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This article investigates the effect of financial and non-financial barriers on innovativeness. Using microdata from Brazil, it provides a rare detailed empirical investigation of this type in developing countries. The analysis is based on a novel conceptual framework of the moderating role of barriers to innovation. Research and development expenditure and informal methods of intellectual property protection are the innovation determinants least affected by obstacles to innovation. This is in sharp contrast to company size, whose effect appeared quite sensitive to barriers of all kinds. Disembodied and embodied knowledge outsourcing interact differently with different constraints: while the former appeared helpful in working around different types of barriers in low-tech sectors, the latter was more useful in addressing financial constraints in high-tech sectors. Finally, cooperation with other firms was negatively affected by obstacles when firms seek more radical innovations, whereas cooperation with research and education organizations proved attractive for companies facing organizational constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the growing literature on innovation networks exploring two understudied topics: the role of gatekeepers in innovation networks and the distinctive character of their linkages especially relating to their ability to overcome cognitive, institutional and geographical distances among network participants in the context of a developing country economy. We address two questions: (1) Which organizations play the regional gatekeeper role in innovation networks? (2) How are gatekeeper linkages affected by different kinds of proximity (geographical, institutional, cognitive and social)? The empirical analysis employs co-patenting data from Brazilian organizations. Universities and public research organizations are shown to be more likely to perform the regional gatekeeper role. Gatekeepers are able to overcome geographic and institutional distance. They also balance cognitive distance with other organizations when geographical or institutional proximities are present. Given their critical role in innovation networks, universities and other public research organizations deserve special attention in policies designed to foster technological upgrading and regional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the challenges posed by national legislative frameworks in the European Union Member States regarding the management of publicly funded research and development (R&D) projects. Taking the case of Spain and its General Subsidies Act as an example, this study analyzes 55 R&D funding calls published by the Spanish Central Administration in 2021 and 2022. This research identifies key challenges associated with change management in these projects. This research performed a detailed review of relevant legislation and its application to R&D projects, alongside an analysis of regulatory bases making use of a flexibility index (FI) to assess the adaptability of grant conditions. Also, quantitative methodologies like Pearson's correlation coefficient and principal component analysis were employed. The findings reveal that flexibility in project management, particularly concerning changes in scope, budget, and timeframes, is limited due to the rigidity of the legal framework. This lack of flexibility means a significant challenge for effective project execution, which inherently requires adaptability to manage uncertainty. This research suggests that future reforms should prioritize greater legal flexibility to improve the efficiency and success of publicly funded R&D initiatives. These findings contribute to the broader understanding of how regulatory constraints impact innovation management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation is one of the main factors associated with industrial growth, as it contributes to increased productivity, sustainability, and international competitiveness. There is a certain degree of complexity in measuring innovation, since there are various metrics for this purpose, and each sector of the economy handles it differently. In Brazil, the Industrial Survey of Technological Innovation (PINTEC) was developed to construct sectorial indicators on innovation activities. Based on these data, this paper investigates how ten sectors of the economy performed during two historical series (2011 to 2014 and 2014 to 2017) considering five criteria linked to the innovation process and the impact of qualified human capital. The problem is analyzed in light of multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA), using preference ranking organization methods for enrichment evaluation (PROMETHEE II) to provide a ranking of Brazilian industrial sectors. The results show how the sectors have changed over the years, highlighting that innovation expenditure proved crucial in measuring companies' commitment to innovation, but also show that a highly qualified workforce emerged as a leading factor. Furthermore, the research presents which criteria have contributed positively and negatively to each sector, which can serve as drivers for policy formulation to strengthen the Brazilian industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Incorporating circular economy principles into forward-thinking public procurement strategies enhances sustainability through the promotion of resource efficiency, sustainable sourcing, and extended producer responsibility. This approach not only encourages innovation and collaboration among suppliers but also drives the development of solutions aligned with circular economy goals. The ultimate result is a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly outcome in procurement. This article seeks to investigate the intersection of circular economy principles within the framework of an innovative public procurement system. The study explores the influence of globalization on this innovative public procurement paradigm, addressing both the challenges and opportunities inherent in the process. The study conceptualizes Innovative Public Procurement (IPP) as a strategic approach where public entities acquire goods, services, works, and utilities, emphasizing an optimal balance between price and quality. The central goal is to generate innovative benefits for both entities and society, all while minimizing adverse environmental effects. Employing traditional research methods, including the monographic method, document analysis, and comparison, the study illustrates how public procurement practices can be opened to innovators, including start-ups and innovative SMEs. The findings shed light on the challenges faced by these entities in navigating the procurement landscape, while emphasizing the potential opportunities arising from the synergy between innovative procurement practices and the circular economy. By adopting a holistic perspective that considers the full lifecycle costs and environmental impacts of goods and services, procurement decisions can prioritize options offering superior long-term value. This contributes to the broader transition towards a circular economy, effectively minimizing adverse effects on the environment... