Search

Prior studies highlighted how political connections positively impact companies' ability to access the credit but do not go beyond the connections' dichotomous measurement. To contribute to this extensive literature, we measured the impact of connections on three different layers. Firstly, according to the connections' level - national or local. Secondly, according to the connections' type - with governmental officials or deputies in political bodies. Finally, using the agency theory, we apply the intensity measure based on the number of connected directors to explore the connections' strength to offer a comprehensive framework of the connections' strength. We test our hypotheses on the financial and investing behavior of Chinese private-owned firms listed in the Chinese Growth Enterprise Market of Shenzhen Stock Exchange from 2014 to 2016. Results show that local, governmental, and more intense connected boards positively influence both types of behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to explore the linkages that firms of low-tech sectors establish with universities for their innovative purposes. Even though knowledge transfer from university to industry has overall increased over time, most of the attention has been directed to firms in high-tech sectors. In turn, understanding under which specific conditions universities may contribute to the innovative effort of low-tech firms largely remains an unexplored question. Within this debate, this paper focuses on the wine sector, generally considered a low-tech sector. Firstly, we assess to which type of innovation promoted by winemakers universities contribute more. Secondly, we assess under which conditions universities assume a relevant role in the innovative activity of low-tech firms. To test our hypotheses, we use primary data collected through a survey targeting Italian wine SMEs. Results show that universities contribute mainly to organizational and commercial innovations, but not to product innovations. Therefore, university knowledge related to social sciences represents a more relevant input for low-tech firms than knowledge with higher scientific and technological content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to investigate university-firm relationships in terms of knowledge creation and transfer. The paper shows how the firms' absorptive capacity influences universities' research agenda. Focusing on two specific contexts: nanotechnologies (carbon nanotubes) and Chinese universities patenting activity the study show the relevance of absorptive capacity, measured in terms of S&T public expenditures, in determining universities research priorities. Structured panel data enlists the patent activity of 86 Chinese universities (universities with more then 10 registered patents) related to carbon nanotubes field since 2000 to present. We found that public expenditures in S&T, increasing firms' absorptive capacity, push up the number of patent registered and influence universities research priorities. Some peculiarities have emerged in the analysis thanks to some result in countertendency with the cited literature. Data on renewal suggest some form of informal or tacit technology transfer strategy between academia and market, and the countertendency in data on claims demonstrate the demand-pull inclination of university research. Implications and limitations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent increase in firms' patenting activity and in subsequent infringement litigations has made clear that firms need to enhance patent enforceability and to pursue proper strategies to increase the appropriability of innovation outcomes and related intellectual property (IP) rights. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to explore how firms employ Forum Shopping - defined as an unfair but perfectly legal exploitation of jurisdiction and venue rules to affect the outcome of a lawsuit - as an offensive IP strategy and to understand which firm's characteristics and IP management practices affect its relevance. Drawing upon a sample of about 300 firms that have undertaken at least one patent litigation during the last 5 years, we estimate how firms' patent intensity, prior experience in patent litigation, and the extent of geographical coverage of patent protection affect the likelihood that firms make use of such a legal practice. From the findings of the study we draw suggestions for both theory and practice. Particularly, we stress that legal astuteness -as a firm's capability - and forum shopping - as its iconic representation -should be considered by firms as a strategic resource rather than a cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we compare the nano-patent landscapes of China and Japan in order to assess how their structures (type, fragmentation and concentration of patent ownership) affect the organization of the nanotechnology industry. We also analyze the technology policies pursued by the two countries in order to assess how policy interventions support technology transfer and nano-exploitation through university-industry collaboration and technology entrepreneurship. Drawing upon 20,365 patent families related to carbon nanotubes from 1994 to present, we found that two dissimilar technology policies boosting national innovation system emerged: China is more focused on forging an anchor-tenant model, while Japan exhibits a more industry-oriented model through demand-side policy intervention. Implications for firms' strategies and policy makers are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine how patent analysis can provide useful information in support of commercialization strategies to firms operating in emerging fields, such as carbon nanotubes, which represents the most promising sub-field of nanotechnologies. Specifically, the study focuses on the technology exploitation, when firms decide to transfer the outcomes of their innovative processes to third parties. Under these circumstances, firms need to assess actual commercialization opportunities, which ultimately depend on the relative technological strength of the actors operating in that market (Arora, Fosfuri and Gambardella 2001). In order to unveil the characteristics of the market for technologies and to as-sess the competitive conditions thereof, firms may make use of methodologies of patent analysis (Bonino, Ciaramella and Corno 2010; Daim et al. 2006; Lee, Yoon and Park 2009). By and large, the main purpose of patent analysis is to enable firms to monitor and assess technological developments and other areas of concern. As there are no comprehensive reviews on this emerging sector, this paper provides a descriptive overview, identifying what types of firms are entering, from what knowledge base, where they are located, and their strategic choices in terms of technological diversity, and R&D strategy. These findings only represent the starting point of deeper examinations of the technological landscape aimed at assessing the real intention of existing players in the field. Nevertheless, they offer to the management of potential technology providers a first suggestion of which directions to deploy and which others to exclude, thus saving time and effort in trial and error attempts. In turn, managerial implications are then drawn from the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]