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Using the entire population of USPTO patent applications published between 2002 and 2019, and leveraging on both patent classification and semantic analysis, this paper aims to map the current knowledge base centred on robotics and AI technologies. These technologies are investigated both as a whole and distinguishing core and related innovations, along a 4-level core-periphery architecture. Merging patent applications with the Orbis IP firm-level database allows us to put forward a twofold analysis based on industry of activity and geographic location. In a nutshell, results show that: (i) rather than representing a technological revolution, the new knowledge base is strictly linked to the previous technological paradigm; (ii) the new knowledge base is characterised by a considerable—but not impressively widespread—degree of pervasiveness; (iii) robotics and AI are strictly related, converging (particularly among the related technologies and in more recent times) and jointly shaping a new knowledge base that should be considered as a whole, rather than consisting of two separate GPTs; (iv) the US technological leadership turns out to be confirmed (although declining in relative terms in favour of Asian countries such as South Korea, China and, more recently, India).

The paper articulates and tests the hypothesis that the current direction of technological change is knowledge- rather than capital intensive. The new accounting procedures that identify and quantify intangible assets allow us to test the role of capitalized knowledge as an input in the technology production function. The micro-level evidence from US listed companies included in Compustat, over the period 1977-2016, confirms that the direction of technological change has been increasingly knowledge intensive and tangible-capital saving. It also shows that this trend has increased in its strength over time and across all US sectors. The most dramatic increase in the output elasticity of knowledge occurred in the high-tech and manufacturing sectors. Furthermore, the output elasticity of tangible capital has constantly reduced in the consumer and high-tech sectors over time.

It is widely accepted in innovation management literature that a firm can increase its competitive advantage by recombining knowledge and that knowledge recombination requires engagement in external sourcing activities. What is less known, however, is how a firm's external sourcing strategy - notably its propensity to engage in acquisitions or alliances - is influenced by its internal knowledge base. In this paper, we examine how two critical characteristics of a firm's knowledge base, namely, scientific orientation and technological diversity, influence the extent to which it engages in alliances or acquisitions. We find that both explanatory variables increase firms' likelihood of engaging in external technology sourcing and favouring alliances over acquisitions. Our analyses are based on a sample of European firms operating in the biopharmaceutical industry.

Precocious inventors have a higher inventive productivity during their remaining career. Inventors who have their first patent either applied for extraordinarily fast or a first patent of especially high quality are regarded as precocious. This paper systematically includes individual and employer characteristics that can drive career productivity beside an early patenting success to reveal the true productivity effect of precociousness. We show that early patenting success reveals dimensions of inventive ability that are not captured in individual characteristics that are predetermined at the start of the career such as the school education level. The favourable work environment precocious inventors enjoyed also has a relatively low explanatory value for career productivity. Precocious inventors also do not benefit from cumulative advantage. Although also rival firms can use early patenting success as indicator for a high career productivity, early employers can retain a high share of their precocious inventors. We propose several reasons for this surprising phenomenon.

Many business-owning families aspire to someday transfer their firm to the next family generation. Controversy surrounds the question of how these transgenerational intentions affect risky growth strategies such as investments in innovation: some emphasize the positives of a transgenerational time horizon for investments in future growth, others highlight the negatives of a more conservative mindset with amplified concern for stability and risk avoidance. Using regulatory focus theory, we resolve this long-standing controversy about the impact of transgenerational intentions by theorizing how they can trigger a promotion focus with increased innovation spending or a prevention focus with reduced innovation spending, depending on the firm's survival hazard. Based on a sample of around 3,900 German firms using OLS and 2SLS estimation, we find empirical support for our predictions. This study extends the mixed gamble lens on family firm decision-making with insights from regulatory focus theory to build consensus on the role of transgenerational intentions while shifting consensus on the role of family ownership in relation to the innovation spending decision.

