on the whole consistent with other data on innovative activities. The unreasonably low proportion of the innovations identified as of foreign origin probably reflects the importance of imitation through independent redevelopment as a source of technology imports. If so, technology imports and R & D are complementary activities, rather than substitutes.     

10.

Disentangling reciprocal relationships between R&D intensity,profitability and capital market performance: A panel VAR analysis     

《Long Range Planning》2022,55(5):102247

Research and development (R&D) investments are strategic choices that firms make to create and sustain competitive advantage. Extant literature proposes that firms’ R&D investments and their profitability and capital market performance are reciprocally related. However, the direction of these relationships and their temporal nature are unclear. We take a real options perspective to argue that the long-run firm performance effects of R&D investments are better than their short-term ones, and that the initial level of R&D intensity influences the nature of these relationships. We apply panel vector autoregression (P-VAR) to a sample of 6623 U.S. firms over the 1990–2020 period in order to test our hypotheses. Our results indicate that increases in R&D intensity have negative effects on profitability in the short term, yet these effects diminish relatively quickly. The effects of increases in R&D intensity on capital market performance are positive and persist over time. Consistent with our predictions, they are contingent on the initial levels of R&D intensity and performance. The findings are fundamentally in line with the real options perspective employed here, yet they add important nuance to our understanding of when, how, and under which conditions R&D investments and firm performance affect one another.     

11.

CREDIT CONSTRAINTS AND THE CYCLICALITY OF R&D INVESTMENT: EVIDENCE FROM FRANCE     

Philippe Aghion  Philippe Askenazy  Nicolas Berman  Gilbert Cette  Laurent Eymard 《Journal of the European Economic Association》2012,10(5):1001-1024

We use a French firm‐level data set containing 13,000 firms over the period 1994–2004 to analyze the relationship between credit constraints and firms’ R&D behavior over the business cycle. Our main results can be summarized as follows: (i) R&D investment is countercyclical without credit constraints, but it becomes procyclical as firms face tighter credit constraints; (ii) this result is only observed for firms in sectors that depend more heavily upon external finance, or that are characterized by a low degree of asset tangibility; (iii) in more credit‐constrained firms, R&D investment plummets during recessions but does not increase proportionally during upturns.     

12.

我国高新技术企业规模与创新分布   总被引：9，自引：2，他引：7  

马宁  官建成  高柏杨 《管理科学学报》2001,4(1):75-80

利用 960家高新技术企业的调查结果 ,分析了我国高新技术企业规模与企业创新能力之间的关系 .企业规模以企业雇员数量作为分类 ,按照国际通用的分类标准分析了各个规模层次的企业创新费用、R&D费用、销售额及创新率的分布规律 .在将研究结果与国外学者的研究结果和一般工业企业的情况进行了比较之后发现 :(1 )高新技术企业 R&D强度随着企业规模的增大呈阶梯下降趋势 ;(2 )创新强度大体呈现“凸 U”型分布 ;(3)相当一部分小型高新技术企业的创新效率较低     

13.

研发投入对企业绩效的影响研究 ——基于企业金融化水平门限回归     

戴志敏  顾丽原  诸竹君 《管理工程学报》2021,35(2):36-43

本文选取1435家A股上市公司2011—2018年度的面板数据,以企业金融化水平作为门限变量,研究企业研发投入对企业绩效的非线性影响关系。研究结果表明:(1)企业金融化行为给研发投入对企业绩效的促进作用带来严重的时滞效应,研发投入对当年企业绩效不存在促进作用;(2)研发投入对未来一年企业绩效有双门限效应,二者呈倒N型关系,在第二区间内研发投入促进未来一年企业绩效;研发投入对未来二年企业绩效有单门限效应,在第一区间内研发投入促进未来二年企业绩效;(3)在适度的企业金融化水平区间内,研发投入才会促进未来企业绩效。本文指出上市公司金融化水平最优区间占比分布具有区域、行业和企业性质异质性,并进一步基于实证研究结果提出了相应的政策建议,有利于企业合理管理研发投入和防止企业脱实向虚。     

14.

