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AbstractInnovation is crucial for driving economic growth. This paper conducts a comprehensive analysis of the effect of intermediate input import policy uncertainty (IIIPU) on firm innovation. Specifically, leveraging China’s entry into the WTO as a quasi-natural experiment, this study utilizes a difference-in-differences strategy to analyze the intermediate input import policy uncertainty on the innovative activities of Chinese manufacturing firms. The findings reveal that a reduction in intermediate input import policy uncertainty (IIIPU) significantly hampers firm innovation activities. This negative impact persists even after undergoing a series of tests on identification assumptions and robustness checks, and it intensifies annually after China’s accession to the WTO. In addition, the reduction in IIIPU has a more pronounced effect on high-productivity firms, foreign-invested enterprises, and utility model patents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today’s business environment, with organizations enhancing performance, maintaining a competitive edge, and fostering innovation, the efficient transfer of knowledge plays an increasingly pivotal role. As industries recognize the importance of and strive for more and more productive knowledge transfer, understanding the factors affecting this process becomes imperative. Manufacturing is considered a strategic sector, and well-performing knowledge transfer is necessary for higher innovation and competitiveness. To increase knowledge transfer performance, companies must have the awareness, ability, and opportunity to identify the main aspects that need operational improvement. Studies based on systematic literature review and mapping impact factors have shown that knowledge transfer is hypothetically affected by a vast variety of factors, which creates challenges for companies in selecting and applying these factors. Therefore, the two research questions of this study are – RQ1: What are the relationships between the knowledge transfer-influencing factors identified in the literature analysis and the dependent variables? RQ2: What is the weight of the statistically significant factors identified in the empirical study?

From the perspective of a heterogeneous firm framework, we investigate the direct and spillover effects of public research and development (R&D) subsidies, firm heterogeneity, and external factors on innovation. Our analysis is based on panel data from manufacturing firms in Korea. We find three apparent roles of public R&D subsidy in enhancing firm-level innovation. First, public R&D subsidy has a direct positive impact on innovation in both the short and long run. Second, it does not have a stand-alone spillover effect on innovation. Third, public R&D subsidies have a positive spillover effect on innovation when combined with organizational slack in the short and long run and with leverage and firm size in the short run. Moreover, our analysis reveals that the impact of public subsidies, firm heterogeneity, external factors, and their interaction with innovation is primarily observed in firms with high absorptive capacity, not in those with low absorptive capacity. Based on these findings, the study recommends that when a government formulates its R&D policies, in order to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of public R&D subsidies, it is necessary to prioritize understanding the various conditions and circumstances associated with the public R&D-productivity nexus. It is especially crucial to keep in mind that when firm heterogeneity—as a source of absorptive capacity and organizational learning—and the similarity of technology-based innovations are properly considered, public R&D subsidies can be efficient and effective policy tools for increasing direct benefits and inter-firm spillovers.

The existing literature on SME internationalization has inadequately integrated joint innovation capabilities, organizational unlearning, and the internationalization process. Previous studies have primarily examined these concepts separately, obscuring their interconnection and reciprocal impact. This study fills in a gap in the literature and responds to calls for more studies (e.g., Du, Zhu & Li, 2023; Genc, Dayan & Genc, 2019) by developing and testing a moderated mediation model to examine how joint innovation capabilities affect exploratory innovation through the mediating role of organizational unlearning. The research also examines the moderating effect of the degree of internationalization on this relationship. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 300 logistics and general managers from SMEs in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), utilizing partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to evaluate the measurement models' validity and reliability, and to test the hypothesized relationships. The results demonstrate that organizational unlearning is a key mechanism linking collaborative innovation capabilities with exploratory innovation. Additionally, the degree of internationalization significantly moderates this relationship, with a stronger mediation effect when internationalization is low. These findings provide practical implications for SMEs and managers, especially in overseeing innovation and unlearning processes while accounting for the degree of internationalization in their growth strategies. Managers in SMEs must recognize the complexities introduced by internationalization, such as diverse cultural norms and regulatory frameworks, which can impede the process of unlearning. To address these challenges, SMEs should consider adopting region-specific innovation strategies or investing in cross-cultural training to effectively manage the integration of diverse knowledge sources.

Improving economic resilience has become a regional development goal of policymakers. This study aims to investigate the effects of digital transformation on urban economic resilience and its underlying mechanisms. Based on a sample of 287 prefecture-level cities in China, We find that digital transformation helps improve urban economic resilience, which is robust to different estimations, e.g., 2SLS and staggered DID. Additionally, further analysis indicates that improving the efficiency and stimulating the level of innovation that is associated with digital transformation are likely to be the main mechanisms behind this effect. Our results reveal the following several policy implications. Firstly, formulating policies to develop digital technology and to promote its application is of great significance for achieving a sustainable and resilient economic growth in an increasingly uncertain environment. Secondly, the government should focus on promoting market-oriented reform, reducing government intervention, protecting intellectual property rights, and creating an innovative environment to maximize the effect of digital technology. Thirdly, during the normal periods, accelerating the digitalization process will promote the balanced development among urbans.