Firms engage in coopetition by collaborating with their direct competitors. We examine how reliance on protection mechanisms to safeguard intellectual property (IP) affects a firm's decision to engage in coopetition. In addition, we study how industry dynamism and competitive intensity moderate this relationship. Using a generalized structural equation model (GSEM), we find that firms are more likely to collaborate with rivals when their IP is protected. Firms employing formal protection mechanisms are more likely to engage in coopetition if they operate in a dynamic industry and they are less prone to engage in coopetition when using informal protection mechanisms in dynamic and competitive industries. We conjecture that this latter finding signals that firms employing informal mechanisms in such environments are more likely to prevent knowledge spillovers to a competitor by avoiding them as partnership candidates.

The increasingly service-based U.S. economy relies on innovation. While there is considerable research on the importance of certain innovative activities, such as patents, less attention has been paid to unpatented innovation, about which there is naturally less publicly available information. Our study exploits disclosure on the fair value of acquired innovation to show that unpatented innovation plays an important, though often ignored, role in merger value creation. We detail the importance of unpatented technology and show that traditional approaches that rely only on R&D expenditures and patents lead to both misclassification of merger types and underestimates of the impact of innovation in value creation. Our evidence suggests that, on average, unpatented innovation accounts for a larger portion of synergies. We further show that higher (lower) gains accrue to the acquirer (the target) in relation to unpatented innovation, consistent with limited publicly available information about unpatented innovation reducing the target’s bargaining power.

Purpose This study aims at advancing the understanding of University-Industry Collaboration (UIC) by proposing an adapted conceptual model for comprehensive contextual analysis taking industry perspective and identifying effective mechanisms for stimulating UIC in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Design/methodology/approach This study was designed as a multicase qualitative study. Data were collected through interviews of focus groups representing 26 agro-processing companies operating in Rwanda. The process consisted of two sessions evaluating the current collaboration patterns, and two sessions identifying the desired future and the mechanisms to realize it. Data were analyzed using ATLAS.ti software with the grounded theory techniques. Findings Findings indicate that current interactions are unidirectional and focus on educational collaboration. Results are short-term and do not yield sufficient benefit for the companies involved. Industry aspirations for future collaboration were identified, along with linkages between inputs, activities and outcomes. Research limitations/implications This study has two noteworthy limitations. First, this study did not consider the capacity of firms to collaborate. Second, for simplification purposes, this study did not integrate other complementary sources of knowledge for firms. To overcome these omissions, a short introduction of University–Industry Collaboration (UIC) was presented to participants highlighting and justifying the scope of the study. As research implications, this paper presents a new integrated conceptual framework, which can be useful for studies focusing on a comprehensive analysis of the UIC context and identifying effective mechanisms for improvement in the future. A construct of policies that stimulate UIC is proposed, thereby facilitating further operationalization and testing of context-specific hypotheses on policy stimuli. Practical implications In practice, the identified conceptual framework allows to holistically capture and reflect on the interrelationships between UIC factors and outcomes for a specific context, hence, informing better UIC decision-making. In this way, this paper advances the operationalization of the argument for reconciling organizational theories with their practices. Social implications This paper presents a systemic means for organizational theories to perform their adaptive role in society. Indeed, as demonstrated by the empirical results, the proposed framework is effective not only in systematically assessing the current situation, but also in predicting the desired state in the future. In other words, the proposed framework facilitates prescience theorizing, which is a mechanism for ensuring that organizational theories adapt to future requirements of the society. Originality/value This study develops a new integrative conceptual framework to accommodate the interaction between UIC’s institutional decision-making and existing macrolevel frameworks of innovation ecosystems. In terms of methodology, the value of this study lies in its adoption of an ex ante approach to the development of mechanisms to stimulate UIC. This use of prescience theory (Corley and Gioia, 2011) constitutes an important – but long-neglected – approach to UIC and its adaptive role in society.

