No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
The mechanisms of collaboration in inventive teams: Composition, social networks, and geography
Abstract
This paper investigates the composition of creative teams of academic scientists engaged in inventive activity. Our data provides a unique opportunity to explore the links between team composition and commercialization outcomes. We find that there are coordination costs associated with reaching across academic departments and organizational boundaries to build teams. However, we also find evidence of benefits due to knowledge diversity, particularly in the cases of truly novel combinations. In support of internal cohesion arguments, we find that performance improves with the experience of the team. In line with arguments regarding the value of diverse external networks, we find that teams that are composed of members from multiple institutions – focal university, other research institution, and/or industry – are more successful in generating patents, licenses, and royalties. Finally, we find that the presence of prior social ties supporting links with external team members positively influences commercial outcomes. We find that there is no benefit to proximity in team configuration.
... Therefore, compared with overall alliance portfolios, UI alliance portfolios are more closely related to solving technical problems and exploring to generate technological break-through (Bikard and Marx 2020;Kafouros et al. 2015;Wirsich et al. 2016). In such a setting, alliance partners' supply of distinct and novel knowledge elements as well as high motivation of overcoming inertia of doing familiar and similar things are critical for reaching the collaborative goal (Ahuja and Lampert 2001;Bercovitz and Feldman 2011). ...
... Repeated partnerships in UI alliance portfolios, however, only provide focal firms with similar ideas and redundant knowledge (Goerzen 2007;Zhang, Han, and Chen 2022) and enhance the risk of lock-in with inferior knowledge and myopia (Wuyts, Dutta, and Stremersch 2004). Moreover, compared with new partners, repeated academic partners may follow developed routines from prior collaborations with the focal firm and have higher inertia of doing familiar and similar things (Ahuja and Lampert 2001;Bercovitz and Feldman 2011), thus preventing exploration for reaching technological breakthroughs. To summarise, repeated UI partnerships' failure of providing heterogeneous knowledge and repeated academic partners' lack of motivation of exploring new knowledge will limit focal firms' access to novel and diverse knowledge, thus inhibiting firm innovation. ...
... While some research emphasises that repeated partnerships may make collaborations easier due to accumulated alliance experience and enhanced mutual understanding (e.g. Goerzen 2007;Sampson 2005), firm innovation depends more on accessing novel and diverse knowledge, and repeated partnerships in UI alliance portfolios only provide focal firms with homogeneous knowledge (Bercovitz and Feldman 2011;Zhang, Han, and Chen 2022). Therefore, the negative effect caused by the lack of heterogeneous knowledge is more prominent than the learning effect in UI alliance portfolios. ...
Constructing a portfolio of university-industry (UI) alliances with multiple academic institutions simultaneously has been pervasive for emerging market firms. However, whether repeated partnerships in focal firms’ UI alliance portfolios influence firm innovation performance remains unknown. Using the unbalanced panel data from Chinese manufacturing firms, we theorise and find that UI alliance portfolio partner repeatedness has a negative effect on focal firms’ innovation performance. Besides, we examine the boundary conditions under which UI alliance portfolio partner repeatedness influences firm innovation performance. We find that both institutional development and market competition weaken the negative effect of UI alliance portfolio partner repeatedness on firm innovation performance. This study contributes to previous studies and provides practical implications for both firm managers and policymakers.
... This also relates to the inventors. Combination of knowledge bases of individual inventors, especially those coming from different technological fields, might create more advanced innovations (Bercovitz & Feldman 2011). ...
... The composition of inventor and applicant teams themselves were often not considered or used as a control variable in these papers (e.g., in Svensson 2012). However, there exists strong evidence of the lower quality of sole-inventor patents (Singh & Fleming 2010), and of diverse teams being more likely to achieve invention commercialization (Bercovitz & Feldman 2011). Thus, there still exist gaps with regard to understanding the transition process of invention to product, which this paper aims to address. ...
... Thus, Huang et al. (2018) provide evidence that assignee and inventor count as well as inventor country count have positive impact on patent transaction duration, whereas assignee country count has a negative impact on patent transaction duration. The latter fact may be explained by the additional coordination costs that arise as more organizations are involved in the invention, which may hinder team-building (Bercovitz & Feldman 2011). Svensson (2012) does not find a significant impact of the number of inventors on the speed of commercialization. ...
This paper investigates the impact of applicant and inventor team composition on patent commercialization in form of product creation. It outlines the importance of applicant and inventor team characteristics, i.e. specifically, size and internationality, on the speed of market authorization of a patent-related product and on the product quality. The analysis is performed for the European pharmaceutical industry. The product data is taken from the European Medicines Agency website for the period 2010-2019. Manual patent-product concordance is established with the help of the Pat-INFORMED database from the World Intellectual Property Organization and the Health Canada database. The created dataset presents combined data on patent and product characteristics. Results from an accelerated failure time model show that larger applicant teams as well as the presence of international applicants and inventors decelerate the market authorization of patent-related products. Results of the probit analysis show that larger inventor teams lead to patents of higher quality.
... Sin embargo, también es importante explorar las características de la cooperación en el nivel micro. De hecho, es necesario entender a quienes están interactuando en última estancia con la empresa para poder mejorar el diseño de las políticas públicas a fin de conseguir una mayor funcionalidad (Bercovitz y Feldman, 2011), puesto que a pesar de los factores que influyen en el funcionamiento de las universidades, la decisión final en cuanto a cooperar con la empresa es generalmente de los investigadores. ...
... Los estudios con un enfoque individual por su parte han analizado el peso de la inclinación de los investigadores a la colaboración universidad-empresa. Las actitudes de las empresas hacia la divulgación de las invenciones han sido identificadas como un factor clave para el éxito o el fracaso de las políticas de patentes (Bercovitz y Feldman, 2011;Owen-Smith y Powell, 2001b;. Otras variables individuales, tales como la etapa de la carrera (Dietz y Bozeman, 2005) o la experiencia previa en gestión de empresas (Colyvas y Powell, 2006) determinan la propensión a interactuar con el sector privado. ...
... Sin embargo, los académicos formados cuando la implicación de la universidad con la industria no era tan manifiesta como en la actualidad, podrían también haber interiorizado algunas normas que dificulten su vocación hacia la interacción con el sector privado (Bercovitz y Feldman, 2011;. En nuestro estudio de caso se revelan diferencias en la influencia del factor edad, que se encuentran también al tener en cuenta el canal específico de transferencia de conocimiento (Ding y Choi, ...
Esta tesis tiene como objetivo general analizar la institucionalización de los principales mecanismos de recompensas de la ciencia en España, ante las distintas coyunturas acontecidas durante las últimas décadas, así como su incidencia en las dinámicas sociales de las carreras académicas. Para resolver esta cuestión consideramos necesario indagar en los procesos institucionales que han favorecido el establecimiento de los actuales sistemas de recompensas tal y como son en la actualidad. Además, creemos igualmente necesario comprobar de qué manera han afectado sobre la realización de actividades menos tradicionales relacionadas con la transferencia, por las que no se obtienen las recompensas distribuidas de manera directa a través de las agencias de evaluación existentes en el sistema español de I+D.
Este trabajo está enfocado fundamentalmente a las normas diseñadas desde las políticas de I+D+i, de cuyo cumplimiento depende en gran medida la continuidad y el progreso profesional de los investigadores en el sistema. Desde esta óptica, las agencias de evaluación se sitúan como una pieza fundamental para entender la formación del campo científico en España (Cruz-Castro y Sanz-Menéndez, 2007). Nuestro interés está por tanto en trazar el recorrido de las distintas políticas que han modificado el sistema de recompensas de la ciencia y estudiar de qué manera han afectado a las dinámicas de las carreras académicas, así como las posibles contradicciones e implicaciones que se han podido originar en la ciencia española.
La tesis se presenta estructurada en tres partes. Después de la introducción, se exponen los enfoques utilizados para el análisis de las prácticas de evaluación científica y los sistemas de recompensas en la ciencia. A saber, los conceptos y características analíticas del “enfoque sociológico neoinstitucional” y el “enfoque de demarcación de fronteras” (boundary-works) (T. F. Gieryn, 1983). Ambos posibilitan la situación de nuestro objeto de estudio en su contexto histórico determinado.
La segunda parte supone el tronco empírico principal de la tesis y está compuesta por cuatro estudios (dos publicados previa revisión por pares ). En el primero de estos se analiza el surgimiento y la evolución del sistema de evaluación científica en España que desemboca en la creación de la ANEP. En el siguiente exploramos el principal mecanismo mediante el que se discrimina el prestigio profesional en el caso de los investigadores individuales, a través de las prácticas implantadas por la CNEAI. A partir de la creación de estas agencia se estudian las formas de demarcación de la calidad investigadora a partir de la evolución de los llamados sexenios. Consideramos las agencias de evaluación estudiadas como lugares estratégicos de investigación desde los que examinar nuestras preguntas de investigación específicas (R. K. Merton, 1987).
Finalmente, se analiza la actitud de los investigadores con respecto a la realización de actividades de transferencia de conocimiento. Por un lado, se estudian las motivaciones de los investigadores para cooperar con las empresas, para comprobar si realmente existe una división entre los fines académicos frente a los fines comerciales, argumentando la existencia de una amplia variedad de canales de transferencia. Por otro, se examinan los factores que influyen en la percepción de los investigadores al respecto de la realización de actividades de transferencia de conocimiento. Se identifica a los investigadores que, preocupados por el éxito de sus carreras asociado a los sistemas de recompensas de la ciencia tradicional, han interiorizado nuevos valores acerca de la cooperación con otros sectores
... Existe bibliografía que relaciona la actividad de patentamiento universitario con actividades de emprendimiento, en contextos donde la innovación tiene un peso relevante (Ardito, 2018;Bercovitz y Feldman, 2011;D'Este y Perkmann, 2011;Rybnicek et al., 2019), aunque no necesariamente la relación pueda ser positiva, en función del contexto y el espacio (Riviezzo et al., 2019) En este sentido, la información que proveen patentes parece un indicador relevante de emprendimiento que aquí exploramos con el fin de identificar el conocimiento que acerca al instituto a explotar una vertiente de emprendimiento. ...
... Una red es un medio de codificación de un sistema; por lo tanto, es una forma de representar cierta complejidad a partir de la relación de los atributos de los componentes del sistema. A partir de esta codificación se identifican patrones no aparentes a simple vista (Barabasi, 2016;Borgatti, Everett y Johnson, 2013;Scott, 2017). En nuestro caso representamos redes, asumiendo que estructuran espacios cognitivos e institucionales que concentran conocimiento potencialmente comercializable; por lo tanto, nos interesa mostrar una forma de estructurar una de las dimensiones de la universidad emprendedora: la actividad de patentamiento. ...