When are acquisitions a viable catch-up strategy? Some empirical evidence from China     

《Long Range Planning》2023,56(1):102265

How emerging-market firms can catch up with forerunners from advanced economies is a key issue in the economic and technology literature. Research has suggested that acquisitions are a viable tool for firms in emerging markets to reduce the productivity gap with global leaders, but the empirical evidence on this matter is still far from conclusive. Contributing to this debate, this paper examines the impact of cross-border vs. domestic acquisitions on the labor productivity of firms across different sectoral environments. Studying the acquisitions pursued by Chinese listed firms over one decade, we find that cross-border acquisitions are positively associated with firms' labor productivity and that this effect is particularly strong in high-tech sectors and among leading firms. We also find that domestic acquisitions are positively associated with firms’ labor productivity and that this effect is particularly strong in low-tech sectors and among laggards. We further investigate the mechanisms underlying the acquisition–productivity link and contend that “technological innovation” is the primary mechanism by which acquisitions enhance firm productivity in high-tech sectors, whereas “enhancing operating efficiency” is the primary mechanism by which acquisitions enhance firm productivity in low-tech sectors.     

15.

EC anti-dumping laws as a barrier to trade     

Alan Rugman  Professor of international Business 《European Management Journal》1991,9(4)

Anti-dumping (AD) laws in the EC are intended to establish ‘fairness’ between trading partners. But there are negative effects, in particular, firms with weak firm specific advantages can shelter behind AD laws; they can even follow shelter-based strategies and lobby for protection.Alan Rugman and Michael Gestrin explain how shelter can be used as a management strategy, and how AD laws have grown up in the EC since 1979 to affect sectors of industry and geographic regions. They conclude by pointing out that a shelter-based strategy by a strong firm can undermine the very competitive pressures in its home market that made it internationally competitive in the first place.     

16.

Breaking through innovation barriers: Linking effectuation orientation to innovation performance     

《European Management Journal》2020,38(3):425-434

This study aims to understand how firms overcome market-based innovation barriers and achieve innovation performance using the effectuation orientation construct. In so doing, we provide more nuanced insights into how the combination of mindsets and actions helps firms to overcome barriers. Based on a quantitative research design, data from 157 established organizations show variations in how effectual actions are related to perceived innovation barriers. Among the conclusions we draw from the results is the fact that effectual contingency and effectual means orientation are negatively associated with market-based innovation barriers, which are in turn negatively associated with a firm’s innovation performance. Overall, the empirical results provide new insights into the literature of both innovation and entrepreneurship.     

17.

Organisational Learning and Governance Through Embedded Practices   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Ash Amin  Patrick Cohendet 《Journal of Management and Governance》2000,4(1-2):93-116

This article has two principal aims. The first is to reconcile thecompetence based approach to the firm with traditional contractualapproaches, instead of treating them as incompatible. The mainthesis advanced is that firms manage simultaneously competencesand transactions, but they do so in accordance with a specificlexicographic order of priorities. The second aim is to explorein detail the sources of knowledge formation in the firm. Theanalysis privileges anthropological readings which stress the roleof learning – both radical and incremental – within distributed communities of practice.     

18.

The interaction between stock prices and corporate investment: is Europe different?     

Houdou Basse Mama 《Review of Managerial Science》2017,11(2):315-351

I find limited evidence of firm learning from stock prices in Europe and uncover multifaceted complementarities between firm informational and operating environments in determining investment sensitivity to stock prices. Specifically, European firms seemingly do not shift away from their own (peer) stock prices even in instances in which their peers’ (own) stock prices become relatively more informative about firms’ fundamentals. This is consistent with European managers adopting more conservative strategies relative to their U.S.-based peers, and stock prices being less revealing in Europe than in the U.S. Furthermore, while a firm may attach equal weight to both its own stock prices and peer price innovations when peer firms are relatively smaller, investment responds more positively to peers’ price shocks than to that firm’s own stock prices when peers are relatively larger. Interestingly, investment sensitivity to peers’ stock prices decreases in peers’ market share, operating performance, and capital intensity. The decrease is accentuated when peer firms have more informative stock prices and are industry leaders or more capital intensive, thereby signaling perceived reduced growth opportunities. Broadly, these results imply that the specifics of the interaction between stock prices and firm behavior in the U.S. do not necessarily generalize to Europe. More important, these different learning patterns are partly attributable to differences in the amount of internal information, which in turn depends on country-level institutional infrastructures.     