Employing a panel (1995-2015) of large R&D spending pharmaceutical firms, we investigate how internal basic research increases a firm’s innovative performance. We disentangle two mechanisms through which internal basic research affects technology development: (1) as strengthening of the firm’s absorptive capacity to build on externally conducted science, and (2) as a direct source of the firm’s innovation. We find that the positive relationship between internal basic research and innovation performance is significantly mediated by these two mechanisms, with the absorptive capacity mechanism relatively more important. The mediation relationships are more pronounced in recent years, with basic research as a direct source of innovation increasing in importance. This pattern is associated with a decline of corporate investments in basic research over time, and suggests that firms have adopted a more judicious and targeted approach to basic research aimed at getting more leverage out of a smaller commitment to basic research. ispartof: Industry And Innovation vol:29 issue:3 pages:396-424 status: Published online

Histories of semiconductor and computing technology in the United States have emphasized the supporting role of the U.S. state, especially the military, in answer to libertarian denials of state aid that are influential in Silicon Valley today. Somewhat implicit in that historiography, though, is the leading role of actors and organizations that blur any distinction between public and private. Some industries of this sort—telecommunications, aerospace, auto manufacturing—do figure in the historiography, but the class should be expanded further. One such industry—oil—has been exceptionally but almost invisibly influential in the development of computing and semiconductor manufacturing in the United States. Oil firms invested heavily in semiconductors and computing. There was also an “oil spillover” of personnel and technology from oil firms to computing and semiconductor manufacturing. Oil shows up in the biographies of many prominent individuals and organizations in the history of those technologies, from Fairchild Semiconductor to Edsger Dijkstra. These ties potentially hold important implications for the much-needed transition to a more sustainable energy regime.

We examine the role of knowledge spillovers in fostering regional new firm formation in 230 NACE-4 manufacturing industries and 980 NUTS-3 regions in Europe. We find that regionally embedded knowledge stocks represented by patents have a positive association with new firm formation, but that knowledge protection and appropriation strategies of incumbents discourage such new firm entries. Knowledge stocks represented by trademarks only translate into higher entry rates in the absence of a pronounced appropriation strategy of incumbent firms or when entrants do not directly compete with the trademarking incumbents. Our findings highlight the two-sided effects of trademarks as an indicator of product novelties as well as a potential expression of strengthened incumbent appropriation strategies. ispartof: Regional Studies vol:56 issue:2 pages:1-17 status: Published online

The literature on foreign direct investment offers rich evidence that foreign firms outperform their local peers in emerging economies from an environmental perspective. However, it remains unclear whether local firms can learn from the environmental excellence of foreign firms to undertake cleaner production, which helps protect the host country’s natural environment. This environmental spillover effect may offer critical support to the pollution halo effect; however, it has received insufficient empirical attention. By analyzing firm-level panel data on environmental performance in China and augmenting them with data from the input–output table, we investigate whether and how foreign firms improve local firms’ environmental management. Our findings present evidence that the presence of foreign firms in the same industry in the same city lowers the pollutant emission intensity of local firms, corroborating the environmental spillover effect. We also discuss two mechanisms for this spillover: community- and industry-based institutional channels. Furthermore, we find that environmental spillovers are stronger among small and medium-sized enterprises and in areas with higher levels of existing pollution.

This paper examines how firms in an emerging economy cope with resource challenges by implementing compensation strategies for incremental product innovations. The model is empirically tested using firm-level survey data from 497 South African manufacturing firms. Results show that higher diversity among a specific set of external knowledge sources is associated with a higher likelihood of incremental product innovation. Stronger embeddedness in non-domestic inter-organisational networks increases this likelihood as well. The positive effect of external knowledge diversity is more positive for higher levels of localised ties. Recommendations to enhance incremental product innovation concern the development of external relationships with domestic and international partners while limiting knowledge source diversity to a specific actor set. This paper shows that in an emerging economy firms have agency with which they can use contact learning leading to product innovations tailored to local market needs and opportunities.