Purpose: To identify entrepreneurial capacity of the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) through patent registration.
Methodological design: Fields of knowledge and academic units involved in patented inventions are identified
through indicators of network centrality. Principal component analysis is applied to these indicators to conglomerate
and hierarchize the fields and units.
Results: The multivariate methods applied in the study prove effective in systematizing and arranging network
indicators, which were instrumental in distinguishing the significance and importance of various fields of
knowledge and the academic units associated with patenting. These findings yield some some implications related to the entrepreneurial aspect of the IPN (National Polytechnic Institute), which in turn open up avenues of research concerning knowledge transfer and management.
... Interdisciplinary collaboration can facilitate the exchange of ideas, knowledge, and expertise among different fields, fostering creativity and innovation in prosthetic design [48]. By working together and combining their respective strengths, professionals from various disciplines can develop more impactful and practical solutions for prosthetic users [49]. ...
... Another challenge is the potential for resistance to change, as professionals from various disciplines may be hesitant to embrace innovative ideas or approaches that challenge traditional practices [2]. To address this issue, interdisciplinary teams should foster a culture of openness and be receptive to diverse perspectives, encouraging the exchange of ideas and innovative thinking [48]. ...
This review investigates the opportunities and challenges of interdisciplinary research in upper limb prosthetic (ULP) socket design and manufacturing, which is crucial for improving the lives of individuals with limb loss. By integrating various disciplines, such as engineering, materials science, biomechanics, and health care, with emerging technologies such as 3D printing, artificial intelligence (AI), and virtual reality (VR), interdisciplinary collaboration can foster innovative solutions tailored to users’ diverse needs. Despite the immense potential, interdisciplinary research faces challenges in effective communication, collaboration, and evaluation. This review analyses pertinent case studies and discusses the implications of interdisciplinary research, emphasizing the importance of fostering a shared understanding, open communication, and institutional innovation. By examining technological advancements, user satisfaction, and prosthetic device usage in various interdisciplinary research examples, invaluable insights and direction for researchers and professionals seeking to contribute to this transformative field are provided. Addressing the challenges and capitalizing on the opportunities offered by interdisciplinary research can significantly improve upper limb prosthetic socket design and manufacturing, ultimately enhancing the quality of life for users worldwide.
... Indeed, a wide set of literature has established there are knowledge spillovers during collaboration (Powell et al., 1996;Singh, 2005;Sorenson et al., 2006) and that spillovers tend to be local and decay with geographical distance (Jaffe et al., 1993). However, recent research has shown that the negative effect of geographical distance on knowledge spillovers seems to disappear when controlling for social relationships (Bell & Zaheer, 2007;Bercovitz & Feldman, 2011;Breschi & Lissoni, 2009). Thus, the role of geographical distance on knowledge spillovers has remained inconclusive, especially in the context of collaboration. ...
... Geographical proximity favors knowledge spillovers because it allows for repeated, information rich, face-to-face interactions (Storper & Venables, 2004), boosts trust (Zaheer et al., 1998) and alleviates frictions of crossing institutional borders (Singh & Marx, 2013), especially when knowledge is complex or tacit (Cowan et al., 2000;Gertler, 2003;van der Wouden, 2020). However, empirical research has also shown that, when accounting for social relationships built during collaboration, the negative effect of geographical distance on knowledge spillovers seems to disappear (Bell & Zaheer, 2007;Bercovitz & Feldman, 2011;Breschi & Lissoni, 2009). How geographical distance impacts knowledge spillovers appears to be context specific. ...
There is little question that new communication and transportation technologies have effectively “shrunk the world” for a great many activities. At the same time, the “death of distance” has been greatly exaggerated, especially in fields such as academic scholarship and knowledge development where the positive benefits of knowledge spillovers remain highly distance dependent. We analyze 17.6 million publications authored by 1.7 million scholars to examine how knowledge spillovers between scholars collaborating at different geographical distances impacts their future knowledge portfolios. Our results show that in 1975, scholars collaborating locally were 57 % more likely to learn from knowledge spillovers than similar scholars collaborating non-locally. We identify four factors that structure these findings. Individuals deriving the greatest learning premiums from local collaboration tend to be (1) in earlier stages of their career; (2) associated with lower-ranked institutions; (3) working with fewer collaborators; and (4) in STEM fields. The probability of learning drops with geographical distance and correspond to the number of institutional boundaries crossed during collaboration. We conclude that even in the 21st century, geographical distance still negatively impacts knowledge spillovers through collaboration. These findings have implications for debates in innovation and management studies concerning knowledge spillovers, the spatial organization of (knowledge-intensive) economic activity, regional innovation policies, structuring team-work and working-from-home vs. returning to office.
... Studying networks allows us to gain insight into goal-oriented collaborations which require knowledge sharing. Particularly, the university inventions are commonly a result of such goal-oriented collaborations between inventors (Bercovitz & Feldman, 2010;Kotha et al., 2013;Wuchty et al., 2007). Social network analysis encompassing university researchers primarily focuses on the collaborative nature of researchers by studying large networks of co-authorships (Newman & Girvan, 2004;Tu, 2019;Wang, 2016) and (to a lesser degree) co-inventorships, seldom combining co-authorship and co-inventorship (Breschi & Catalini, 2010;Cattani & Rotolo, 2014;Subramanian et al., 2013). ...
... The relative size of the giant component was 55% (in contrast with the 3% observed in their licensing network) in 2014. We therefore observed that when dealing with patents with high (commercialization) potential, i.e., licensed patents, these inventors are more 'monogamous' (Bercovitz & Feldman, 2010), but less so when engaged in patenting activity in general, causing also a reconfiguration in the respective networks. In other words, inventors involved in licensing activities exhibit what we can call a dualistic opportunistic behavior, since their collaboration is substantially less limited when involved in patenting activities in general. ...
We study the structure and evolution of networks of inventors involved in university licensing and patenting. In particular, we focus on networks of inventors that have successfully licensed a university patent (i.e., licensing networks ), and investigate levels of their fragmentation, cliquishness, and whether they exhibit the small world phenomenon. We find that these licensing networks are more fragmented and cliquish than the networks of inventors engaged in all (not necessarily licensed) patents (i.e., patenting networks ), and that they are not small worlds. Additionally, by comparing the created licensing networks to random subnetworks of the patenting networks, we find that concerns in regard to the potential effects of opportunistic behavior are, to some degree, justified. We detect an interesting collaboration behavior of inventors who license, which we designate as dualistic opportunistic behavior.
... It also benefits from the division of labor between specialized skills (Becker and Murphy, 1992). However, while collaboration amounts to higher combination possibilities, it comes at the expense of communication and coordination costs of various sorts: the costs of setting up a relationship, search costs, and transaction costs (e.g.; Bakos and Brynjolfsson, 1997;Bercovitz and Feldman, 2011;Staats et al., 2012). Hence, there is a trade-off between the benefits of enhanced knowledge combinations and the costs of coordinating the contributions of various knowledge holders (Vural et al., 2013;Aggarwal et al., 2014;Deichmann and Jensen, 2018). ...
... Strikingly, most of the literature frames collaboration as hinging on its benefit exceeding its cost (e.g. Cummings and Kiesler, 2007;Bercovitz and Feldman, 2011), without considering the alternative conditions and possibilities of solitary creation. While there may indeed be an incentive to collaborate, once collaborating is shown to provide a net benefit, individual preferences and contextual factors being otherwise equal, this nevertheless ignores the agency of creators in changing the 'economics' of DIY versus DIT by adopting technologies that could help them enhance the potentialities of DIY for creative work. ...
The literature is rather inconclusive when it comes to asserting whether digital technologies tend to favor collaboration (Do-It-Together, DIT) or creating alone (Do-It-Yourself, DIY) in creative production. In this paper, we argue that providing an answer to that question implies adopting a micro-perspective, which ties individual creators’ usage of different types of digital technologies, and their choices of DIT or DIY. Using data from a sample of French musicians, we find that while the use of some digital technologies is clearly associated with artists creating alone, other digital technologies have a more ambiguous association with DIY or DIT. We then uncover the boundary conditions of the association of these ambiguous technologies with DIY and DIT behaviors by showing how individual characteristics of the creators moderate this association.
... Data to study academic teams involved in commercialization is not generally available and requires original data collection. Bercovitz and Feldman (2008), Bercovitz and Feldman (2011) have written papers that rely on administrative data collected from the technology transfer offices of universities. Access to these data require building relationships with university research officials and signing memorandum of understanding with the university offices. ...
... Results can be a comprehensive view of the process from research funding to publications to the filing of invention reports, which then leads to intellectual property (IP) protection. Bercovitz and Feldman (2011) examine the influence of characteristics of inventing teams on innovation outcomes and rely on invention reports, as a precursor to patent filings. In their 2008 paper, Bercovitz and Feldman explore how organizational work environments within university departments condition commercialization outcomes. ...
We review the literature on entrepreneurial team formation with a focus on data to study academic teams and summarize our empirical work on the life sciences industry. We consider how academics form teams to start new companies and the implications of various configurations on firm behavior with regards to patenting, survival and firm growth. We present several empirical challenges facing research on academic teams and conclude with suggestions for future research.
... Therefore, we measure (5) affiliation diversity as a control variable. 7 It reflects the geographical variety of the teams (Bercovitz and Feldman, 2011;Jones et al., 2008). It is operationalized as the Herfindahl-Hirsch Index of the team affiliations. ...
... Our conceptualization and measure of multiplicity in expertise and its differentiation from expertise overlap, status disparity, and the use of automation technology as facilitators/inhibitors of integration provide a more fine-grained understanding of team diversity. All three contributions address the literature on innovation teams in general (Bercovitz and Feldman, 2011;Leavitt, 1996;Salomo et al., 2010;Srikanth et al., 2016) and more specifically the literature on science teams (Adams et al., 2005;Lee et al., 2015;Melin, 2000;Porac et al., 2004) and the "science of team science" (Falk-Krzesinski et al., 2010;Hall et al., 2018;Stokols et al., 2008). ...