19.

Squeezing or cuddling? The impact of economic crises on management control and stakeholder management     

Johannes A. Asel  Arthur Posch  Gerhard Speckbacher 《Review of Managerial Science》2011,5(2-3):213-231

This paper analyzes the effects of economic crises on firms’ use of management control mechanisms and on their management of stakeholder relations. Moreover, the association between stakeholder management and management control system use is analyzed. In the wake of the economic crisis of 2008/2009, many firms were faced with severe threats that called for immediate short-term action to ensure firm survival. However, short-term action like massive cost-cutting and cash generation often are blamed for going at the expense of long-term health as key stakeholder relations may be irreversibly harmed. Hence, three interrelated questions are addressed theoretically and empirically: First, we analyze the impact of the recent economic crisis on firms’ control strategies. More specifically, we investigate whether a high crisis impact on firms is associated with a shortening of reporting cycles, a more interactive use of control-relevant information, restriction of employee autonomy and a focus on liquidity and cost-cutting. Second, we examine from the viewpoint of stakeholder theory how firms can make use of active stakeholder management for crisis management. Third, we explore whether firms can take short-term measures for ensuring liquidity and cutting costs and at the same time pursue a stakeholder strategy aiming at the long-term survival of the firm. Using survey data from 204 major Austrian corporations, we provide evidence that firms significantly adjusted their control systems as a response to the economic crisis. Our data do not indicate an immanent contradiction between a “short-term finance focus” and the pursuit of a sustainable stakeholder strategy.     

20.

Innovation capability and corporate growth: An empirical investigation in China     

Jie Yang 《Journal of Engineering and Technology Management》2012,29(1):34

This study examines the antecedents of firm innovation capability in high technology firms in China and its effect on long-term corporate growth. It explores the growth-driven core competence of a firm by employing a knowledge-based view. The analysis of firm innovation capability indicates that firm innovation capability is related to long-term corporate growth. The results of this study support this link and the findings stress the importance of innovation intent and infrastructure to a firm's innovation capability.     

Technology management in Indian companies

Since 1966, the Indian Government has progressively restricted imports of technology. Together with constraints on the growth of big business houses and of foreign firms, the next consequence of the Government's policies has been that it takes 3–5 years for a large firm to get a sanction for the import of technology and its utilization; this entails advance planning of technology imports, and advance action for the generation of alternatives within the country, should the imports not be allowed.

The restrictions on technology imports accentuated the need for internal research and development; at the same time, the recession that began in 1966, and whose effects still continue to be felt in some sectors, squeezed industrial profits and limited the resources that could be allocated to R & D. Hence large Indian firms have felt the need for methods of rational allocation of R & D resources among competing projects, and a number of them have been feeling their way towards general criteria of allocation. Some of their efforts are described here. They are essentially exploratory; but since R & D management is still a problematic area even in industrial countries, an analysis of Indian practices is perhaps of more general interest.     

Characteristics of innovative activities in British industry

Data collected on significant innovations in the UK since 1945 show that more than half come from firms with more than 10,000 employees, and that their share is increasing. Most innovations come from firms in the same or closely related product groups, except in instruments and mechanical engineering where user firms make a significant contribution. A high proportion of innovations produced in technology-intensive product groups (chemicals, mechanical engineering, electronics) are used in a wide variety of other sectors. This data on significant innovations is on the whole consistent with other data on innovative activities. The unreasonably low proportion of the innovations identified as of foreign origin probably reflects the importance of imitation through independent redevelopment as a source of technology imports. If so, technology imports and R & D are complementary activities, rather than substitutes.     

Disentangling reciprocal relationships between R&D intensity,profitability and capital market performance: A panel VAR analysis

Research and development (R&D) investments are strategic choices that firms make to create and sustain competitive advantage. Extant literature proposes that firms’ R&D investments and their profitability and capital market performance are reciprocally related. However, the direction of these relationships and their temporal nature are unclear. We take a real options perspective to argue that the long-run firm performance effects of R&D investments are better than their short-term ones, and that the initial level of R&D intensity influences the nature of these relationships. We apply panel vector autoregression (P-VAR) to a sample of 6623 U.S. firms over the 1990–2020 period in order to test our hypotheses. Our results indicate that increases in R&D intensity have negative effects on profitability in the short term, yet these effects diminish relatively quickly. The effects of increases in R&D intensity on capital market performance are positive and persist over time. Consistent with our predictions, they are contingent on the initial levels of R&D intensity and performance. The findings are fundamentally in line with the real options perspective employed here, yet they add important nuance to our understanding of when, how, and under which conditions R&D investments and firm performance affect one another.     