Plain English Summary COVID-19 has imposed restrictions on labor mobility and this turns out to be relevant for productivity and economic growth. Business visits (BVs) are a proper proxy (unique information is taken from the US National Business Travel Association) to measure short-term mobility. Sectoral data in 14 countries over the period 1998-2013 are used. Results do reveal that BVs have a positive impact on labor productivity. However, this effect is more relevant in those sectors and economies at a lower stage of productivity evolution, i.e., the lower the initial productivity level, the larger the effect of BVs on productivity. Therefore, BVs play a relevant role in sectors and countries lagging behind in terms of productivity. Policy makers should foster, in the post-pandemic recovery, short-term labor mobility through adequate incentives and tax exemptions, particularly in those sectors where BVs are less frequent and where productivity growth is below the average.The restrictions on labor mobility imposed in the COVID-19 pandemic heighten the need to review in detail the role of mobility in improving productivity and fostering economic growth. In this study, we carry out a comprehensive analysis of business visits (BVs) understood as a productivity-enhancing intrapreneurial strategy, using the most extensive set of data available, covering 33 sectors and 14 countries during the period 1998-2013. Our database merges unique information on expenditures on BVs by sector, country, and year, sourced from the US National Business Travel Association, with OECD and World Bank productivity data. We find that BVs raise labor productivity in a significant way, but short-term labor mobility exhibits decreasing returns, being more crucial in those firms, sectors, and countries characterized by less mobility and by lower productivity performances.

While their expertise and scientific excellence make academic star scientists attractive collaboration partners for firms, this study indicates that firms face difficulties in capturing value from collaborations with academic stars. Stars are time constrained, may be less committed to commercialization, and can be a source of undesired knowledge spillovers to other firms. The purpose of this study is to recognize the contingencies under which collaboration with star scientists is positively associated with a firm’s ability to produce valuable patents (invention performance). We analyze a panel dataset on the collaborations in basic research(publication data) and invention performance (patent output) of 60 prominent pharmaceutical firms. We find that basic research collaboration with academic stars is on average not associated with a performance premium above the overall positive influence of collaborating with academia. We only observe this premium if the star scientist abstains from simultaneous collaboration with other firms (‘dedication’) and extend her collaboration with the firm to involvenot only basic but also applied research (‘translation’). Extending prior work that has focused on corporate star scientists, we find that if the collaboration involves an internal firm star scientist, a translational contribution of the academic star is no longer a prerequisite, and may even be detrimental to inventive performance. Our findings inform the literatures on industry-science links and firms’ (scientific) absorptive capacity by revealing the crucial contingencies for firms to benefit from partnering with the best and brightest among academic scientists. Practitioner Points: - Intuitively we may expect that collaborating with the very top among academics benefits firms, yet collaborating with these academic star scientists also entails important challenges. - Organizations seeking to benefit from the extraordinary expertise of academic star scientists should take into account two important conditions: o The top academic should be a dedicated collaboration partner, and avoid simultaneous collaboration with other firms. o The top academic should not only be involved in basic research but also in applied research collaboration with the firm, enhancing her ability to assist the firm in the translation of research into a marketable product. - When the firm also employs a star scientist who is engaged in the collaborative research with an academic star scientist, the translation of the joint research is better performed by the internally employed star scientists instead of the academic star scientist. ispartof: Journal Of Product Innovation Management vol:39 issue:2 pages:222-264 status: Published online

This paper studies regional productive performance differentials among 243 NUTS-2 European regions for the period 2003–11. Within the last two decades the technology gap between European regions has increased considerably. Building on previous studies that have used data envelopment analysis (DEA) and which have neglected national production structures and pre-existing technological heterogeneity, we examine differences in regional productive performance by using a meta-frontier framework. Our findings confirm significant differences in productive performance across European regions and a large North–South technology gap. A panel vector autoregression (PVAR) shows that this regional technology gap can be attributed to differences in human capital and innovation activity.

While the extant innovation literature has provided extensive evidence of the so-called “demand-pull” effect, the possible diverse impact of demand evolution on product vs process innovation activities has not been yet investigated. This paper develops a formal model predicting a larger inducing impact of past sales in fostering product rather than process innovation. This prediction is then tested through a dynamic microeconometric model, controlling for R&D persistence, sample selection, observed and unobservable individual firm effects and time and sectoral peculiarities. Results are consistent with the model and suggest that an expansionary economic policy may benefit the diffusion of new products or even the emergence of entire new sectors.