Innovation increasingly relies on collaboration in teams instead of individual efforts. Although the advantages of teams for innovating are virtually undisputed, we have only a very rudimentary understanding of their success drivers. To shed more light on innovation teams, we conceptualize multiplicity in expertise as nonredundant expertise and distinguish it from factors that facilitate or hinder the integration of this expertise. These factors are overlap in expertise, disparity in team members’ status, and whether or not teams use automation technology. We use the empirical context of molecular biology, especially the part of this field in which teams produce and exchange genetic material in the form of so-called plasmids. Combining data about plasmids from a central plasmid repository (AddGene) with bibliometric data endows us with a rich dataset capturing information about team diversity in addition to two innovation performance measures (the number of plasmid orders and the number of citations attracted by publications). Our analysis shows that multiplicity in expertise increases innovation performance; this relationship is strengthened by the overlap in expertise and weakened by disparity in status and the use of the automation technology. Our paper provides a more detailed theory of expertise diversity and contributes to the diversity literature. Our findings also lead to implications for practitioners.
... However, many existing studies have explored the impact of the overall network on technological innovation in terms of its structural characteristics [32][33][34], ignoring the different positions each entity occupies in an intricate technological innovation network. The entities at different network positions have different abilities to absorb and transform network technology spillovers; they also hold different abilities with respect to influence [35]. Existing research generally considers that the dominant entities, who occupy advantageous network positions, can better collect and process new technological knowledge and can better control network resources [36,37]. ...
This paper attempts to explore the role of innovation networks in the new energy vehicle industry from the perspective of evolution, by integrating of the overall network and the entities’ microscopic features and designing relative variables. Based on market orientation theory social network analysis, the relationship between network location and technological niche and the role of the network relationship strength was examined through empirical data of China’s 2009–2017 patents for new energy vehicles. The results show that: (1) There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the central position and the technological niche “state” and “potential”; (2) There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the brokerage position and the entities’ technological niche “state”, and the inverted U-shaped relationship with the technological niche “potential” is not significant; (3) The overall relationship strength of the network modulates the inverted U relationship between the central location and the technological niche. This paper opens up new ideas for the research of the role of innovation networks. The research conclusions have important implications for the management practice of new energy vehicle industries in China through collaborative networks to achieve technological innovation.
... Finally, extending beyond developing a better understanding of Convergence Research, our research agenda also provides an opportunity to elaborate systems-based ideas relevant to other problem-based RDI approaches. For instance, given the importance of inventiveness for research teams (Bercovitz and Feldman 2011), what systems-level practices more strongly influence inventiveness and innovation development? Crossing the "valley of death" constitutes an well-recognized hurdle between research and successful innovation (Hudson and Khazragui 2013). ...
Over the past decade, Convergence Research has increasingly gained prominence as a research, development, and innovation (RDI) strategy to address grand societal challenges. However, a dearth of research-based evidence is available to aid researchers, research teams, and institutions with navigating the complexities attendant to the specifics of Convergence Research. This paper presents a multilevel research agenda that accounts for an integral understanding of Convergence Research as a complex adaptive system. Furthermore, by developing a framework that accounts for ancillary, yet essential, systems associated with Convergence Research, we enrich the agenda with a literature-steeped discussion that considers how systems-based practices of collaboration, inquiry, and context interact with the processes and products of Convergence Research. Finally, we synthesize and apply insights from the reviewed literature by providing paths for empirical exploration emphasizing systems-based practices. In so doing, we delineate an extended boundary for a research stream that both clarifies and enlarges our understanding of Convergence Research as a ‘system-of-systems’.
... The knowledge transfer and exchange literature is characterized by the diversity of terms used to refer to the same concept, for example, knowledge transfer mechanisms (Agrawal 2001;Nilsson, Rickne and Bengtsson 2010), knowledge transfer activities, processes or forms (Jacobson, Butterill and Goering 2004;Mitton et al. 2007;Arvanitis and Woerter 2009), transfer media (Bozeman 2000;Bozeman, Rimes and Youtie 2015); mechanisms of collaboration (Bercovitz and Feldman 2011), entrepreneurial activities (Abreu and Grinevich 2013), university-industry interactions (D'Este et al. 2019), and academic engagement 3 activities (Perkmann et al. 2013(Perkmann et al. , 2021. ...
Science policymakers are devoting increasing attention to enhancing the social valorization of scientific knowledge. Since 2010, several international evaluation initiatives have been implemented to assess knowledge transfer and exchange practices and the societal impacts of research. Analysis of these initiatives would allow investigation of the different knowledge transfer and exchange channels and their effects on society and how their effects could be evaluated and boosted. The present study analyses the transfer sexenio programme, which is a first (pilot) assessment that was conducted in Spain to evaluate the engagement of individual researchers in knowledge transfer to and knowledge exchange with non-academic stakeholders, including professionals and society at large. The breadth of the information and supporting documentation available (more than 16,000 applications and 81,000 contributions) allows an exploration of knowledge valorization practices in terms of the transfer forms used and the researchers involved—distinguishing between the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts (SSHA) areas. By focusing on SSHA fields, we explore knowledge dissemination via enlightenment or professional outputs. We conduct quantitative and qualitative analysis which provide a more comprehensive overview of knowledge transfer practices in Spain in the SSHA field, in particular, and has implications for future assessment exercises.
... For academics, for example, the fulfillment of the Third Mission leads to greater reflection on the impact of their research activity and a greater commitment to disseminate and transfer the results of their research to different social actors. Similarly, the development of these activities has led to changes in how the professor's work is evaluated, and promotion and prestige are achieved within the institution (Bercovitz & Feldman, 2011;Eom & Lee, 2010;Hertzfeld et al., 2006). However, given the magnitude of the transformations mentioned above and the fact that the emergence of the Third Mission has been more the result of the changing demands of society and not so much a process of internal development of the university institution (Martin, 2002), certain obstacles or barriers to its consolidation have become evident (Bruneel et al., 2010;D'Este & Patel, 2007). ...
The fulfillment of the University’s Third Mission has led the university to become a key actor for social and economic development in its regions of influence through a much closer linkage with the different agents in its environment. Thus, the literature has highlighted both the benefits derived from the Third University Mission, the difficulties inherent in the process and the existence of various barriers that can hinder its consolidation in the academic environment. Within the framework of these studies, it has been possible to identify three types of barriers to adopting the third mission: process, researcher, and ally or partner. It is worth mentioning that most of the research developed to date has focused on the study of the impact of the barriers on the development of the Third Mission but not on the analysis of the factors that can influence or attenuate the perception of these barriers. This is surprising if one considers that identifying these factors is relevant in designing strategies to promote the University’s Third Mission. Therefore, this article aims to identify the factors that influence or attenuate the researcher’s perception of different types of barriers to developing Third Mission activities. The study was based on data from a survey applied to a sample of academics categorized in the National System of Science, Technology and Innovation of Colombia and linked to 6 higher education institutions in the Colombian Caribbean region. Binary logistic regression models were established to analyze the data obtained. The results obtained suggest that, in addition to the researcher's previous experience in the external sector, their perception of the existence of processes or support services provided by the university for the promotion of relationships with actors in the socioeconomic environment is important to mitigate the barriers perceived during the development of Third Mission activities, especially when these activities are located in the support for the management and execution of technology transfer activities. In particular, it was found that as the academic's perception of the policies and procedures, support activities, and the university's technology transfer capacity improves, the barriers of both the researcher and those associated with the process are dissipated. This implies that universities should advance in the institutionalization of the third mission and in strengthening the functions of promotion, advice and support, as well as promotion structures and thus be able to mitigate the perceived barriers to the development of the University’s Third Mission.
... It facilitates access to unique human capital in different countries and serves as a means to find complementary capacities among researchers (Chen et al., 2019). The most international scientific teams enjoy greater experience and a wider variety of knowledge, which benefits the processes of generating scientific knowledge (Bercovitz and Feldman, 2011). An internationalized team expands cognitive frontiers and has access to a larger "search space" for knowledge, allowing greater access to more innovative ideas. ...
A number of studies has focused on examining those academic researchers attributes-demographics or not-that condition international research collaboration (IRC) and its results. However, it is not possible to speak about an 'ideal' type of researcher so far. Should we assume that just only those 'star researchers' collaborate interna-tionally?. The literature is not clear enough on this topic, offering interesting but insufficient support to know the set of individual characteristics that ensures fruitful IRC. To deepen the analysis of academic researchers attributes , in particular, the human capital characteristics, this study proposes in-depth research on exploring different combinations on human capital dimensions and testing potential differences in IRC levels. To do so, from an exploratory perspective, a cluster analysis was conducted in a sample of 937 Spanish academics, obtaining three researcher profiles: (1) consolidated international research collaborators, (2) effective international research collaborators, and (3) skilled international research collaborators. Far from the recurrent analysis of single or disconnected researchers' attributes, this paper contributes to the extant literature with a new ty-pology based on the variables of academic human capital, providing an useful starting point to better understand who really can develop international networks to collaborate and, therefore, how to foster IRC in Universities.
... Team members educate each other and ask each other "naïve" questions (cf. Bercovitz and Feldman 2011), which helps them overcome cognitive entrenchment acquired during professional training and experience in their discipline (Dane 2010). ...
Increasingly, teams consist of members from widely distinct knowledge domains. This article studies the extent to which research and development (R&D) teams can transform their members’ different technological knowledge into impactful inventions. Although teams composed of members with distinct expertise can create impactful new technologies, in order to realize this potential, team members must have the ability and motivation to integrate each other’s knowledge. This article argues that the ability to do so is shaped by the patterns of intrateam ties, measured in terms of coauthorships on patents. Our results suggest that teams’ ability to reap the advantages of members’ distinct expertise is shaped by the patterns of members’ prior collaboration ties. Prior experience working together (i.e., density) and the presence of factions of team members with common history (i.e., subgroups) improve teams’ ability to leverage differences in members’ knowledge. In contrast, when prior collaborations center on one focal person (i.e., centralization), teams are less able to take advantage of the knowledge differences on the team. An analysis of 32,612 nanotechnology R&D teams provides support for the hypotheses.
Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2023.1665 .
... Because they share a similar background, members in teams with high expertise similarity tend to employ similar vocabularies, thereby improving mutual understanding by facilitating the interpretation of information (Gilson and Shalley 2004). Moreover, having similar perspectives on the task at hand facilitates finding common ground and avoiding unproductive conflicts (Gebert et al. 2007, Kurtzberg andAmabile 2001), and thus helps the team reach consensus on the final solution (Ancona and Caldwell 1992, Bercovitz and Feldman 2011, Lovelace et al. 2001. As a result, teams characterized by higher levels of expertise similarity usually find it easier to synthesize different pieces of information and knowledge into a coherent solution (Hargadon and Bechky 2006;Harvey 2014;Lingo and Mahony 2010;Liu et al. 2018). ...
Research has demonstrated that certain team composition factors—high expertise similarity, high network cohesion, and mixed‐gender teams—have predominantly negative effects on the teams’ invention outcomes. Yet these factors have also been shown to improve team coordination, which should (in theory) lead to better invention outcomes. We address this tension by highlighting the need to consider the invention's integrality, which increases task interdependencies among team members and thereby strengthens the positive relationship between team coordination and invention value. We hypothesize that (i) the main effects of these team composition factors reduce a team's invention value but, more importantly, that (ii) invention integrality positively moderates those effects. We support these claims with evidence from utility patent data filed in the United States during the period 1983–2015. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
... We used these as indicators of R&D collaboration between firms or individuals (cf. Bercovitz & Feldman, 2011;Picci, 2010) based on the assumption that inventors listed on the same patent document know each other and have exchanged information, even across national borders. These data were obtained from the ''PATSTAT'' database provided by the European Patent Office, released in October 2020. ...
Research shows that early internationalization is more likely when founders have international and business-related experience. But what if experience was obtained in other ways? We study the scientist-founders of 149 academic spin-offs (ASOs), using cognition theory to argue for a curvilinear relationship between breadth of pre-founding R&D collaboration and internationalization timing. Our longitudinal study combines survey and patent data to show that increased breadth of collaboration with international scientists increases and then decreases the likelihood of early internationalization. The results are similar but less robust for collaboration with industry partners. Our findings suggest that studies on experience in new venture internationalization underestimate the role of R&D collaboration and the research-based heritage of many new firms.
... As in any other collaboration relationship, collaborators' characteristics play a crucial role in determining the success of the collaboration. In the case of scientific collaborations, biographic characteristics and academic profile are essential elements to consider (Azoulay et al., 2010;Bercovitz and Feldman, 2011;Bozeman and Corley, 2004;Katz and Martin, 1997;Lee and Bozeman, 2005;Taylor and Greve, 2006). Even more so, in the student-supervisor collaboration where the supervisor's characteristics are expected to be crucial for the student's productivity due to mentorship and lab leadership role played by the supervisor (Delamont and Atkinson, 2001;Golde, 2005;Lee et al., 2007;Lempriere, 2020;Liénard et al., 2018;Ma et al., 2020;Mangematin and Robin, 2003;Pearson and Brew, 2002;Shibayama, 2019;Shibayama et al., 2015;Tenenbaum et al., 2001). ...
The study of factors influencing scientific knowledge production and the design of financial incentives that may stimulate it have become increasingly relevant among scholars and policymakers (Stephan, 2012). This thesis focuses on the role played by three of the key actors in knowledge production: Ph.D. students, researchers, and universities. First, I investigate how the Ph.D. students' scientific production and network are associated with the characteristics of the training environment, including funding availability. Then, I quantify how a government funding program addressed to promote university excellence (IDEX) affects researchers' outcomes. Finally, I compare the effects of competitive grant funding versus block funding on the impact of the resulting researchers' articles. The empirical analyses of the whole dissertation are based on the French case.In the first chapter, I ask: what makes a productive Ph.D. student? Specifically, I investigate how the social environment to which a Ph.D. student is exposed during her training relates to her scientific productivity. I focus on how supervisor and peers' characteristics are associated with the student's publication quantity, quality, and co-authorship network. Unique to my study, I cover the entire Ph.D. student population of a European country for all the STEM fields analyzing 77,143 students who graduated in France between 2000 and 2014. I find that having a productive, mid-career, low-experienced, female supervisor who benefits from a national grant is positively associated with the student's productivity. Furthermore, I find that having few productive freshman peers and at least one female peer is positively associated with the student's productivity.In the second chapter, I estimate the impact of the initiative of excellence (IDEX) funding program on a broad set of French researchers' outcomes such as publication productivity, collaboration networks, research interdisciplinarity, patenting, mentoring of Ph.D. students, and fundraising. Relying on a panel of 32,947 researchers in STEM disciplines observed between 2006 and 2015, I investigate the effect of being affiliated with universities that applied for IDEX and universities that were awarded IDEX. Moreover, I investigate the indirect effect of IDEX on researchers in non-applicant universities who collaborate with researchers in awarded universities. Using a difference-in-differences approach, I find that both applying for IDEX and being awarded IDEX enlarge the researchers' collaboration networks. Being awarded IDEX is particularly beneficial for boosting collaborations with other French universities and international collaborations. I also find positive indirect effects of IDEX on the collaboration networks of researchers in non-applicant universities.In the third chapter, I compare the effectiveness of two research funding models: block funding and competitive funding. EU governments are increasingly relying on competitive grants to allocate research funding, complementing the traditional block funding used to support research. The literature aiming at quantifying the impact of funding models has not yet answered the question: is grant-funded research more impactful than block-funded research? In the French context, I compare the impact of 6,441 scientific articles resulting from competitive grants with that of 6,441 similar articles resulting from block funding. I rely on publication acknowledgments to retrieve the funding information and on citation data to assess publications' impact. I apply a probabilistic matching procedure to compare similar articles. I find that publications receiving the support of competitive grants obtain significantly more citations than those supported by block funding in the long run, while the difference is not statistically significant in the short run.My dissertation offers important insights to policymakers in designing effective training and financing policies for science.
... p < 0.01), indicating that green R&D collaboration has an inverted U-shaped relationship with corporate GTI, which supports Hypothesis 2. This finding suggests that R&D teams with prior experience in green patenting are more likely to generate environmentally friendly inventions. Thus, although green R&D collaboration can help generate GTI to some extent, excessive cross-border collaboration has negative consequences [75]. In contrast to Model 5, Model 6 shows a significantly positive coefficient for the primary term of digital optimization (β = 0.071, p < 0.05), a significantly negative coefficient for the secondary term (β = −0.007, ...
Manufacturing enterprises are confronted with the historic opportunity and challenge of balancing green transformation with economic development to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality. Some advanced companies are increasingly pursuing green development and innovation by expanding and optimizing the use of digital technology. In this study, we employ Chinese listed manufacturing companies from 2013–2019 as the research sample and examine the mechanism by which corporate digital optimization affects green technological innovation, as well as the mediating role of green R&D collaboration between the two. We also introduce external environmental orientation as a moderating variable. The results of fixed-effect Poisson model analysis are as follows. First, a positive correlation between digital optimization and green R&D collaboration indicates that scaling up digital optimization promotes green R&D collaboration. Second, we observe an inverted U-shaped relationship between green R&D collaboration and green technological innovation. Third, green R&D collaboration acts as a mediating factor between digital optimization and green technological innovation, and external environmental orientation moderates the relationship between digital optimization and green R&D collaboration. Fourth, the threshold effect results indicate that the optimal value of digital optimization projects is 10.167, with too many or too few projects impairing the effect of digital optimization on green technological innovation. All of the above results passed the robustness test.
... In geography and related fields, patent data have commonly been used to examine the knowledge networks, clusters, knowledge diffusion, and regional paths of evolution (Powell, Koput, and Smith-Doerr 1996;Burt 2004;Feldman 2005;Breschi and Lissoni 2009;Bercovitz and Feldman 2011;Heimeriks and Boschma 2014;Breschi and Lenzi 2016;Balland and Rigby 2017;van der Wouden 2020). In this study, we regard patent networks as indications of actors' strategies to generate and secure intangible assets rather than representing their engagement in more comprehensive knowledge networks, which would include nonpatent collaboration, academic exchanges and publication, personnel linkages, licensing, institutional lineage, mergers and acquisitions, among others. ...
Breakthroughs in biotechnology, globalizing intellectual property rights legislations, and growing venture capital in the past thirty years have given rise to new forms of capitalist accumulation that scholars called biocapitalism. Bioscientific knowledge under biocapitalism is increasingly parceled out from a global common to private enclosures for biotech and pharmaceutical companies, contributing to vast inequalities and fractures of global access to innovation evident in the COVID-19 pandemic. The assetization and financialization of knowledge have shifted the ground of innovation from competitive commodity production and exchanges to generating, managing, and commercializing patents and associated monopoly rights, thus raising the challenges of innovation for those developing countries specialized in production. Many Asian countries have invested heavily in biomedical sciences to enhance their knowledge assets but had limited success in translating the scientific development to a globally significant biomedical industry. This article discusses the evolution of China’s biomedical industry from a technological laggard to a recent innovation boom after a regulatory overhaul in 2015. Analyzing the patent collaborative networks of China’s biomedical industry since 2003, we found the central roles of domestic public research institutions, in contrast to multinational corporations, as cutting-edge knowledge providers. We argue that China’s path of the biomedical industry is distinct from its other technology industries that rely on multinational corporations for core knowledge. It represents a national articulation in response to global biocapitalism by situating the domestic research institutions and biomedical firms at the center of knowledge assets production and engaging globally in the science and drug regulatory systems.
... In contrast to our work, previous studies in the field of science commercialization that take into account experience focus mainly on knowledge producers, i.e. academic researchers and their teams (e.g. Bercovitz and Feldman, 2011;Clarysse et al., 2011;Modic and Yoshioka-Kobayashi, 2020;O'Kane et al., 2020), company-university collaborators (Steinmo and Rasmussen, 2018), or specific entities, such as technology scouts (Noack and Jacobsen, 2021). There is also a large focus in the literature on TTOs as monolithic actors and the effect of their staff's combined experience on science commercialization outputs (Chapple et al., 2005;Micozzi et al., 2021). ...
Experience defined in terms of time, scope, type, density and timing affect performance of highly skilled administrative staff. We apply a multidimensional model to the field of science commercialization as a typical multi-goal oriented process. We identify how different conceptualizations of experience models lead to diverse conclusions regarding their effects on facets of performance such as speed, efficiency and revenue. Acknowledging multifaceted goals of science commercialization, we further contribute to the body of work on individual level factors regarding universities' commercialization performance. In this paper we provide evidence from the context of universities' commercialization efforts, relying on administrative records of a Japanese university including 845 transfer cases over a 13-year period (2004–2016). By focusing on coordinators working in a technology transfer office, and the various measurement modes of their experience, we detect several important characteristics. While several experience components affect speed and efficiency of technology transfer, our results show that revenue is determined by interaction components.