CREDIT CONSTRAINTS AND THE CYCLICALITY OF R&D INVESTMENT: EVIDENCE FROM FRANCE

We use a French firm‐level data set containing 13,000 firms over the period 1994–2004 to analyze the relationship between credit constraints and firms’ R&D behavior over the business cycle. Our main results can be summarized as follows: (i) R&D investment is countercyclical without credit constraints, but it becomes procyclical as firms face tighter credit constraints; (ii) this result is only observed for firms in sectors that depend more heavily upon external finance, or that are characterized by a low degree of asset tangibility; (iii) in more credit‐constrained firms, R&D investment plummets during recessions but does not increase proportionally during upturns.     

我国高新技术企业规模与创新分布

利用 960家高新技术企业的调查结果 ,分析了我国高新技术企业规模与企业创新能力之间的关系 .企业规模以企业雇员数量作为分类 ,按照国际通用的分类标准分析了各个规模层次的企业创新费用、R&D费用、销售额及创新率的分布规律 .在将研究结果与国外学者的研究结果和一般工业企业的情况进行了比较之后发现 :(1 )高新技术企业 R&D强度随着企业规模的增大呈阶梯下降趋势 ;(2 )创新强度大体呈现“凸 U”型分布 ;(3)相当一部分小型高新技术企业的创新效率较低     

研发投入对企业绩效的影响研究 ——基于企业金融化水平门限回归

本文选取1435家A股上市公司2011—2018年度的面板数据,以企业金融化水平作为门限变量,研究企业研发投入对企业绩效的非线性影响关系。研究结果表明:(1)企业金融化行为给研发投入对企业绩效的促进作用带来严重的时滞效应,研发投入对当年企业绩效不存在促进作用;(2)研发投入对未来一年企业绩效有双门限效应,二者呈倒N型关系,在第二区间内研发投入促进未来一年企业绩效;研发投入对未来二年企业绩效有单门限效应,在第一区间内研发投入促进未来二年企业绩效;(3)在适度的企业金融化水平区间内,研发投入才会促进未来企业绩效。本文指出上市公司金融化水平最优区间占比分布具有区域、行业和企业性质异质性,并进一步基于实证研究结果提出了相应的政策建议,有利于企业合理管理研发投入和防止企业脱实向虚。     

When are acquisitions a viable catch-up strategy? Some empirical evidence from China

How emerging-market firms can catch up with forerunners from advanced economies is a key issue in the economic and technology literature. Research has suggested that acquisitions are a viable tool for firms in emerging markets to reduce the productivity gap with global leaders, but the empirical evidence on this matter is still far from conclusive. Contributing to this debate, this paper examines the impact of cross-border vs. domestic acquisitions on the labor productivity of firms across different sectoral environments. Studying the acquisitions pursued by Chinese listed firms over one decade, we find that cross-border acquisitions are positively associated with firms' labor productivity and that this effect is particularly strong in high-tech sectors and among leading firms. We also find that domestic acquisitions are positively associated with firms’ labor productivity and that this effect is particularly strong in low-tech sectors and among laggards. We further investigate the mechanisms underlying the acquisition–productivity link and contend that “technological innovation” is the primary mechanism by which acquisitions enhance firm productivity in high-tech sectors, whereas “enhancing operating efficiency” is the primary mechanism by which acquisitions enhance firm productivity in low-tech sectors.     

EC anti-dumping laws as a barrier to trade

Anti-dumping (AD) laws in the EC are intended to establish ‘fairness’ between trading partners. But there are negative effects, in particular, firms with weak firm specific advantages can shelter behind AD laws; they can even follow shelter-based strategies and lobby for protection.Alan Rugman and Michael Gestrin explain how shelter can be used as a management strategy, and how AD laws have grown up in the EC since 1979 to affect sectors of industry and geographic regions. They conclude by pointing out that a shelter-based strategy by a strong firm can undermine the very competitive pressures in its home market that made it internationally competitive in the first place.     