PurposeEmbracing a large set of innovation objectives and collaborating with diverse partners have been promoted as a means to improve innovation performance. However, empirical evidence on the relationships between breadth of objectives, breadth of cooperation and innovation performance is limited, particularly in the context of emerging economies. A larger number of objectives and cooperation partners inevitably increases the complexity in organizational alignment, and cooperation eventually leads to diminishing returns. This study adds to the debate on the costs and benefits of cooperation for innovation. Understanding the optimal levels of the breadth of objectives and cooperation supports managerial decision-making and productivity in the practice of cooperation for innovation.Design/methodology/approachOperationalizing breadth of innovation objectives and cooperation via the Turkish Community Innovation Survey data, self-reports reflecting 5,863 firm-level responses between 2006 and 2008 are analysed using tobit and probit models. The maximum likelihood estimator is used to find the optimal levels for breadth of objectives and cooperation.FindingsFirms with greater breadth of innovation objectives experience higher innovation performance; those with greater breadth of cooperation also experience higher innovation performance, but our results indicate the existence of optimal levels of breadth for both innovation objectives and cooperation.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors extend the logic that there is no safety in numbers in cooperation for innovation. If the aim is to enhance innovation performance, managers and policymakers need to pay attention to the number of innovation objectives and the amount of cooperation pursued by firms. However, innovation success may be closely associated with a firm's dynamic capabilities and ability to mobilize its resources. Drawing on organizational learning theories, future research could explore why a lower than maximum level of cooperation may be more conducive to reaching levels of enhanced innovation performance and whether this level is influenced by cognitive processes.Originality/valueThe authors draw attention to the ideal number of innovation objectives and number of cooperating partners required to enhance innovation performance, thus contributing to the debate on the complex relationships between innovation, performance and cooperation in the unique setting of a large developing economy.

Intra-company knowledge transfer is a key source of competitive advantage for multinational companies (MNCs) and this knowledge is usually embedded in individuals. Drawing on organizational knowledge creation theory, we explore how inpatriation contributes to knowledge transfer and, in turn, subsidiary performance. Inpatriation involves the international assignment of employees from an MNC’s foreign subsidiary to its headquarters. Despite increasing attention to the role of inpatriation, we lack a clear understanding of whether and how inpatriates provide value to their subsidiaries after returning from headquarters. Through a qualitative case study of Japanese MNCs, we demonstrate the process through which inpatriates’ knowledge transfer contributes to subsidiary capability building and subsidiary evolution over time, and explain why successive inpatriation is thus critical to enhance subsidiary performance. Our theoretical model highlights the value of inpatriates as knowledge agents, reveals the process through which inpatriates transfer knowledge between HQ and subsidiaries, and provides a more nuanced understanding of the micro-foundations of intra-MNC knowledge transfer processes. Based on these findings, we argue that inpatriation is not merely a staffing method that is complementary to expatriation, but a key practice in its own right to support subsidiaries’ growth and performance.

The new knowledge intensive direction of technological change is magnified at the firm level by the limited exhaustibility of knowledge. This limited exhaustibility triggers cumulability and extensibility for which the larger the firm, the lower the knowledge generation costs from using a larger stock of existing knowledge, and the lower the knowledge exploitation costs related to a larger output based on use of the same piece of knowledge. The consequences for the direction of technological change are twofold. First, the larger the firm size, the larger the share of intangible capital in total capital. Second, the output elasticity of intangible capital increases with the size of the firm. We test our hypotheses on data on US listed companies over the period 1977–2016. The results of ordinary least squares, two-stage least squares and production function estimations confirm our theoretical expectations.

This paper explores the persistence often found in firms' innovation and advances current research by investigating its actual nature. Previous studies have aimed at disentangling true state dependence from spurious state dependence by using a random effects (RE) dynamic panel probit approach, thereby imposing strong conditions on the underlying structure of the unobserved heterogeneity. Building on recent advances in the econometric literature, which allows for true fixed effects estimation of dynamic nonlinear panel data models, we demonstrate that relaxing the assumptions on the unobserved heterogeneity can have a considerable effect on the estimates of true state dependence. While we confirm the existence of a strong persistence of innovation in firms, we however find that true state dependence only explains about half of the persistent behaviour displayed by firms; this is in contrast to the popular RE methodology that attributes 70% to 100% of persistence to true state dependence. Our results suggest that policy programs aimed at encouraging initial innovations alone are useful but may not possess a long-term stimulating effect on innovation activity.