... Working in interdisciplinary project teams is becoming increasingly popular [47][48][49][50] due to their increasing use in the development of the new processes and products [51] required by Sustainable Industry 4.0. This also affects the composition of project teams, as team members should be highly qualified and have diverse competencies. ...
Contemporary project teams are increasingly used to solve problems that are at the crossroads of many disciplines and areas dedicated to Industry 4.0, which is a watershed in the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Industry 4.0 can serve as a platform for the alignment of SDGs with the ongoing digital transformation. This involves specific challenges for teams, but also allows perspectives that may create innovative and high-quality results. In order to meet these challenges while taking advantage of the opportunities offered by interdisciplinary cooperation, project teams, including the team leader, should have specific competencies. With this in mind, the aim of this article is to identify the challenges and perspectives related to working in interdisciplinary Sustainable Industry 4.0 project teams and to define the competencies necessary to act as a member and leader of these teams. Implementation of this aim will be possible by answering two research questions: (1) What requirements and opportunities are involved with interdisciplinary work amongst members of Sustainable Industry 4.0 project teams; and (2) What are the competencies necessary of members and leaders of such teams to meet these requirements and take advantage of the opportunities for such cooperation? An exploratory case study was conducted among members of interdisciplinary project teams at one of the leading technical universities in Poland. Qualitative data were obtained from many sources: interviews, internal documentation of analyzed projects and managerial notes. The obtained results allow us to state that the most important challenges and perspectives related to the work of interdisciplinary Sustainable Industry 4.0 teams include coordination of individual parts of the project, integrative leadership, establishing a common language, broad views on the issues raised and building a team consisting of specialists with the required competencies. The competencies of the project team that are important for working in the analyzed environment include strategic perspective, communication skills and persuasion, while for leaders, competencies must include the ability to coordinate work, resource management, empowering and motivation.
... According to the knowledge management theory, innovation activity is an interactive process of knowledge creation and accumulation in which novelty is created by combining diverse sets of knowledge (Bercovitz & Feldman, 2011;Hansen & Lema, 2019). In addition to the knowledge acquisition, a second way to compensate for the insufficiency of firms' technological capabilities growth is to enhance the communication and cooperation with other organizations. ...
This study investigates the effects of knowledge activities including knowledge acquisition, knowledge cooperation, and knowledge transaction based on external knowledge network on the firm’s technological capability. Using the statistical data of China, the paper employs the negative binomial regression random-effects model to study the effects of knowledge activities on technological capability. Results show that knowledge cooperation between firm and research institutions and/or universities has a statistically significant relation with technological capability. The variable of knowledge transaction that is the firm’s technology contract deals by category of technology buyer positively influences the technological capability growth, and another variable that is the technology contracts imported by the type of technology importer also shows this effect. With respect to knowledge acquisition, the results show that the acquisition of foreign technology is not associated with firms’ technological capabilities, while the purchase of domestic technology has a positive impact.
... Patents resulting from collaborations are more important than patents on individual inventions (Fleming, Mingo, and Chen 2007;Bercovitz and Feldman 2011). Forms of collaboration lead to greater knowledge variety and creativity (Reagans and Zuckerman 2001). ...
Firm’s inter-regional investments are crucial carriers of capital flows
between cities, transforming information resources into innovation
capabilities. Based on the listed companies’ inter-regional investments
data and patent data in China during 2009-2018, the mechanism of the
inter-regional investments in technological catch-up and the
heterogeneity in different samples have been investigated via the two stage least squares regression. The results show that: (a) Inter-regional investments enhance the innovation capability, narrow the
technological distance, and play a more significant role than foreign
capital; (b) Technological catch-up is achieved through independent
innovation, the transmission mechanism of imitative innovation does
not hold; (c) When there is no market segmentation, the role of interregional investments on technological catch-up is realised entirely through independent innovation. Segmentation hinders the
technological catch-up process; (d) The partial mediating effect of the
manufacturing industry on technological catch-up holds, while in non�manufacturing industries, it is not significant. Inter-regional investments are important for the improvement of local innovation capacity and for China’s catching up with the world’s technological frontiers
... At the initial stage, it is essential for firms to match up with the right types of partnerssuch as vertical (suppliers), horizontal (competitors) or institutional (universities and research institutes) partnersthat complement themselves with the necessary knowledge and resources to achieve the goals pursued. Once a partnership or alliance is formed, it is necessary for team members to become familiar with each other, to develop an enhanced understanding of the problem-solving procedure, to cultivate personal trust, and eventually to build effective research routines so as to improve efficiency and prospect for project success (Bercovitz & Feldman, 2011). Therefore, close face-to-face contact is essential throughout the whole process of innovation collaboration. ...
This study explores the extent to which changes in transport infrastructure counterbalance pre-existing geographical friction and foster innovation collaboration, using the Chinese high-speed rail (HSR) construction as a quasi-natural experiment. Using a comprehensive dataset of city-pair co-patents from 2005 to 2018, we show that HSR connections significantly increase intercity co-patents, patent quality and collaborative partnerships, and such effects are strongest for city-pairs within 250 km and decrease for longer distances. Moreover, the HSR effect is stronger for cities in similar institutional settings, indicating a negative moderating effect of institutional distance. Various robustness methods are used to confirm the validity of our findings.
... Empirical studies have found a positive relationship between team performance and prior team interaction (Huckman, Staats, Upton 2009) or prior social links between team members (Bercovitz & Feldman, 2011). At the same time, negative repercussions have also been reported (Dan et al., 2008;Sales et al., 2018), as repeated interaction may limit the amount of new information that can be obtained through collaboration. ...
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.
... At present, the existing literature mainly focuses on the formation mechanism, structural characteristics and innovation performance of industry-university-research innovation network, and there is little research on its time evolution law. The research objects also mostly focus on the research of economically developed areas, advantageous industries and so on, and pay less attention to the industry-university-research innovation network in late developing areas (Huang, 2017; Janet, 2011; Liu, 2014) [1][2][3]. Therefore, this paper takes this opportunity, takes Guizhou Province as the research object, constructs the industry-university-research innovation network based on the cooperative patent data of Guizhou Province, deeply explores its overall characteristics, network time evolution process and characteristics, and improves and enriches the research on the evolution law of industry-university-research cooperation network, It also provides a scientific basis for Guizhou Province and other underdeveloped areas to formulate industry-university-research innovation policies. ...
Based on the industry-university-research cooperation patent data of Guizhou Province from 1986 to 2020, this paper constructs Guizhou industry-university-research innovation network, and empirically explores the overall structural characteristics of Guizhou industry-university-research innovation network, such as network scale and network density, as well as the time evolution dynamics of nodes and cooperation intensity. It is found that the scale of industry-university-research innovation network in Guizhou Province is gradually expanding, the nodes are gradually increasing, and more cooperative groups have been formed, but the overall network is low density; Guizhou University and other universities and scientific research institutions have always occupied the central position of the network. Although enterprises are not in the core position, the intensity of cooperation with institutions is gradually increasing.
... However, because of the vast differences between their perceptions and goals, establishing the most effective method of moving the project forward can provide challenges. Successful innovation is known to require diverse teams with many different characteristics in terms of experience and knowledge [18]. ...
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) represent an important channel that attracts the participation of private sponsors to invest in transport infrastructure systems in developing countries. PPPs are increasing as an innovative tool to remedy the lack of the dynamics of traditional investment channels of public governments and to stimulate the development of transport infrastructure via the encouragement of participation by private investors. PPP projects are established based on the cooperation rules of public and private sectors on the basic of pursuing common goals; and leveraging their joint resources regarding the competencies and strengths of each actor. However, the poor quality of collaboration mechanisms between public agencies and private organizations is considered to be one of the main causes leading to project delays and the need for unexpected renegotiations, which results in unforeseeable events beyond the control of the contractual parties. Thus, this paper focuses on reviewing the implementation of PPP projects in developing countries to provide a holistic picture of PPP contractual negotiations and identify potential risks and associated consequences during the project stages. A systematic review has been conducted and more than one hundred research papers from 2000 to 2020 have been selected for analysis and synthesis. The initial findings of this study show that political support, legal-financial risk allocation, shared authority and responsibility, communication channels, and conflict resolution are critical factors contributing to the success or failure of the collaboration mechanism between parties in PPP projects. These factors should be examined carefully during investment policy development to improve the success rate of PPP projects and attract the participation of private sector investors.
... In a team environment, members bring capitals through training, background knowledge, and organisational networks [13]. Collaboration can be mobilised through formal appropriability mechanisms such as copyrights, patents, document management, and legal agreements [14] and traditional relationships such as joint ventures and contractual partnerships [15]. ...
... This means that for the positive spillovers to emerge from the churning of employees, more time is needed. Other research also suggests that teams become more productive the longer they work together (Bercovitz and Feldman 2011). 14 Moreover, the estimations are also run on a subset of plants that do not experience any change in the workforce during the time they are in the sample. ...
This paper studies how the previous experience among workers relates to the labor productivity of the creative industries in Sweden. Effective knowledge transfers are dependent on the cognitive distance among employees. Using longitudinal matched employer-employee data, I measure the portfolio of the skills within a workplace through (i) the workers' previous occupation, and (ii) the industry they have been working in previously. Estimates show that diversity of occupational experience is positive for labor productivity, but the diversity of industry experience is not. When distinguishing between related and unrelated diversity, the relatedness of occupational experience is positive for labor productivity, while unrelated occupational experience instead shows negative relationship with productivity. These results point towards the importance of occupational skills that workers bring with them to a new employment, for labor productivity.
... A reasonable assumption is that more diverse groups will, on average, contain more diverse perspectives, and this may in turn lead to a higher probability to form novel ideas. More diverse teams have greater opportunity to leverage the expertise of members and to bring a wider range of information to the knowledge creation process (Bercovitz & Feldman, 2011;Cohen & Levinthal, 2000;Wagner et al., 2019). Peterson (2001) showed that multi-national collaboration, where the collaborators have different cultural (and educational) backgrounds, tend to stimulate new ideas and develop new approaches to theoretical or practical problems. ...
Understanding the nature and value of scientific collaboration is essential for sound management and proactive research policies. One component of collaboration is the composition and diversity of contributing authors. This study explores how ethnic diversity in scientific collaboration affects scientific impact, by presenting a conceptual model to connect ethnic diversity, based on author names, with scientific impact, assuming novelty and audience diversity as mediators. The model also controls for affiliated country diversity and affiliated country size. Using path modeling, we apply the model to the Web of Science subject categories Nanoscience & Nanotechnology , Ecology and Information Science & Library . For all three subject categories, and regardless of if control variables are considered or not, we find a weak positive relationship between ethnic diversity and scientific impact. The relationship is weaker, however, when control variables are included. For all three fields, the mediated effect through audience diversity is substantially stronger than the mediated effect through novelty in the relationship, and the former effect is much stronger than the direct effect between the ethnic diversity and scientific impact. Our findings further suggest that ethnic diversity is more associated with short-term scientific impact compared to long-term scientific impact.