We analyze the effects of digitalization and the knowledge acquired through vertical and institutional cooperation across the value chain on the introduction of patents and technological, namely, product and process, innovations in large, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We study the case of Spain as a digitally competitive economy displaying a relatively low innovation score, a feature reversing the trend observed in most European Union countries. Three empirical scenarios, one for each innovation output, are defined and analyzed following a random-effects probit panel model separately estimated for large firms and SMEs. The sample used in the empirical analysis comprises 1,369 manufacturing firms, out of which 508 are large and 862 SMEs. The empirical results confirmed the importance of digitalization and collaboration across the value chain for all firms, regardless of size. We also observe that the performance of internal R&D activities fosters the introduction of patents and technological innovations across all firms. The main theoretical implications of the empirical results are discussed, and different policy recommendations suggested.

The main aim of the article is to examine how cooperation with research institutions influences technological maturity of enterprises. It is accompanied with the additional aim, which is to assess the role of innovation policy interventions in this process, as captured by the concept of behavioral additionality, which is one of the externalities of public support for R&D. The focus of this article is put on one of the specific types of behavioral additionality—cooperation additionality—which takes place in the situation where public support influences the collaboration behavior of a firm receiving R&D support. The study was conducted with the use of firm-level data collected in a survey on the sample of 464 enterprises operating within national smart specializations in Poland. The results of the research suggest that public funding fosters the cooperation between scientific institutions and enterprises, thus confirms the cooperation additionality.

This study examines the impact of process and product innovation on employment growth and composition in Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay using micro data from innovation surveys. Employment growth is related to process innovations and to the growth of sales separately due to innovative and unchanged products. Results show that compensation effects are pervasive and that the introduction of new products is associated with employment growth at the firm level. No evidence of displacement effects due to the introduction of process innovations was observed. With respect to the impact of innovation on employment composition, there is scant evidence of a skill bias, although the product innovation is more complementary to skilled than to unskilled labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital age or the 4.0 industry makes its presence felt in all areas of the economy, making serious contributions to its development. The automotive industry is in a phase of change, acting on all its sub-industries such as the automotive tyre industry. We are witnessing a process in which large companies no longer sell a simple car or basic tyres, but resort to new technologies and digitalization to sell complex services tailored to the needs of consumers. Terms such as connectivity, mobility, autonomy became the main pillars in the development of such solutions integrated in the current market. Based on a SWOT analysis and a focus group organized with specialists from the field, this article aims to highlight the tyre industry market, which are the latest trends in the technologies used for development of the tyre industry, which are the factors that contribute to its growth and which are the threats, the opportunities for the big competitors in the market: Bridgestone, Goodyear, Michelin and Pirelli.

R&D, an important determinant of productivity, is highly concentrated in rich economies because of the slow diffusion of knowledge to developing countries given the cumulative nature of technological progress. This study presents a dynamic general equilibrium model of international trade, innovation, and technology diffusion with a continuum of countries. A point of departure from traditional trade models is that comparative advantage based on innovative and imitative R&D productivities determines the identity of innovators and imitators. Through this mechanism, the division of the world economy into two groups, North and South, endogenously emerges as an equilibrium outcome. The model allows us to explore interesting issues related to economic policy and development, including the following questions. Does strengthening patent policy induce imitating economies to innovate? Does subsidizing innovation or imitation promote the industrialization of developing economies. If so, how does the inequality of the world economy change? We demonstrate that the answers to these important questions crucially depend on knowledge useful to imitative R&D. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the importance of innovation as a primary source of economic growth has never been in dispute, its impact on employment has remained indeterminate. On one hand, the pessimists indicate that firm innovation destroys jobs because of the immediate indirect labour-saving nature of the effect of innovation, while the optimists argue that there are several compensation mechanisms that are known to counterbalance the initial effect of innovation and render the final effect indeterminate. Using data on a panel of 421 firms in Ghana, the paper investigates the relationship between innovation introduced at the firm level and employment. Relying on the panel fixed effects and Hausman-Taylor estimation techniques, this study finds a robust statistically significant positive impact of product innovation on employment but not for process innovation. In terms of policy relevance, this finding reemphasizes the need for policy makers in Ghana to intensity efforts in promoting technology diffusion particularly through FDI. This study thus contributes to the literature on innovation in Africa by providing evidence on why technological innovation in the form of product innovation can be a panacea to alleviating employment challenges in Ghana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the possible contribution of spatial competition to the Industrial Revolution and the Great Divergence. Rather than exclusively focusing on the incentives of producers to adopt labor-saving technology, we also consider the incentives of factor suppliers' organizations such as craft guilds to resist. Once we do so, industrialization no longer depends on market size per se, but on spatial competition between the guilds' jurisdictions. We substantiate our theory's claim of spatial competition being an important channel for industrialization (i) by providing historical evidence on the relation between spatial competition, craft guilds and innovation, and (ii) by showing that the calibrated model correctly predicts the timings of the Industrial Revolution and the Great Divergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on the role of information technology outsourcing (ITO) and on knowledge intensive business services only rarely considers purchasers in developing countries and includes few wide-scale studies. This paper reduces that gap in that it quantifies the effect of ITO on total factor productivity using a sample of 10,100 firms in India. The results show that ITO purchasing brings strong returns and outperforms in-house IT. A comparison with studies from elsewhere reveals that Indian ITO also outperforms IT in a range of circumstances in developed countries. Taken together, these findings support the idea that ITO firms, just like other knowledge intensive business services, can act as a conduit for best practices and tacit knowledge, and that this role is very useful in a developing country context. The implication is that more ITO projects would be good for catching up in developing countries. In India, policy support for the ITO sector should be re-designed to incentivise domestic work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]