Critics claim that patent screening is ineffective, granting low-quality patents that impose unnecessary social costs. We develop an integrated framework, involving patent office examination, fees, and endogenous validity challenges in the courts, to study patent screening both theoretically and quantitatively. In our model, some inventions require the patent incentive while others do not, and asymmetric information creates a need for screening. We show that the endogeneity of challenges implies that courts, even if perfect, cannot solve the screening problem. Simulations of the model, calibrated on U.S. data, indicate that screening is highly imperfect, with almost half of all patents issued on inventions that do not require the patent incentive. While we find that the current patent system generates positive social value, intensifying examination would yield large welfare gains. The social value of the patent system would also be larger if complemented by antitrust limits on licensing.

External knowledge has been found to be vital in generating innovation. However, little is known about the conditions under which firms can benefit from utilizing specific external knowledge sources. Using the knowledge-based view as our theoretical underpinning, we empirically examine how the usage of knowledge gained from market- and science-based sources influences innovation performance differently between family and non-family firms. An analysis using panel data drawn from Belgian firms supports our hypothesis that the relationship between the use of knowledge gained from suppliers and customers and innovation outcomes is weaker for family firms than for non-family firms, while the relationship between the use of knowledge gained from universities and research institutes and innovation outcomes is stronger for family firms. This study extends the literature by revealing the role firm type (i.e., family versus non-family) plays in moderating the relationship between the use of knowledge obtained from distinct external sources and innovation performance.

What role do immigrants play in firms’ ability to absorb and apply foreign knowledge? Based on a matched employer–employee dataset from Danish manufacturing firms over the period 2001–2011, this study examines the impact of foreign knowledge accessible by firms’ immigrant employees on firm-level total factor productivity (TFP). We construct various firm-specific absorbable foreign knowledge measures that link firms’ immigrant employees to the technological knowledge base of their country of origin. The empirical results suggest that firms employing immigrant employees have higher firm-level TFP outcomes and a higher probability of new firm-level patent applications. The average productivity gain associated with the hiring of one immigrant employee is about 1.5% in the year following the firm’s hiring decision. Additional results show that the estimated productivity increase varies with the level of education and the occupational positions of the immigrant employees. The results are robust to the inclusion of a large range of firm-specific controls and various sensitivity checks.

We suggest that the benefits of learning in international value chains for firms’ innovation performance are heterogeneous and depend on the specific source of learning (customers, suppliers, or competitors), whether these sources are based in countries that are technologically advanced or less advanced (learning opportunities), on technology leadership (learning capabilities) on the part of the focal firm, and on the simultaneous learning that occurs from domestic firms. Using direct survey evidence on learning and innovation by German firms, we confirm that technology leaders benefit from advanced foreign customer and supplier learning, that technology laggards benefit from less advanced foreign customer learning and advanced foreign competitor learning, and that both leaders and laggards benefit from domestic customer learning. The findings suggest a tradeoff between the opportunities to learn from foreign or domestic customers. ispartof: Industrial And Corporate Change vol:29 issue:6 status: Published online

‘Rethinking Regions in Turbulent Times’ was the title of our editorial at the start of this volume (54) of Regional Studies (Bailey et al., 2020a). Back in January we had not foreseen quite how pre...

To create value in an open innovation context, firms need to increase the permeability of their organizational boundaries to enable knowledge exchange with a broad set of partners. Yet to capture value, firms also need to consider how to govern their cooperative efforts and prevent unintended knowledge leakage. This paper develops a novel framework for researching this paradox of openness, which combines an organizational boundary with a relational contract design perspective. First, we extend prior literature by arguing that value is not created only by optimizing resource bundles through external search processes (i.e., competence boundaries). Instead, value can be created by managing interdependencies with external parties (i.e., power boundaries), aligning open innovation activities with the organization's identity (i.e., identity boundaries), and coordinating diverse transactions in an open innovation portfolio (i.e., efficiency boundaries). Second, we propose that relational contract design is an important alternative to formal appropriation regimes and discuss how contractual mechanisms derived from a relational perspective can enable value capture in an open innovation context. Finally, we discuss how firms can strategically manage configurations of firm boundaries and contract design via a set of dynamic capabilities.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to theorize and empirically examine the effects of intra- and inter-regional geographic diversification on firm performance in China. Furthermore, it investigates they key firm capabilities, which moderate the relationships between intra- and inter-regional geographic diversification and firm performance. Design/methodology/approach In this research, the authors studied 366 listed companies that invest in mainland China. The authors used the Taiwan Economy Journal database to construct a panel data set from 2005 to 2014 and employed panel regression estimations as part of the empirical analyses. Findings The authors find that the effect of regional diversification on firm performance is significantly influenced by the contexts of the expansion. More specifically, the results show that the effect of intra-regional geographic diversification on firm performance takes the form of a U-shape relationship. In contrast, the authors find that inter-regional geographic diversification has a negative effect on firm performance. Firm marketing, research and development (R&D) and managerial capabilities moderate these relationships. Research limitations/implications First, the companies studied in this research are mainly Taiwanese manufacturers with investments in mainland China. Second, the current model can be expanded by exploring additional process explanations and moderators in future research. Practical implications An important practical implication of this research is that when firms choose an intra-regional expansion strategy in China, they should adopt a moderate provincial diversification strategy in the invested region and reinforce its marketing capability to enhance firm performance. A careful consideration of a firm’s marketing, R&D and managerial capabilities is needed for successful regional diversification strategies in the China market. Originality/value The findings of this study contribute significantly to the existing literature on firms’ regional diversification. First, the authors explore and empirically test intra- and inter-regional geographic diversification strategies in China. The authors find that the effect of regional diversification on firm performance varies according to the contexts of the expansion (for instance, global, regional, in a single country). Second, this study furthers the research theme of intra- and inter-regional diversification by introducing and investigating previously unexplored firm capabilities as part of the framework.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the growth dynamics of young small firms (in contrast with larger and older incumbents) in a developing country context, using a unique and comprehensive dataset of non-agricultural Tunisian companies. Our results suggest that significant differences between young and mature firms can be found as far as the drivers of their growth are concerned. The key finding being that-while consistently with the extant literature Gibrat's law is overall rejected-the negative impact of the initial size is significantly larger for young than mature firms. This result has interesting policy implications: since smaller young firms are particularly conducive to employment generation, they can be considered good candidate for targeted accompanying policies addressed to sustain their post-entry growth.

We sub-divide scale-invariant fully or semi-endogenous growth models into six sub-categories for formulas relating steady-state growth rates of income per capita and the growth rate of the population depending on the properties of slopes and intercepts. We capture their steady-state relation by a long-term relation in panel vector-error-correction models for 16 countries and estimate the 16 models simultaneously allowing successively for more heterogeneity. Under slope homogeneity, the slope and intercepts of the growth equations are positive in this setting. However, allowing for heterogeneity there are two main groups of countries: those with non-positive slopes and positive intercepts are a large majority supporting fully endogenous growth; those with positive slopes and zero intercepts are a smaller group supporting semi-endogenous growth. Results therefore favour fully over semi-endogenous growth with and without slope homogeneity and allow for growth rate policies. The more frequent case is that long-run growth can remain positive if population stops growing. Analysis of cross-unit cointegration suggests that long-run results are internationally connected.

The question of what changes when women enter upper-echelons teams has long frustrated upper echelons and gender researchers. We build on the dynamic strategic renewal literature, combine it with upper echelons theory insights, and integrate knowledge about female executives' career strategies to theorize how and when female appointments into top management teams (TMTs) cause firms to change their approach to knowledge-related strategic renewal. In doing so, we reconcile the tension among extant mediating processes invoked to explain how female TMT representation might affect strategic decisions: change orientation and risk-taking propensity. Estimating a dynamic ordinary least squares model on panel data from 163 multinationals, we find that following female (but not male) TMT appointments, TMT cognitions shift, becoming more change oriented and less risk seeking. Subsequently, these TMT cognitive shifts cause a decrease in mergers and acquisitions and an increase in research and development. Our model of female TMT appointments as catalysts that cause shifts in TMT cognitions, which, in turn, redirect knowledge-related strategic renewal from a buying to a building approach, is a novel effort at advancing research on women at upper echelons to examine time-dependent, within-firm mechanisms linking women in upper echelons and firm outcomes.

This article explores whether and how innovation policies promote transitions to more sustainable configurations in socio-technical systems. Empirically it departs from an analysis of the bioeconomy policy strategies and instruments in four Nordic countries. The analysis highlights that while a transformative approach is present at the policy strategy level in the Nordic countries, the bioeconomy policy instruments implemented are significantly less transformative. The article argues that a bioeconomy transition that contributes to sustainable development will require a redirection of policies towards transformative failures (directionality, policy coordination, demand articulation, and reflexivity). In this regard, it is important that policymakers experiment with and explore ways of balancing between traditional market and innovation system approaches and new policy approaches for transformative change.

It is well-established that firms leverage both internal and external resources for their innovation activities. Even though the role of agglomeration economies in shaping the external resources available to firms has been particularly well-studied it is still unclear whether it is diversity or specialisation within agglomerations that drives firm innovativeness. We suggest that both do but that their relations with firm innovativeness are moderated by managerial industry experience. Using data from four South-East Asian economies we find that managers with more industry experience are better able to make the most of where they are, leveraging the opportunities afforded by their geographic environment. This finding is most pronounced in rural areas where firms with inexperienced managers almost never innovate, whereas half of the firms with experienced managers do. This suggests that future agglomeration research should be attentive to firm-level idiosyncrasies.

Drawing on organizational learning theory, we investigate the technological performance implications of acquiring one's alliance partners. We do so using a sample of 252 firms in four high tech industries, who jointly announced 2,398 acquisitions and filed 125,440 new patent applications, in the period of our analysis. We argue a history of collaboration will allow the acquirer to more easily identify and absorb the target's knowledge, and show that the share of 'alliance-to-acquisition transitions', in the total set of the firm's acquisitions, increases the firm's inventive quantity. We also argue that a history of collaboration reduces the opportunity to encounter unknown and unexpected knowledge, which will affect both the type and quality of invention. We find support for the former, and show that the share of alliance-to-acquisition transitions increases the firms exploitative tendencies. In terms of the latter, we find a weak relationship between the share of transitions and overall patent quality, but find that the share of transitions does not affect the number of high quality breakthrough inventions. In so doing, we provide new insights, relevant to the acquisition literature, the literature on transitional governance, and the literature on organisational learning, and position alliance-to-acquisition transitions as a mechanism for altering the firm's technology production function.

An initial concept for the plasma diagnostic and control (D&C) system has been developed as part of European studies towards the development of a demonstration tokamak fusion reactor (DEMO). The main objective is to develop a feasible, integrated concept design of the DEMO D&C system that can provide reliable plasma control and high performance (electricity output) over extended periods of operation. While the fusion power is maximized when operating near to the operational limits of the tokamak, the reliability of operation typically improves when choosing parameters significantly distant from these limits. In addition to these conflicting requirements, the D&C development has to cope with strong adverse effects acting on all in vessel components on DEMO (harsh neutron environment, particle fluxes, temperatures, electromagnetic forces, etc.). Moreover, space allocation and plasma access are constrained by the needs for first wall integrity and optimization of tritium breeding. Taking into account these boundary conditions, the main DEMO plasma control issues have been formulated, and a list of diagnostic systems and channels needed for plasma control has been developed, which were selected for their robustness and the required coverage of control issues. For a validation and refinement of this concept, simulation tools are being refined and applied for equilibrium, kinetic and mode control studies.