... Interdisciplinarity has been frequently studied (Leahey et al. 2017), although rarely in the context of entrepreneurship. The most relevant articles of which we are aware are Bercovitz and Feldman (2011) and Kotha et al. (2013), both of which examine the licensing of university invention disclosures as opposed to startup formation. These authors find that more departments spanned by the discovery team (which they interpret as coordination costs) is negatively associated with a lower likelihood of licensing (although the effect reverses for a squared term indicating a curvilinear effect). ...
Which factors shape the commercialization of academic scientific discoveries via startup formation? Prior literature has identified several contributing factors but does not address the fundamental problem that the commercial potential of a nascent discovery is generally unobserved, which potentially confounds inference. We construct a sample of approximately 20,000 “twin” scientific articles, which allows us to hold constant differences in the nature of the advance and more precisely examine characteristics that predict startup commercialization. In this framework, several commonly accepted factors appear not to influence commercialization. However, we find that teams of academic scientists whose former collaborators include “star” serial entrepreneurs are much more likely to commercialize their own discoveries via startups, as are more interdisciplinary teams of scientists.
This paper was accepted by Sridhar Tayur, entrepreneurship and innovation.
This study examines research performance indicators and builds a structural overview of topics related to cultural differences in global virtual teams (GVT) in the period 2000-2020. A bibliometric analysis of 151 academic articles on the topic of cultural differences in GVTs, retrieved from Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus databases, was applied with the Bibliometrix package in R. The analyses reveal findings regarding the cultural differences in GVTs research, in particular, the most valuable sources, prolific authors, the geography of the research, as well as main scientific articles. The main research themes and their evolution were determined, as well as potential research directions. According to the revealed most relevant themes, the trend of the stream of research is heading towards individual dimensions of the topic, indicating a moved research focus from the organizational level of management and psychology to the individual one.
In this research, we examine how consumers perceive the fruits of university-industry collaborations – that is, new products co-developed with universities. Eight studies document a positive university effect, and highlight its practical significance and boundary conditions. An Instagram A/B test utilizing a video that refers (vs. does not refer) to the underlying university-industry collaboration results in higher click-through rates and ad engagement levels. Another field study demonstrates that university-co-developed products are more attractive to consumers — even after an actual product trial. Further, several consequential studies show that consumers are willing to pay up to 65% more for products marketed as co-developed with a university. Consistent with our theorizing, we find that collaborating with a university infuses the underlying firm with a stronger sense of scientific legitimacy, thereby making the resulting product more attractive to consumers. Congruously, we find that the effect is more pronounced when the scientific legitimacy engendered by universities is more important to the focal product (i.e., high-tech vs. low-tech), underlying company (i.e., new vs. established), or target customer (i.e., high vs. low belief in science).
In this article, we adopt a task approach to measure the local pool of capabilities which can more effectively spur innovation. By focusing on the core activities that workers undertake in their jobs, we build an abstract task intensity measure of occupations to proxy the ability in analysing and solving complex problems, as well as in coordinating and integrating people with different knowledge endowments, that should be especially relevant for the process of invention and innovation. We thus estimate the relationship between the local abstract intensity and the inventive performance, proxied by granted patents, of US Commuting Zones (CZs) during the period 2000–2015. The evidence provided, robust to a wide array of sensitivity checks, points to the extent of workers’ engagement in abstract tasks across CZs as a crucial determinant of the local inventive activity.
To fuel the innovation process with high‐quality ideas, firms are increasingly soliciting ideas from their employee workforce and involving them in idea contests. During an idea contest employees suggest ideas on a firm‐internal, digital idea platform. Once submitted, idea holders can receive constructive feedback from colleagues on their ideas – which has been advanced as positive instrument for stimulating idea improvement and idea quality. Examining three firm‐internal, multi‐staged idea contests that generated 395 ideas from a global management consulting firm, we examine under what conditions constructive feedback positively influences idea quality. We focus on the hierarchical roles of feedback providers and receivers and the role of feedback overlap (which indicates whether feedback focuses on similar issues). We find that the effect of constructive feedback on idea quality is larger when feedback providers have a higher hierarchical rank, but that this effect does not depend on the hierarchical rank of feedback recipients. Further, we show that (partial) feedback overlap strengthens idea quality. Our results generate new insights for both idea‐contributing employees and innovation managers about the important role of managing feedback during idea contests.
The geography of innovation refers to the spatial clustering of innovative activity and the advantages conferred by co-location. Economic actors realize gains when located to places with abundant resources, well-developed social networks and the chance for serendipitous encounters: all factors that increase the probability of recognizing opportunity and easily solving problems. Location can lower search costs through localized knowledge spillovers and provide access to external scale and scope economies. Firms are one mechanism for organizing economic activity and social networks are another; geography provides an alternative platform that easily brings together resources external to firm and augments social networks through face-to-face interaction.
Science policy discourse often encourages interdisciplinary research as an approach that enhances the potential of science to produce breakthrough discoveries and solutions to real-world, complex problems. While there is a large body of research examining the relationship between interdisciplinarity and scientific discovery, there is comparatively limited evidence on and understanding of the connection between interdisciplinarity and the generation of scientific findings that address societal problems. Drawing on a large-scale survey, we investigate whether scientists who conduct interdisciplinary research are more likely to generate scientific findings with high societal visibility - that is, research findings that attract the attention of non-academic audiences, as measured by mentions to scientific articles in blogs, news media and policy documents. Our findings provide support for the idea that two facets of interdisciplinarity - variety and disparity - are associated positively with societal visibility. Our results show, also, that the interplay between these two facets of interdisciplinarity has a systematic positive and significant association with societal visibility, suggesting a reinforcing effect of spanning multiple and distant scientific fields. Finally, we find support for the contingent role of scientists' collaboration with non-academic actors, suggesting that the positive association between interdisciplinary research and societal visibility is particularly strong among scientists who collaborate with actors outside academia. We argue that this study provides useful insights for science policy oriented to fostering the scientific and societal relevance of publicly funded research.
Organizational experience is generally expected to have a positive effect on subsequent task performance. However, research over the past two decades has recognized an increasing number of circumstances in which the performance effects of experience are less clear or even negative. Given the inconclusive evidence on the nature of the experience–performance relationship, we conduct a systematic review and synthesize previously unconnected streams of literature on the organizational experience–performance relationship into a contingency framework on how the applicability, accessibility, and adoption of experiential knowledge jointly moderate the commonly assumed positive effect of organizational experience on performance in a focal task. Based on our integrative contingency framework, we identify important gaps in our understanding of these boundary conditions and develop a research agenda to expand our understanding of organizational experience effects on organizational performance.
This paper investigates how the social environment to which a Ph.D. student is exposed during her training relates to her scientific productivity. We investigate how supervisor and peers' characteristics are associated with the student's publication quantity, quality, and co-authorship network size. Unique to our study, we cover the entire Ph.D. student population of a European country for all the STEM fields analyzing 77,143 students who graduated in France between 2000 and 2014. We find that having a productive, mid-career, low-experienced, female supervisor who benefits from a national grant is positively associated with the student's productivity. Furthermore, we find that having few productive freshman peers and at least one female peer is positively associated with the student's productivity. Interestingly, we find heterogeneity in our results when breaking down the student population by field of research.
University-enterprise cooperation has experienced nearly 30 years of development in China, there are still a large number of failure cases in practice, and academic research often presents a unilateral situation of ‘enterprise-university’. This study starts with the bilateral matching between enterprises and universities, using data on invention patents jointly applied for by Chinese enterprises and universities from 2010 to 2020, discusses the influence of university-enterprise knowledge potential matching on the innovation performance of university-enterprise cooperation and the influence of university level and enterprise R&D investment intensity on the innovation performance of university-enterprise cooperation when the knowledge potential difference is similar. The results show that: (1) knowledge potential matching has a significant effect on the innovation performance of university-enterprise cooperation: the smaller the knowledge potential difference, the higher the innovation performance; (2) with similar knowledge potential difference, the level of the university has no significant impact on the innovation performance, and the R&D investment intensity of enterprises is positively correlated with the innovation performance of university-enterprise cooperation; (3) geographical proximity has a significant inverted U-shaped moderating effect on the relationship between knowledge potential matching and the innovation performance of university-enterprise cooperation.
Academic diasporas have an impact both on their host countries and their homeland during the process of knowledge creation and human capital stock increase. This study examines the effect of the reverse migration tendencies of academicians in the Turkish Diaspora on their academic productivity. In the study, data obtained from 466 Turkish scientists working in universities and research centers in Germany were analyzed through Probit Regression. According to the results, the tendency of intellectual reverse migration of the scientists in Diaspora affects academic productivity positively. Accordingly, the intellectual reverse migration tendency of scientists in the diaspora increases their academic productivity by 0.12%. In addition, it is concluded that the academic connections of the academic diaspora affect their academic productivity positively.
Collective efforts of masses provide access to funding and ideas. While such endeavors in a business-to-customer context are well-described, they are less well understood in other contexts such as business-to-business. A literature review that exacts knowledge and inspiration from B2C crowdsourcing and other forms of collective innovation is used. This review generates new knowledge to close this gap and develops a 6-stage innovation framework for Collective Engagement, Intelligence & Innovation (CEI^2) that begins with task specification and concludes with management of inputs generated from the CEI^2 efforts. The framework and the accompanying list of questions may be used by theorists to explore different contexts, and for managers to structure B2B or P2P crowdsourcing more effectively. Contributions of this study include exploration of the theoretical areas of open-source innovation that extend beyond a B2C model, and new ways of effectively structuring CEI^2. Further research may explore the CEI^2 framework through a case study or test it through quantitative study.
Die Beziehung zwischen Innovation und Organisation ist widersprüchlich: Organisation beschränkt Innovation und ermöglicht sie gleichzeitig dadurch. In diesem Beitrag rezipieren wir aktuelle prozessorientierte Ansätze in der Organisationsforschung, die diese Beziehung auf unterschiedliche Arten und Weisen adressieren. Dabei argumentieren wir, dass Innovation weder allein von besonders kreativen Individuen noch von bestimmten Organisationsstrukturen abhängt, sondern von situativen, kollektiven Praktiken, welche durch Organisation unterstützt werden können.
