Since the eruption of the Covid‐19 pandemic, in response to the global health emergency, governments have focused on designing policies aimed at the development of more innovative products and ...services. Effective collaboration, communication, and Open Innovation (OI) between government organizations, education and research institutions, and the marketplace have been fundamental to the success of each country's response during the crisis period. Using a comprehensive data set from OECD on innovation policies implemented by governments before and during the Covid‐19 crisis, this paper analyses the extent to which these innovation policies promote OI and how these policy decisions evolve to support an effective response to the pandemic. Through a cluster analysis, we identify four possible government innovation policy strategies (centralizers; conservative OI promoters; collaborative supporters; open collaborators) and analyze how these strategies evolve before and during Covid‐19. Our findings confirm that even though there is an increased use of innovation policies promoting OI during the crisis, there is little evidence of consistency between the policy strategy used pre‐Covid and during the crisis for each country. However, there is an increased use of four types of innovation policy instruments, i.e., those entailing formal consultation with stakeholders and experts; fellowships and postgraduate loans and scholarships; networking and collaborative platforms; and dedicated support to research infrastructures. Although the paper limits the scope of the analysis to the early government reactions in selected OECD countries, it captures an important moment in time (i.e., reaction to a severe shock), which opens avenues for future studies.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
In the last decade, fintech has emerged in the financial sector, introducing numerous innovations that have severely impacted traditional banks. To respond to fintech firms and meet the new needs of ...consumers, banks seek to align their offerings by integrating fintech knowledge through mergers and acquisitions (M&As) within an open innovation framework. However, it is still not clear when exactly M&As with fintech firms benefit banks. This paper examines the contingency factors that make M&As beneficial for acquirer banks by using a holistic approach that considers the type of firm, type of deal and the context in which M&As occur. We analysed the effect produced by acquirer sustainability, minority acquisitions and institutional distance between the fintech and the bank's country of incorporation by applying an event study methodology using cumulative abnormal returns to gauge effects on expected performance. We have shown which are the conditions that allow us to maximize the acquirer bank's expected performance. Our research advances the scientific understanding of M&A contingency factors, and more generally of open innovation, in the specific context of fintech and banks. Moreover, we provide managers and policymakers with initial advice on the effects fintech M&As have on traditional banks, showing that they can be beneficial under specific conditions.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Although previous studies have examined the distinct motivations of acquirers and contrasted the differences between friendly and hostile acquisitions, the combination of the acquirer and target firm ...perspectives, particularly within friendly acquisitions, has not yet been addressed. By adopting a multidisciplinary approach and integrating the acquiring and acquired firms’ perspectives, this study identifies different types of friendly deals and investigates their impact on post‐acquisition performance. A unique dataset of 668 acquisitions was constructed by merging the Zephyr and Orbis databases. A regression analysis revealed that, in general, rescue and appealing targets obtain better post‐acquisition performance than average targets. The effect of rescue and appealing targets is accentuated by greater accumulated knowledge. Conversely, in partial acquisitions, the effect of rescue and appealing targets is diminished for high‐accumulated knowledge. This signal change of the knowledge‐moderating parameter implies that under general conditions, rescue and appealing targets outperform average targets. However, if the acquirer seeks to follow a collaborative approach to extract the accumulated knowledge of the target firm, then it is better to signal a more cooperative stance through a partial acquisition.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK