683 research outputs found
The study of policy coordination: an approach to integrate expert assessment with automated content analysis
No full textPublic policy scholars have long agreed that the coordination of policies involving different authorities and policy frameworks is challenging.This paper responds to recent calls to explore new empirical methods for studying policy coordination by integrating automated text analysis into the workflow of human experts. A key contribution of our approach is a quantitative indicator of the semantic alignment between different policy objectives. We critically review the performance of the indicator in terms of its ability to assess both horizontal and vertical policy coordination by analysing the Recovery and Resilience Plan (2021-26) and the national and regional Smart Specialization Strategies (2021-27) in Portugal. Based on this exercise, we reflect on the necessary conditions for the successful implementation of automated text analysis of policy documents as well as its potential in other empirical settings.The work of S.K. was supported by the KU Leuven Impulsfund (grant number IMP/20/002)
Off the beaten path: what drives scientists' entry into new fields?
No full textGiven that venturing into unknown territory carries substantial risk, scientists do not take the decision to enter a new field lightly. This paper analyzes a broad set of factors associated with the risks and rewards from entry into new-to-the-researcher scientific fields, including individual capacities and preferences as well as incentives stemming from career progression and access to funding. Using a panel of researchers in biomedical sciences and science and engineering from a large European research university, we find that productivity affects new field entry as such but is not associated with entry into fields that are very distant to one's current expertise. Scientists in more senior ranks, with larger co-author networks and collaborating with PhD students, are more likely to enter new fields, but these factors do not represent an additional push to enter very remote fields. Such "long jumps" are more likely to be made by above-average talented rather than merely productive researchers. Finally, accounting for its endogeneity, we find that funding does not make new field entry more likely.This work was supported by KU Leuven (GOA/12/003, BOF HUB-KUB 3H110407), FWO (G.085816.N) and NBB (NBB/15/012).
The authors thank ECOOM for allowing access to the publication data. Publication data are sourced from the Clarivate Web of Science Core Collection
The role of peer effects in firms' usage of R&D tax exemptions
No full textSurvey evidence suggests that firms are insufficiently aware of newly introduced R&D support measures due to the complexity of the public support landscape. As a result, adoption is slow and incomplete, implying that eligible firms leave money on the table. We hypothesize that a key coping mechanism involves firms relying on their peers’ behaviour to inform their own adoption decision. We test this hypothesis by analysing firms' first use of a newly-introduced R&D tax exemption scheme in Belgium. We identify endogenous peer effects in industry- and location-based peer groups by exploiting the intransitivity in firms’ networks as well as variation in peer group size. The results show that firms’ decisions to use R&D tax exemptions are influenced by the choices of their peers. The findings suggest that the efficacy of R&D policy can be improved by accounting for the structure of firm networks in the communication of new support initiatives.sponsorship: This work was supported by the KU Leuven (grant number BOF-KUB ZKC7171) and the National Bank of Belgium (grant number NBB/15/012). The authors would also like to thank the Belgian Federal Public Service Finance for providing the data used in this paper. (KU Leuven|BOF-KUB ZKC7171, National Bank of Belgium|NBB/15/012)status: Publishe
Implementing Smart Specialisation Strategies Analysis of the Role of Regional Strategies in National Innovation Strategies
No full textSmart specialisation (RIS3) is a placed-based policy approach aiming to boost Europe’s
innovative potential by enabling each region to identify and develop its own competitive
advantages. It is based on an entrepreneurial discovery process and the selection of a
limited number of thematic priorities, allowing policy makers to address emerging
opportunities and market developments in a coherent manner, while avoiding duplication
and fragmentation of efforts across regions. The Smart Specialisation Strategies may take
the form of, or be included in, a national or regional research and innovation (R&I) strategic
policy framework. The adoption of national and/or regional Smart Specialisation Strategies
was a formal requirement for allocating R&I budgets from the European Structural and
Investment Funds.
