Good value for public money? The case of R&D policy

This paper evaluates the role of public R&D support on Italian manufacturing SMEs’ innovation activities, focusing on innovation output rather than innovation input. Combining information from EPO records and the Capitalia survey, the new data set enables a counterfactual assessment of R&D policy from 2001 to 2003 (2009 is the final year of the post-treatment period). We find that publicly supported firms have higher R&D expenditure regardless of their characteristics, confirming a strong additionality effect of public policies on innovation inputs. However, this additional spending does not increase firms’ probability of patenting or the number of patents in comparison with privately financed R&D.     

A configurational analysis of the antecedents of entrepreneurial orientation

Entrepreneurial orientation is widely acknowledged as a strong predictor of firm performance. It is therefore critical to understand the factors and conditions that nurture it. In this paper, we investigate what configurations of motivations and personality traits trigger entrepreneurial orientation in three strategic leadership situations: successor of a family business, family-oriented founder, non-family founder. Strategic leaders in these situations are differently exposed to the opportunities and constraints to pursue entrepreneurial posture, because of the influence of family embeddedness and organizational resistance. We apply Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to a sample of 257 Italian SME owner/managers. We identify 12 coherent configurations of internal and external motivations, and personality traits that are all conducive to entrepreneurial orientation. These configurations are consistent with features of the family and organization environments in which the entrepreneurial action takes place; furthermore, in each strategic leadership situation, different configurations of attributes lead to entrepreneurial orientation.     

Offshoring practices of Danish and Swedish SMEs: effects on operations configuration

This paper examines how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) configure their operations on the global scale and how this affects their home bases in terms of operations requirements and priorities. In order to relate SMEs’ offshoring initiatives with their operations configuration attributes, we draw on the operations networks literature and survey responses from 675 Danish and 410 Swedish companies. On the basis of the survey results, we find that although the SMEs are less experienced and less advanced in their offshoring ventures than large companies, they are building dispersed operations networks. Although still in their infancy, these networks are, as expected, creating new demands for their home bases in terms of demands for formalisation of work processes, systems development and managerial capability related to orchestrating operations across national borders, but more fundamentally, it also challenges the strategic foundations of the home base. Based on these observations, we discuss future global operations management challenges, practices and priorities of SMEs.     

基于DEA模型的中原地区中小企业融资效率研究

通过构建DEA模型,对以河南省为代表的在深圳中小板上市的22家样本企业的融资效率进行分析研究,结果表明：河南省乃至整个中原地区中小企业的整体融资效率偏低,而规模效率较高、纯技术效率较低则是其普遍存在的问题,应从加强中小企业自身建设、优化中小企业外部融资环境、完善政府相关职能诸方面入手,切实提高中小企业融资效率。     

完善我国中小企业发展的政策支持体系研究

中国的中小企业作为一种新型的经济形式,在促进国民经济增长、增强区域经济活力、推动农业和农村经济成长等诸方面发挥了前所未有的重大作用,它被国外经济学家和友人称为中国经济发展的“秘密武器”。然而中小企业与大企业相比在发展规模、融资能力、市场竞争等方面上处于劣势,因此良好的制度环境建设和政策扶持是其得到充分发展的关键。论文分析了我国中小企业的发展中问题,提出相应的政策建议。     

我国中小企业的发展困境分析

银根收紧效应在2010年以来传导到中小企业,在信贷额度受限的情况下,银行首先减少贷款,加大中小企业融资难度,增加融资成本,加剧资金链断裂的风险;导致钱荒、电荒、用工荒和高成本、高税负共同制约着中小企业的生存与发展,连同油荒、气荒、煤荒以及水荒的作用叠加,更使中小企业举步维艰。政府应加快金融业对中小经济的开放,将更多精力与资源用于解决中小企业的制度困境。     

长三角中小板上市公司融资效率分析

选择我国长三角地区112家中小上市公司2010—2012年的经营数据,利用DEA方法从总体状况、内部经营管理和规模报酬等方面对其效率进行动态评价。结果表明:样本上市公司每年仅有10%左右的公司技术效率处于有效状态,实现纯技术效率为1的公司要略多于规模有效的公司,近1/3的公司纯技术效率和规模效率都大于均值,上海公司技术效率的表现要强于江苏和浙江,但区域因素对融资效率并不存在决定性的影响。进一步分析了样本上市公司融资无效率或者低效率的主要原因,最后提出改善样本公司效率水平的政策建议。     

我国中小企业融资难问题探析

融资难已经成为现阶段制约我国中小企业发展的主要问题之一,其因在于中小企业规模偏小,银行贷款条件相对严格,外部支撑机制不够完善等。解决中小企业融资难的问题需要提高中小企业的信誉度,创建适合中小企业融资的金融环境,同时提供良好的制度保障。     

Empowering manufacturing personnel through functional understanding

A growing interest in knowledge management and standardisation, has increasingly led organisations to implement employee training programs. For the manufacturing workforce, however, these remain limited to informal ‘On-the-Job’ approaches, administered by peer colleagues – particularly in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) where economic, educational, cognitive and cultural constraints are often deeply embedded. This paper proposes a methodology for training the manufacturing workforce on the functions of products, and presents a case study conducted in a UK-based manufacturing SME – aiming to verify our two research hypotheses: a) Functional Analysis Diagrams of the company’s products and parts would assist in knowledge assimilation; and, b) knowledge assimilation has a positive effect on work quality and productivity levels. By applying statistical inference methods on long-term quantitative data and survey results, we confirmed substantial improvements in work quality (63%) and increased productivity (67%), supporting our hypotheses and suggesting that the proposed methodology can be a promising solution for the industry.     

The soft side of knowledge transfer partnerships between universities and small to medium enterprises: an exploratory study to understand process improvement

Abstract

The study explores the soft side of knowledge transfer partnerships between universities and small to medium enterprises (SMEs), a topic which is often neglected in the knowledge management literature. The aim of this paper is to uncover the issues which emerge during formation of a partnership between heterogeneous organizations and universities. In addition, the study unfolds the criticalities of typical process improvement capability that supports the knowledge transfer partnerships between universities and SMEs. Using multiple cases, this study unravels the dominant elements that influence knowledge transfer process development, governance, implications and responsibilities. The major contribution of this study is the development of a framework based on empirical evidence using three knowledge transfer partnerships (KTPs) which illustrates the way in which soft factors in knowledge transfer partnership phases may have an impact on success or failure of university–industry collaborations for innovation.