Although teamwork shows stronger innovation ability than individuals and this advantage has been increasing over time, the negative effects of larger teams also appear as the number of inventor members increases. This study discusses the double-edged sword role of inventor teams in innovation quality at two extremes: the high quality and the low quality. We argue that, inventor team size influences innovation quality because diversity works in the evolutionary process of innovation, but different types of diversity play distinct moderating roles in these relationships. Using patent data from the US pharmaceutical industry, empirical results show that there is an inverted U-shape relationship between inventor team size and high-quality innovation, and a negative relationship between inventor team size and low-quality innovation. These relationships are moderated at different degree by technological and geographic diversity. Our findings contribute to existing literature of innovation and also provide meaningful implications for innovation management.
The geography of innovation describes the importance of proximity and location to innovative activity. As part of what has been termed the new economic geography, this area of research is less than 20 years old, and is now developed sufficiently so that the discussion can be organized around certain stylized and commonly accepted facts:
• Innovation is spatially concentrated;
• Geography provides a platform to organize economic activity
• All places are not equal: urbanization, localization, and diversity;
• Knowledge spillovers are geographically localized;
• Knowledge spillovers are nuanced, subtle, pervasive, and not easily amenable to measurement;
• Local universities are necessary but not sufficient for innovation;
• Innovation benefits from local buzz and global pipelines; and
• Places are defined over time by an evolutionary process.
The purpose of this chapter is to summarize recent work on innovation and location in light of these themes, and to consider how these stylized facts shed light on the broader process of technological change ad economic growth.
While firms are one venue to organize economic activity, the resources required to generate innovation are typically not confined to a single firm, and geography provides another means to organize the factors of production. Geography is additionally a venue for complex multifaceted social relationships, and human community and creativity that are beyond the economic sphere. Economies are complex: highly integrated, globally interconnected, and highly agglomerated on centers of activity. There is always the temptation to analyze economic institutions and actors individually, however the new economic geography literature considers the large context. Of course, once the analysis is open to consider geography there is a need to understand history, building a deep contextualized understanding of a place and the relationships that define it. The present review of the literature summarizes the advancements made in this stream of inquiry, but also indicates that many open avenues for research remain, thus encouraging others to contribute to the emerging field of economic geography.
This paper reports on a qualitative field study of 16 hospitals implementing an innovative technology for cardiac surgery. We examine how new routines are developed in organizations in which existing routines are reinforced by the technological and organizational context All hospitals studied had top-tier cardiac surgery departments with excellent reputations and patient outcomes yet exhibited striking differences in the extent to which they were able to implement a new technology that required substantial changes in the operating-room-team work routine. Successful implementers underwent a qualitatively different team learning process than those who were unsuccessful. Analysis of qualitative data suggests that implementation involved four process steps: enrollment, preparation, trials, and reflection. Successful implementers used enrollment to motivate the team, designed preparatory practice sessions and early trials to create psychological safety and encourage new behaviors, and promoted shared meaning and process improvement through reflective practices. By illuminating the collective learning process among those directly responsible for technology implementation, we contribute to organizational research on routines and technology adoption.
This study examined the relationship between the demography of top management teams and corporate strategic change, measured as absolute change in diversification level, within a sample of Fortune 500 companies. Controlling for prior firm performance, organizational size, top team size, and industry structure, we found that the firms most likely to undergo changes in corporate strategy had top management teams characterized by lower average age, shorter organizational tenure, higher team tenure, higher educational level, higher educational specialization heterogeneity, and higher academic training in the sciences than other teams. The results suggest that top managers' cognitive perspectives, as reflected in a team's demographic characteristics, are linked to the team's propensity to change corporate strategy.
This paper applies evolutionary economics reasoning to the strategic alliance context and examines whether and how routinization processes at the partnering-firm level influence the performance of the cooperative agreement. In doing so, it introduces the concept of interorganizational routines, defined as stable patterns of interaction among two firms developed and refined in the course of repeated collaborations, and suggests that partner-specific, technology-specific, and general experience accumulation at the partnering-firm level influence the extent to which alliances result in knowledge accumulation, create new growth opportunities, and enable partnering firms to achieve their strategic objectives. We also consider how governance design choices at the transaction level shape the effectiveness of interorganizational routizination processes. Based on a sample of 145 biotechnology alliances, we find that only partner-specific experience has a positive impact on alliance performance, and that this effect is stronger in the absence of equity-based governance mechanisms. We interpret these results to support the role of interfirm coordination and cooperation routines in enhancing the effectiveness of collaborative agreements.
The task performance of laboratory work groups whose members were trained together or alone was investigated. At an initial training session, subjects were taught to assemble transistor radios. Some were trained in groups, others individually. A week later, subjects were asked to recall the assembly procedure and actually assemble a radio. Everyone performed these tasks in small work groups, each containing three persons of the same gender. Subjects in the group training condition worked in the same groups where they were trained, whereas subjects in the individual training condition worked in newly formed groups. Groups whose members were trained together recalled more about the assembly procedure and produced better-quality radios than groups whose members were trained alone. Through an analysis of videotape data, the mediating effects of various cognitive and social factors on the relationship between group training and performance were explored. The results indicated that group training improved group performance primarily by fostering the development of transactive memory systems among group members.
Knowledge-intensive firms are composed of multiple communities with specialized expertise, and are often characterized by lateral rather than hierarchical organizational forms. We argue that producing knowledge to create innovative products and processes in such firms requires the ability to make strong perspectives within a community, as well as the ability to take the perspective of another into account. We present models of language, communication and cognition that can assist in the design of electronic communication systems for perspective making and perspective taking. By appreciating how communication is both like a language game played in a local community and also like a transmission of messages through a conduit, and by appreciating how cognition includes a capacity to narrativize our experience as well as a capacity to process information, we identify some guidelines for designing electronic communication systems to support knowledge work. The communication systems we propose emphasize that narratives can help construct strong perspectives within a community of knowing, and that reflecting upon and representing that perspective can create boundary objects which allow for perspective taking between communities. We conclude by describing our vision of an idealized knowledge intensive firm with a strong culture of perspective making and perspective taking, and by identifying some elements of the electronic communication systems we would expect to see in such a firm.
It is now accepted wisdom that a major challenge facing managers in the next century will be an increasingly diverse workforce. But what conclusions can be drawn from the research on demography and diversity about meeting this challenge? Is there, as some researchers suggest, a "value in diversity", or, as suggested by others, does diversity make group functioning more difficult? The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic review of the literature on organizational demography and diversity as it applies to work groups and organizations. We review over 80 studies relevant for understanding the effects of demography as it applies to management and organizations. Based on this review, we summarize what the empirical evidence is for the effects of diversity and suggest areas for further research.
The purpose of this work is to develop a systematic understanding of embeddedness and organization networks. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at 23 entrepreneurial firms, I identify the components of embedded relationships and explicate the devices by which embeddedness shapes organizational and economic outcomes. The findings suggest that embeddedness is a logic of exchange that promotes economies of time, integrative agreements, Pareto improvements in allocative efficiency, and complex adaptation. These positive effects rise up to a threshold, however, after which embeddedness can derail economic performance by making firms vulnerable to exogenous shocks or insulating them from information that exists beyond their network. A framework is proposed that explains how these properties vary with the quality of social ties, the structure of the organization network, and an organization's structural position in the network.
Educational and national diversity are proposed to influence work teams' information use differently, with educational diversity mainly enhancing information use and national diversity invoking social categorization, thus hindering information use. As expected, increasing educational diversity positively influenced the range and depth of information use for all except the most diverse teams we studied, but negatively influenced information integration. In contrast to our expectations, national diversity had curvilinear relationships with the range, depth, and integration of information use. Both types of diversity provided information-processing benefits that outweighed the limitations associated with social categorization processes.
We explore the association between the context of social relationships and individual creativity. We go beyond a one-dimensional treatment of social relationships, highlighting the importance of both static and dynamic social network concepts. We argue that weaker ties are generally but not always beneficial for creativity, propose the network positions that facilitate and constrain creative work, and describe three moderators. A spiraling model is presented, capturing the cyclical relationship between creativity and network position. Collectively, our propositions describe an individual's creative life cycle in terms of network position. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
O rganizational forms involving more detailed contracts than are found in traditional spot market exchanges appear to be increasingly prevalent. There has been relatively little analysis, however, of the extent to which firms learn how to use contracts to manage their interfirm relationships over time. In this paper, we conduct a detailed case study of a time series of 11 contracts concluded during 1989–1997 between the same two partners, both of whom participate in the personal computer industry, to explore whether and how firms learn to contract. We find many changes to the structure of the contracts that cannot be fully explained by changes in the assets at risk in the relationship, and evidence that these changes are largely the result of processes in which the firms were learning how to work together, including learning how to contract with each other. The nature of this learning appears to have been quite incremental and local, that is, not very far sighted. We suggest how and when contracts might serve as repositories for knowledge about how to govern collaborations, and suggest some boundary conditions for this phenomenon. Our findings also provide implications for the debate about whether contracts have a positive or negative effect on interorganizational trust. We conclude with suggestions for future research.
O ur study investigates the antecedents and performance implications of cooperative exchange norms. We argue that, in early relationships, the level of expected cooperative norms in an exchange is the result of a calculative process facilitated by transaction attributes: joint transaction-specific investments and observability. The greater the level of these two exchange attributes, the greater the level of cooperative exchange norms, all else being equal. We further argue that the realized level of cooperative exchange norms can deviate from the expected level because the development of such norms is the result of social processes that management cannot directly and fully control. This gap between realized and expected norms affects exchange performance. Performance suffers when the realized level of cooperative exchange norms falls below the expected level, but overshooting expectations lays a critical groundwork for repeat transactions. The analysis of a survey of 182 collaborative R&D alliances provides initial support for our theory.