Breaking through innovation barriers: Linking effectuation orientation to innovation performance

This study aims to understand how firms overcome market-based innovation barriers and achieve innovation performance using the effectuation orientation construct. In so doing, we provide more nuanced insights into how the combination of mindsets and actions helps firms to overcome barriers. Based on a quantitative research design, data from 157 established organizations show variations in how effectual actions are related to perceived innovation barriers. Among the conclusions we draw from the results is the fact that effectual contingency and effectual means orientation are negatively associated with market-based innovation barriers, which are in turn negatively associated with a firm’s innovation performance. Overall, the empirical results provide new insights into the literature of both innovation and entrepreneurship.     

Organisational Learning and Governance Through Embedded Practices

This article has two principal aims. The first is to reconcile thecompetence based approach to the firm with traditional contractualapproaches, instead of treating them as incompatible. The mainthesis advanced is that firms manage simultaneously competencesand transactions, but they do so in accordance with a specificlexicographic order of priorities. The second aim is to explorein detail the sources of knowledge formation in the firm. Theanalysis privileges anthropological readings which stress the roleof learning – both radical and incremental – within distributed communities of practice.     

The interaction between stock prices and corporate investment: is Europe different?

I find limited evidence of firm learning from stock prices in Europe and uncover multifaceted complementarities between firm informational and operating environments in determining investment sensitivity to stock prices. Specifically, European firms seemingly do not shift away from their own (peer) stock prices even in instances in which their peers’ (own) stock prices become relatively more informative about firms’ fundamentals. This is consistent with European managers adopting more conservative strategies relative to their U.S.-based peers, and stock prices being less revealing in Europe than in the U.S. Furthermore, while a firm may attach equal weight to both its own stock prices and peer price innovations when peer firms are relatively smaller, investment responds more positively to peers’ price shocks than to that firm’s own stock prices when peers are relatively larger. Interestingly, investment sensitivity to peers’ stock prices decreases in peers’ market share, operating performance, and capital intensity. The decrease is accentuated when peer firms have more informative stock prices and are industry leaders or more capital intensive, thereby signaling perceived reduced growth opportunities. Broadly, these results imply that the specifics of the interaction between stock prices and firm behavior in the U.S. do not necessarily generalize to Europe. More important, these different learning patterns are partly attributable to differences in the amount of internal information, which in turn depends on country-level institutional infrastructures.     

Squeezing or cuddling? The impact of economic crises on management control and stakeholder management

This paper analyzes the effects of economic crises on firms’ use of management control mechanisms and on their management of stakeholder relations. Moreover, the association between stakeholder management and management control system use is analyzed. In the wake of the economic crisis of 2008/2009, many firms were faced with severe threats that called for immediate short-term action to ensure firm survival. However, short-term action like massive cost-cutting and cash generation often are blamed for going at the expense of long-term health as key stakeholder relations may be irreversibly harmed. Hence, three interrelated questions are addressed theoretically and empirically: First, we analyze the impact of the recent economic crisis on firms’ control strategies. More specifically, we investigate whether a high crisis impact on firms is associated with a shortening of reporting cycles, a more interactive use of control-relevant information, restriction of employee autonomy and a focus on liquidity and cost-cutting. Second, we examine from the viewpoint of stakeholder theory how firms can make use of active stakeholder management for crisis management. Third, we explore whether firms can take short-term measures for ensuring liquidity and cutting costs and at the same time pursue a stakeholder strategy aiming at the long-term survival of the firm. Using survey data from 204 major Austrian corporations, we provide evidence that firms significantly adjusted their control systems as a response to the economic crisis. Our data do not indicate an immanent contradiction between a “short-term finance focus” and the pursuit of a sustainable stakeholder strategy.     

Innovation capability and corporate growth: An empirical investigation in China

This study examines the antecedents of firm innovation capability in high technology firms in China and its effect on long-term corporate growth. It explores the growth-driven core competence of a firm by employing a knowledge-based view. The analysis of firm innovation capability indicates that firm innovation capability is related to long-term corporate growth. The results of this study support this link and the findings stress the importance of innovation intent and infrastructure to a firm's innovation capability.