1,721,034 research outputs found
Measuring China's innovative capacity: a stochastic frontier exercise
No full textWe adopt a stochastic frontier analysis of innovative activity to disentangle countries’
patenting capacity from patenting efficiency.We analyse the determinants of innovative
capacity of a set of 26 OECD countries plus China, over the period 1992–2007, to show if and how China’technological activity is growing faster than commonly held as compared to the most innovative countries of the world. Our results highlight that both internal and external elements jointly contribute to enhance countries’ innovative capacity and efficiency. In particular, while government-funded R&D is more important for innovative capacity, privately funded R&D as well as foreign direct investments
(FDIs) affects technical efficiency (TE). Moreover, as for the whole set of countries, FDIs seem to exert a resource-seeking role (as they negatively affect TE), this does
not happen for China, where FDIs exert a positive effect. Results are robust to the use of alternative measures of innovative inputs (such as higher education expenditure in
R&D and R&D personnel, but also FDI flows rather than stocks). Finally, human capital measures are generally not very effective in enhancing patenting efficiency, apart from
tertiary education
Trust your neighbour. Spatial agglomeration, social capital and outsourcing
No full textRelying on a unique dataset on machine-tool small firms located in Emilia Romagna, Italy, we estimate the separate effect of technological relatedness and social capital on the propensity to fully or partially outsource production activities. We focus on a series of 29 production phases, for which we know if they have been operated in-house or outside the firm. Once controlled for endogeneity, we find that: (i) full outsourcing is positively related to social capital, but this effect vanishes as the technological relatedness with neighbouring firms increases; (ii) firms engage in concurrent sourcing only when neighbouring firms are highly technologically related. The phase-estimates show that: (iii) while social capital does matter for the full outsourcing of core activities, high technological relatedness is relevant for the full outsourcing of peripheral ones; (iv) no significant effect of technological relatedness and social capital emerges for the concurrent sourcing of both core and peripheral activities
Coexistence and market tipping in a diffusion model of open source vs. proprietary software
No full textA large number of studies has been canvassed by the growing rates of diffusion of Open Source Software. However, a formal analysis of the process of competition between open-source and proprietary software is still missing. We propose an epidemic model of innovation diffusion to deal with the different factors (profits for proprietary software and developers’ motivations for open-source software) upon which such a process of competition ultimately depends. Moreover, we add network effects and switching costs, together with the endogenisation of the parameters of the speed of diffusion influencing the final outcome. We show the conditions for an asymptotically stable equilibrium to exist, where both softwares coexist. When the propagation coefficient is endogenous, winner-take-all solutions are also likely. sts for one software increases the number of its adopters, while reducing that of the other one. If the negative network effects increase for one of the two softwares, then the equilibrium level of users of that software decreases
Trust your neighbour: industrial relatedness, social capital and outsourcing
Full text linkRelying on a unique dataset of small, machine-tool firms located in Emilia Romagna, Italy, we estimate the separate effects of industrial relatedness and social capital on the propensity to fully or partially outsource production activities. We focus on a series of 29 production phases, for which we have information on whether they are accomplished in-house or outside the firm. After controlling for endogeneity, we find that: (i) full outsourcing is positively related to social capital, but this effect vanishes as industrial proximity with neighbouring firms increases; and (ii) firms engage in concurrent sourcing only when industrial relatedness with neighbouring firms is high. Also phase estimates show that: (iii) while social capital matters for full outsourcing of core activities, for full outsourcing of peripheral activities it is industrial relatedness that is relevant; and (iv) there is no significant effect of either industrial relatedness or social capital on the concurrent sourcing of core and peripheral activities
Trust your neighbour: proximity, social capital and outsourcing
No full textRecent urban economics studies identify spatial agglomeration as a key element for determining the degree of vertical disintegration of firms, because it reduces transport, search and managerial costs, but also the scope for opportunistic behaviour. Relying on a unique dataset on small machine-tool firms located in Emilia Romagna, Italy, we empirically isolate the effect of spatial and technological proximity from the effect of social capital on the propensity to fully or partially outsource production activities. We focus on a series of 29 production phases, from design to repairing, for which we know if they have been operated in-house or outside the firm. After controlling for endogeneity, we find that: (i) full outsourcing is positively related to social capital, but such an effect vanishes as the technological proximity among firms increases; (ii) firms engage in concurrent sourcing only when technological proximity is high; (iii) geo-technological proximity and social capital act like substitute in driving concurrent sourcing. The phase-estimates confirm this picture, and show that, while proximity matters for the full outsourcing of the earliest stages of production, social capital does matter for the core assembling and post-production stages
Linking technological change to organizational dynamics: Some insights from a pseudo-NK model
No full textThe Chapter focuses on the relationships between organisation, technology and industrial structure. The organisation of a firm comes to depend on the trade-off between the decisions to either produce production modules internally or to buy them externally. In this way, organisational structure and technological decisions are intrinsically related, as firms have the choice of producing a module internally by exploring a technological landscape that is corrugated and complex, or of outsourcing it to a more efficient supplier. In so doing, the dimension of the firm (and the industrial dynamics) is endogenously determined by both the internal and the external relationships
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
- …