The objective of the present report is to analyse the progress of Member States in the
implementation of national and regional smart specialisation strategies, in particular by
means of an assessment of new policy developments, the progress of implementation of
the different strategies, the monitoring mechanisms and observed impacts. This
assessment mainly relied on the information contained in the Research and Innovation
Observatory (RIO) country reports 2017 and through a survey conducted among the RIO
network experts. This input was complemented by data gathered through the Eye@RIS3
platform, the European Innovation Scoreboard 2017 and the Regional Innovation
Scoreboard (2017).The authors express their gratitude to Marek Przeor from DG REGIO and national experts in JRC’s Research and Innovation Observatory network, whose inputs were analyzed in this report. Furthermore, the Eye@RIS3 tool developed by the JRC’s Smart Specialisation Platform is acknowledged as an essential source of data on national and regional RIS3 priorities in Europe
sj-docx-1-soq-10.1177_14761270241231724 – Supplemental material for The Long March: The quest for valid text-based indicators of exploration and exploitation
No full textSupplemental material, sj-docx-1-soq-10.1177_14761270241231724 for The Long March: The quest for valid text-based indicators of exploration and exploitation by Nazlihan Ugur, Rene Belderbos, Stijn Kelchtermans and Bart Leten in Strategic Organization</p
The Long March:The quest for valid text-based indicators of exploration and exploitation
No full textSince March outlined the importance of balancing exploration and exploitation in organizational learning, the exploration-exploitation paradigm has received substantial attention in the management literature. Recent studies have used computer-aided text analysis to construct measures of firms' inclination towards exploration or exploitation, using the original set of keywords proposed by James G. March. We propose a structured series of tests to assess the validity of computer-aided text analysis-based measures and demonstrate that the approach used in prior studies is unlikely to deliver valid indicators. We demonstrate that an alternative approach, which relies on a larger library of keywords, including synonyms of the March keywords and selects only those keywords that are informative and that pass validity tests, delivers valid computer-aided text analysis indicators - both for unstructured (news articles) and structured text-bases (annual reports). Our study contributes to the literature on construct validity and has broader implications for the development of computer-aided text analysis-based indicators in strategy and organization research
Do licensors learn from out-licensing? Empirical evidence from the pharmaceutical industry
No full textThis paper starts by observing that many licensing contracts contain explicit organizational arrangements for transferring the licensed technology, involving repeated and close interaction between the licensing partners. We argue that these interactions provide opportunities for the licensor to learn from the licensee. Using data on 1,861 licensing deals of 254 pharmaceutical and biotech firms between 1995 and 2015, we show that licensors are more likely to cite the inventions from their licensing partner after an out-licensing deal than matched control firm-pairs that do not engage in licensing. The paper makes the following contributions: first, it demonstrates that not only licensees but also licensors can learn from licensing and that this reverse learning stems from the licensor-licensee relation. Second, it shows that firms can learn from directed outward knowledge transfers rather than non-deliberate knowledge spill-outs. Third, we show that the licensor's post-licensing behavior vis-à-vis the licensee reflects targeted learning by tapping into the most valuable components of the licensee's technology portfolio and those new to the licensor. Finally, the paper extends the theoretical framework behind strategic out-licensing decisions. We show that learning from out-licensing is an additional (positive) element in the trade-off faced by licensors in addition to short-term revenue generation and the risk of long-term rent dissipation.sponsorship: Acknowledgments Financial support from Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO) is gratefully acknowledged (PhD Fellowship, grants 11X6616N and 11X6618N) . (Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO)|11X6616N, Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO)|11X6618N)status: Publishe
The Evolution of Resources in Research-Based Spinoffs: Learning from a Case Study
No full textA great deal of interest and concern has been raised in recent years over the theme of research‐based spinoffs
(RBSOs) and their economic and social implications. An RBSO is a new business entity formed to market one or more
related technologies generated from the research work of a public research institute. The literature has studied this
phenomenon from three different theoretical perspectives: resource‐based, business model and institutional (Mustar et al.
2006), but no studies have integrated the above three theoretical perspectives. Other gaps identified in the literature are
the lack of an analytical consideration of the impact of technological resources on RBSO performances and the limited
empirical studies on the evolution over time of RBSOs, i.e. considering the resources in the different stages (or phases) of
the RBSOs’ development. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the evolution of a spinoff’s resources and institutional
linkages over time, adopting the four stages of spinoff development identified by Djokovic and Souitaris (2008): 1)
opportunity recognition, 2) entrepreneurial commitment, 3) threshold of credibility and 4) threshold of sustainability. To
this extent, the authors have extensively investigated a research‐based spinoff from the Italian ICT sector .This paper
provides a thorough and integrated analysis of the research‐based spinoff in terms of resources (including institutional
resources), using a longitudinal approach, and highlights the importance of resources during its life‐cycle
How does basic research improve innovation performance in the world's major pharmaceutical firms?
No full textEmploying a panel (1995–2015) of large R&D spending pharmaceutical firms, we investigate how internal basic research increases a firm’s innovative performance. We disentangle two mechanisms through which internal basic research affects technology development: (1) as strengthening of the firm’s absorptive capacity to build on externally conducted science, and (2) as a direct source of the firm’s innovation. We find that the positive relationship between internal basic research and innovation performance is significantly mediated by these two mechanisms, with the absorptive capacity mechanism relatively more important. The mediation relationships are more pronounced in recent years, with basic research as a direct source of innovation increasing in importance. This pattern is associated with a decline of corporate investments in basic research over time, and suggests that firms have adopted a more judicious and targeted approach to basic research aimed at getting more leverage out of a smaller commitment to basic research
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