This research focuses on creating a theory of the "organizational advantage," a new concept identified within business and management. Using social capital research as a foundation for this theory, three of the study's objectives are identified: 1) incorporate different aspects of social capital to identify three common dimensions; 2) explain the role of each dimension in the process of creating and exchanging knowledge; and 3) maintain the belief that organizations are capable of creating extraordinary amounts of social capital on all three dimensions. Additionally, the relationship between social capital and intellectual capital is explored, as is the impact of this relationship upon a firm's perceived organizational advantage. In order for exchange and combination of resources to occur as a means of creating value, the research identifies three necessary conditions, including the opportunity for exchange and combination to occur, the expectation that exchange and combination generates value, and the motivation that exchange and combination in some way will be productive. This research further identifies a fourth condition, combination capability, as a significant factor in value creation. Due to social capital's influence upon the conditions needed for exchange and combination, social capital aids in the creation of intellectual capital. The research further hypothesizes that a firm's ability to create and utilize social capital contributes to performance differences among firms. Several limitations are identified, including omission of the negative impact of social capital upon a firm and the costs associated with creating and preserving a firm's social capital. The findings of the study are generalized to other institutional situations, and areas for future research are identified. (AKP)
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/35444/2/b2034748.0001.001.pdf http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/35444/1/b2034748.0001.001.txt
Our study tests hypotheses concerning the relation between innovative performance and cognitive distance in inter-firm alliances. The central hypothesis is that performance is an inverted-U shaped function of cognitive distance, which implies a certain optimal cognitive distance. A second hypothesis claims that optimal cognitive distance is higher for exploratory than for exploitative learning. A third hypothesis claims that optimal cognitive distance is a function of absorptive capacity, which depends on cumulative past R&D. Most hypotheses are confirmed on the basis of data from 994 alliances in a variety of industries, in the ten-year period 1986-1996. The results indicate a new hypothesis that with a large stock of knowledge one needs greater cognitive distance for further novelty.
Scholars of the theory of the firm have begun to emphasize the sources and conditions of what has been described as “the organizational advantage,” rather than focus on the causes and consequences of market failure. Typically, researchers see such organizational advantage as accruing from the particular capabilities organizations have for creating and sharing knowledge. In this article we seek to contribute to this body of work by developing the following arguments: (1) social capital facilitates the creation of new intellectual capital; (2) organizations, as institutional settings, are conducive to the development of high levels of social capital; and (3) it is because of their more dense social capital that firms, within certain limits, have an advantage over markets in creating and sharing intellectual capital. We present a model that incorporates this overall argument in the form of a series of hypothesized relationships between different dimensions of social capital and the main mechanisms and processes necessary for the creation of intellectual capital.
This paper investigates a possibly fundamental aspect of technological progress. If knowledge accumulates as technology advances, then successive generations of innovators may face an increasing educational burden. Innovators can compensate through lengthening educational phases and narrowing expertise, but these responses come at the cost of reducing individual innovative capacities, with implications for the organization of innovative activity - a greater reliance on teamwork - and negative implications for growth. Building on this "burden of knowledge" mechanism, this paper first presents six facts about innovator behaviour. I show that age at first invention, specialization, and teamwork increase over time in a large micro-data set of inventors. Furthermore, in cross-section, specialization and teamwork appear greater in deeper areas of knowledge, while, surprisingly, age at first invention shows little variation across fields. A model then demonstrates how these facts can emerge in tandem. The theory further develops explicit implications for economic growth, providing an explanation for why productivity growth rates did not accelerate through the 20th century despite an enormous expansion in collective research effort. Upward trends in academic collaboration and lengthening doctorates, which have been noted in other research, can also be explained in this framework. The knowledge burden mechanism suggests that the nature of innovation is changing, with negative implications for long-run economic growth.
One hundred and forty-eight pilots were asked to categorize a list of flight-related data elements that could be sent via data link from an FAA automated flight service station to an aircraft or vice versa. The categorization was used to construct a matrix of proximity values for each of the data-element pairs so that a conceptual network of the elements could be constructed using the Pathfinder algorithm developed by Schvaneveldt, Durso, and Dearholt (1985). Additionally, pilots were asked to judge each data element according to how useful the element was for the functions of communication, navigation, and surveillance within the general aviation (GA) flight environment. Elements scoring high on each of these flight-related functions were then subjected to a Pathfinder analysis. The conceptual networks that were created as a result of these analyses are discussed in relation to the development of data link user interfaces for the GA cockpit.
In this study, we investigate a central tenet of the resource-based view of the firm-that tacit knowledge often lies at the core of sustainable competitive advantage-and attempt to articulate it with greater theoretical precision than has been done previously. Using data from the National Basketball Association, we find support for a predicted positive relationship between shared team experience and team performance that declines as shared experience grows, eventually becoming negative. The implications of this study for non-sports-related firms are discussed along with suggestions for future research.
This paper explores the executive origins of firms' competitive moves by focusing on top management team characteristics, specifically on team heterogeneity, rather than on the more often studied environmental and organizational determinants of such behaviors. Arguing that competitive actions and responses represent different decision situations, we develop propositions about how heterogeneity may enhance some competitive behaviors but impair others. With a large sample of actions and responses of 32 U.S. airlines over eight years, we find results that largely conform to our propositions. The top management teams that were diverse, in terms of functional backgrounds, education, and company tenure, exhibited a relatively great propensity for action, and both their actions and responses were of substantial magnitude. Heterogeneous teams, by contrast, were slower in their actions and responses and less likely than homogeneous teams to respond to competitors' initiatives. Thus, although team heterogeneity is a double-edged sword, its overall net effect on airline performance, in terms of changes in market share and profits, was positive.
Functional diversity in teams has been conceptualized in a variety of ways without careful attention to how different conceptualizations might lead to different results. We examined the process and performance effects of dominant function diversity (the diversity of functional experts on a team) and intrapersonal functional diversity (the aggregate functional breadth of team members). In a sample of business unit management teams, dominant function diversity had a negative, and intrapersonal functional diversity, a positive effect on information sharing and unit performance. These findings suggest that different forms of functional diversity can have very different implications for team process and performance and that intrapersonal functional diversity matters for team effectiveness.
"Kenney's work is the first major effort to provide a detailed analysis of the birth of the new industrial field of biotechnology and its impact on universities...Kenney's book abounds in rich description and valuable conjectures. It also provides important insights into the structural and institutional aspects of the biotechnological revolution. It is informed by an extensive literature including reports from the financial community, university-industry contracts, trade journals, personal interviews, and company prospectuses."-Sheldon Krimsky, American Scientist "Probably never before has the emergence of a technology-based new industry been so exhaustive covered-while still in its gestation period...An excellent and very readable review."-S. Allen Heininger, Chemical and Engineering News "The author raises important questions about whether the character of this university-industrial complex adequately allows for the kind of public discussion and participation necessary to insure consideration of social, economic, and moral issues in the development of this important new technology."-Harvard Educational Review "A fine description of a vital new field. It deserves wide readership."-David Silbert & Duncan Neuhauser, Ph.D., New England Journal of Medicine
This is a book about the formation, development, and success or failure of new high technology companies, focusing on those that grew under the auspices of entrepreneurs from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston at the end of World War Two. Trained in high-technology in MIT's labs and academic departments or in the local industrial marvel that became known as the "Route 128 phenomenon", these entrepreneurs took their technical and innate skills with them to found their own new companies. The book is based on extensive empirical research on these firms conducted over a period of twenty-five years and much previously written work on the subject, and is the culmination of such earlier work and synthesized findings. It centers on people, technology, money, and markets, and its main goal is to provide insights that may eventually contribute to fulfilling other entrepreneurs' dreams and other communities' hopes. The book chapters comprise three connected sections - treating birth, transition and growth, and success or failure.
This study investigated the communication behaviors and performances of 50 R&D project groups that varied in terms of group longevity, as measured by the average length of time project members had worked together. Analyses revealed that project groups became increasingly isolated from key information sources both within and outside their organizations with increasing stability in project membership. Such reductions in project communication were also shown to affect adversely the technical performance of project groups. Furthermore, variations in communication activities were more associated with the tenure composition of project groups than with the project tenures of individual engineers. These findings are presented and discussed in the more general terms of what happens in project groups with increasing group longevity.
Exploring the factors that explain the choice of governance structures in interfirm alliances, this study challenges the use of a singular emphasis on transaction costs. Such an approach erroneously treats each transaction as independent and ignores the role of interfirm trust that emerges from repeated alliances between the same partners. Comprehensive multiindustry data on alliances made between 1970 and 1989 support the importance of such trust. Although support emerged for the transaction cost claim that alliances that encompass shared research and development are likely to be equity based, there is also strong evidence that repeated alliances between two partners are less likely than other alliances to be organized using equity.
Annotationnewline newline Annotation.newline newline Annotation
An abstract is not available.
We argue that the debate regarding the performance implications of demographic diversity can be usefully reframed in terms of the network variables that reflect distinct forms of social capital. Scholars who are pessimistic about the performance of diverse teams base their view on the hypothesis that decreased network density--the average strength of the relationship among team members--lowers a team's capacity for coordination. The optimistic view is founded on the hypothesis that teams that are characterized by high network heterogeneity, whereby relationships on the team cut across salient demographic boundaries, enjoy an enhanced learning capability. We test each of these hypotheses directly and thereby avoid the problematic assumption that they contradict one another. Our analysis of data on the social networks, organizational tenure, and productivity of 224 corporate R&D teams indicates that both network variables help account for team productivity. These findings support a recasting of the diversity-performance debate in terms of the network processes that are more proximate to outcomes of interest.
This research considers how different features of informal networks affect knowledge transfer. As a complement to previous research that has emphasized the dyadic tie strength component of informal networks, we focus on how network structure influences the knowledge transfer process. We propose that social cohesion around a relationship affects the willingness and motivation of individuals to invest time, energy, and effort in sharing knowledge with others. We further argue that the network range, ties to different knowledge pools, increases a person's ability to convey complex ideas to heterogeneous audiences. We also examine explanations for knowledge transfer based on absorptive capacity, which emphasizes the role of common knowledge, and relational embeddedness, which stresses the importance of tie strength. We investigate the network effect on knowledge transfer using data from a contract R&D firm. The results indicate that both social cohesion and network range ease knowledge transfer, over and above the effect for the strength of the tie between two people. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on effective knowledge transfer, social capital, and information diffusion.
In this paper we present an integrative model of the relationships among diversity, conflict, and performance, and we test that model with a sample of 45 teams. Findings show that diversity shapes conflict and that conflict, in turn, shapes performance, but these linkages have subtleties. Functional background diversity drives task conflict, but multiple types of diversity drive emotional conflict. Race and tenure diversity are positively associated with emotional conflict, while age diversity is negatively associated with such conflict. Task routineness and group longevity moderate these relationships. Results further show that task conflict has more favorable effects on cognitive task performance than does emotional conflict. Overall, these patterns suggest a complex link between work group diversity and work group functioning.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 24-27).