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an abundant literature on the economic (including trade) effects of Aid for Trade (AfT) flows. However, little attention has been devoted to the effect of AfT flows on demand for technology licensing. The present article aims to fill this void in the literature by investigating the effect of AfT flows on technology licensing in developing countries. The analysis has used an unbalanced panel dataset of 77 countries over the period from 2002 to 2019 and mainly the two-step generalized method of moments estimator. It has been established that AfT flows foster technology licensing in countries that experience lower trade costs. In addition, the analysis has revealed that adverse environmental and external (economic and financial) shocks significantly hamper innovation, including the demand for technology licensing, and that AfT flows promote technology licensing in countries that experience lower magnitudes of such shocks. Finally, AfT flows foster technology licensing in countries that diversify export products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the almost century-long history of the development of futures studies in a comprehensive review. Futures studies, rooted in sociology and policy sciences, had become an academic discipline by the 1960s. One of the major global communities representing the discipline, the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF), celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2023. In the 1970s, the focus was placed on discourses on global problems and preferred futures. Futures studies then developed a global institutional community and become a mature discipline by the 1980s and 1990s. Futurists by then had already mutually shared theoretical perspectives, objectives, ethics, and methods, and had produced empirical results. A wide range of comprehensive publications at that time synthesized the foundations and preceding results of futures studies. From the turn of the millennium, active discourse took place on the forthcoming role of futures studies. By that time, the theoretical, methodological, and practical knowledge foundations of the discipline had also appeared in internationally well-documented curricula. Since around 2010, the discipline has been characterized by the development of practical foresight projects. Based on notable trends and identified research gaps, this article formulates up-to-date expectations and research directions within which futures studies might develop in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the coming of the entrepreneurial university has brought about a third role in academia, which involves greater visible exchange of academics with society and industry. In this paper, the authors investigate to what extent individual and organisational factors influence the propensity of academics to engage in different types of Third Mission (TM) activities. This study is based on a large-scale survey of academics in Iceland regarding engagement in socio-economic activities. The results indicate that "soft" activities such as community activities and external teaching and training can be better predicted by individual factors, while hard activities such as applied contract research and commercialisation can be better predicted by organisational factors. Overall, academics are most likely to participate in community-related activities. Hereby, academics from the STEM and health disciplines, with work experience outside of academia and who are open to new experiences are more likely to be engaged in applied contract research and commercialisation. Academics belonging to disciplines other than STEM and health sciences and those that on an average publish more peer-reviewed articles are more likely to disseminate their knowledge to a wider audience outside of academia through public science communication. Gender, rank, and teaching do not affect TM participation, but openness, performance, or discipline do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public sector procurement is increasingly seen as an important instrument for inducing innovation in the private sector. Yet, a broad range of different concepts, each with their own associated rationales, and approaches, are used in literature and practice to describe the stimulation of innovation through public procurement. Due to a lack of an overview on the use of concepts, rationales and approaches to stimulate innovation through public procurement in literature and practice, it remains difficult for public organisations to decide why, how, and to what extent they will stimulate innovation in the private sector through public procurement. The contributions of this article to mitigate this problem are threefold. First, it provides a review of the different streams of literature, dichotomies and typologies on public procurement with respect to inducing innovation. Second, it discusses various approaches to stimulate innovation through public procurement individually and compares them in a structured overview. Finally, it provides guidance on the suitability of the use of these approaches in different situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SMEs are perceived as more exposed to the consequences of external shocks. The purpose of our work is to examine whether the ERM sophistication or corporate governance mechanisms could be relevant in resistance to COVID-19 shock in the SMEs. In particular, we hypothesize that the SMEs with greater degree of ERM sophistication and stronger CG mechanisms will have a clearer understanding about the severity of the impacts from COVID-19. Our empirical evidence is based on the results of a survey conducted within a large sample of SMEs operating in Poland and in Germany within different experimental settings. We have found that the ERM and CG sophistication influence the perception of COVID-19 interruptions and will alert companies to adjust their business strategy and organizational structure to better cope with effects of the current crisis. The proposed framework can also be a valuable tool for consultants to use to enhance the ERM systems in SMEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the factors that drive the successful commercialisation of indigenous innovation in Sub-Saharan African economies is still limited. From both policy and theoretical perspectives, regulation is one factor that remains crucial for the successful commercialisation of innovation. However, the empirical evidence is still unclear regarding its effect on firm performance, urging the need for more evidence from different economies, sectors, and firms. This study, therefore, examined the effects of regulation on the performance of firms engaged in the commercialisation of indigenous innovation in the Ghanaian small-scale industry, a typical low-income economy in Sub-Sahara Africa. From the frugal innovation theoretical perspective, the study assumed that firms engaged in the commercialisation of indigenous innovation in such low-income economies operate in an environment with regulatory gaps and voids. Using a sample survey of 557, it deployed PLS-SEM to test the effects of regulation on key successful commercialisation metrics. The findings show that at a 5% statistical significance level, regulation has significant positive effects on sales, employment, and owners' feelings of success. Regulation also positively moderates the influence of finance and organisational factors on overall firm performance. The study provides leading evidence of the effect of regulation on the commercialisation of indigenous innovation from Ghana and adds to the clarification of the impact of regulation. It suggests that in such low-income economies, the policy must consider more balanced and appropriate regulations, not less, or deregulating to promote indigenous innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Failure to holistically manage risk in Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) is one of the major causes of small businesses failure. To answer the research question as to what supports the adoption of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) in SMEs, this research aims to analyse Risk Management (RM) in SMEs and develops a framework to facilitate the adoption of ERM. In achieving the primary objective, the research establishes for SMEs: the sources of information for RM; the importance of information governance in managing risk; the fundamentals of RM; and the pillars of RM. Previous research conducted on RM in SMEs reviewed the challenges of the successful implementation of ERM in SMEs and proposed different ways to address these challenges. The common ground reached by the research is that there is a need for the simplification of ERM in SMEs. We followed an interpretive philosophy with an inductive research approach and employed a qualitative methodological choice with a cross-sectional time horizon through data collection, employing a review of the scholarly literature, to, in the end, develop a conceptual Small Medium Enterprises Risk Management Framework (SMERMF). The limitation of the research is that the empirical part of the research has not been concluded yet. To present the results, that will be compared to the theory and conclude the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to analyze how Spanish small and medium-sized enterprises (hereinafter SMEs) manage risks derived from internationalization to improve performance. For this purpose, a case study was elaborated to understand the different risk management strategies used by Spanish SMEs in order to improve performance. Data were collected through sixteen semi-structured interviews. Findings suggest that although the internationalization process involves risk, SMEs, despite their size, can develop a proper risk management which leads to improve performance. Additionally, it is suggested that internationalization risks are not an impediment for SMEs to become involved in international activity, but that it is the way they manage them which makes SMEs improve their performance. Furthermore, the internationalization strategy becomes more efficient when a differentiation and innovation strategy are followed simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editor's Note Our policy is to annotate all English-language books on economics and related subjects that are sent to us. A very small number of foreign-language books are called to our attention and annotated by our consulting editors or others. Our staff does not monitor and order books published; therefore, if an annotation of a book does not appear six months after the publication date, please write to us or the publisher concerning the book. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green innovation is the key to solve increasingly serious environmental problems. Previous studies mainly focus on the effects of environmental regulations (ERs) on local green innovation while little research has paid attention to the effects of ERs in neighborhood, and the impact mechanism remains unclear. Actually, the green innovation in a region may depend on the superposition effects of local and neighboring ERs. This study proposes a theoretical framework of local-neighborhood effects of ERs on green innovation, and empirically tests the effects and mechanisms based on an examination of 274 prefecture level cities of China, with different ERs and regions taken into consideration. The results show regional differences in the local-neighborhood effects of different ERs on green innovation and further identify the optimum regional ERs intensity. Moreover, it is also discovered that areas with high intensity of ERs will foster the regional transfer of industries and human capital, and further affect green innovation in neighboring areas. Both command and control regulation and market-based regulation restrain green innovation in neighborhood through industrial transfer with the peak at 400 and 600 km economic urban circles, respectively. And the human capital is found significantly negative in neighborhood effect of market-based regulation within the 600 km scope. This study fills a gap in the literature of local-neighborhood effects of different ERs on green innovation, which is an extending of Porter Hypothesis and will be of great significance for regionally coordinated green innovation promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investment in Research and Development (R&D) is scrutinised where funding is limited such as in developing counties. There is therefore an increased emphasis on benefit and impact assessment tools and systems for such R&D programmes. In sectors like roads and transport, deliverables from R&D could include new materials and equipment. However, it usually, and more often, delivers novel design methods, new techniques and models for enhancing transport system performance and free software for use by professionals in the industry. The nature of these "soft" deliverables complicates the measurement of the performance of R&D in roads and transport. The South African Roads Agency Ltd SOC (SANRAL) developed a Balanced Score Card (BSC) with associated indicators that can be used to monitor the performance of its research programme across the full innovation value chain. This article aims to review the indicator set by assessing its balance in terms of SANRAL's systems-based R&D model, by evaluating it against the SANRAL strategic objectives and through a survey among 175 stakeholders and researchers. It was found that the indicator set is well balanced and addresses all aspects of the innovation value chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effective operation of national innovation systems can be a source of many opportunities, but it cannot be forgotten that innovation in itself may mean limiting but also generating various types of risks for the functioning of the local market. The main aim of the article is to present the concept and classification of national innovation systems in the world and to try to answer whether the type of NIS determines the level of innovation of the economies of the European Union countries. The following research thesis was formulated in the study: the type of National Innovation System determines a certain level of innovation in the economy of an European Union country, i.e., in countries belonging to a developed NIS, the level of innovation of the economy is higher than in countries belonging to developing systems. The results of the analysis confirm the research thesis. In the empirical part, the level of innovation in the European Union countries was assessed using the synthetic measure of development (SMD) by Z. Hellwig. Based on the obtained values of the synthetic measure of development (innovation), a ranking of the innovation of the economies of the EU countries was compiled and groups of countries with a similar degree of innovation in the economy were distinguished. The developed ranking of the European Union countries was compared with the NSI classification presented in the theoretical part of the article. The study covered 2010 and 2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]