•Explores how firms’ degree of openness for innovation is related to the strength of their appropriability strategy.•Overall appropriability strategy has a concave relationship with external search ...breadth and collaboration breadth.•The concave link with appropriability strategy is stronger for collaboration breadth than for external search breadth.•Some evidence suggests that the links are weaker when firms do not draw from or collaborate with their competitors.
To innovate, firms often need to draw from, and collaborate with, a large number of actors from outside their organization. At the same time, firms need also to be focused on capturing the returns from their innovative ideas. This gives rise to a paradox of openness—the creation of innovations often requires openness, but the commercialization of innovations requires protection. Based on econometric analysis of data from a UK innovation survey, we find a concave relationship between firms’ breadth of external search and formal collaboration for innovation, and the strength of the firms’ appropriability strategies. We show that this concave relationship is stronger for breadth of formal collaboration than for external search. There is also partial evidence suggesting that the relationship is less pronounced for both external search and formal collaboration if firms do not draw ideas from or collaborate with competitors. We explore the implications of these findings for the literature on open innovation and innovation strategy.
"Although sources and determinants of academic entrepreneurship have begun to command the attention of policy-makers and researchers, there remain many unanswered questions about how individual and ...social factors shape the decisions of academics to engage in entrepreneurial activities. Using a large-scale panel of academics from a variety of UK universities from 2001 to 2009, this paper examines how an academics' level of entrepreneurial capacity in terms of opportunity recognition capacity, and their prior entrepreneurial experience shape the likelihood of them being involved in starting up a new venture. In addition, we explore what role university Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) play in stimulating venture creation. The results show that individual-level attributes and experience are the most important predictors of academic entrepreneurship. We also find that the social environment surrounding the academic also plays an influential role, but its role is much less pronounced than individual-level factors. Finally, we show that the activities of the TTO play only a marginal, indirect role, in driving academics to start new ventures. We explore the implications of this analysis for policy and organizational design for academic entrepreneurship." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku). Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Forschungsmethode: empirisch-quantitativ; empirisch; Längsschnitt. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 2001 bis 2009.
Current theories of how organizations harness knowledge for innovative activity cannot convincingly explain emergent practices whereby firms selectively reveal knowledge to their advantage. We ...conceive of selective revealing as a strategic mechanism to reshape the collaborative behavior of other actors in a firm's innovation ecosystem. We propose that selective revealing may provide an effective alternative to known collaboration mechanisms, particularly under conditions of high partner uncertainty, high coordination costs, and unwilling potential collaborators. We specify conditions when firms are more likely to reveal knowledge and highlight some boundary conditions for competitor reciprocity. We elaborate on strategies that allow firms to exhibit managerial agency in selective revealing and discuss selective revealing's implications for theories of organization and open innovation and for management practice.
•We argue that academics are influenced by the behaviour of their peers when engaging with industry.•Peer effects are produced by social comparison.•We show that peer effects are stronger for early ...career individuals and weaker for star scientists.
Previous research on academic entrepreneurship and engagement with industry has found that the behaviour of academics is influenced by their local social context. However, we know little about the mechanisms that produce this effect. We argue that academic scientists’ industry engagement is influenced significantly by the behaviour of their peers, that is, the behaviour of colleagues of similar seniority. Using insights from social psychology, we hypothesize that these peer effects are produced by the mechanism of social comparison. In an analysis of data from multiple sources for 1370 UK academic scientists and engineers, we find that peer effects are stronger for early career individuals and weaker for star scientists, suggesting the incidence of social comparison. We argue that individuals look to their immediate peers for inspiration, because they view them as an important reference group and use them as a benchmark for their own ambitions and behaviours. Our findings have important implications for how universities may encourage scientists’ behaviours by paying attention to local work contexts.
Building on a unique, multi-source, and multi-method study of R&D projects in a leading professional services firm, we develop the argument that organizations are more likely to fund projects with ...intermediate levels of novelty. That is, some project novelty increases the share of requested funds received, but too much novelty is difficult to appreciate and is selected against. While prior research has considered the characteristics of the individuals generating project ideas, we shift the focus to the panel of selectors and explore how they shape the evaluation of novelty. We theorize that a high panel workload reduces panel preference for novelty in selection, whereas a diversity of panel expertise and a shared location between panel and applicant increase preference for novelty. We explore the implications of these findings for theories of innovation search, organizational selection, and managerial practice.
•Complementarities-in-performance between product, process and organizational innovation.•We use two rich samples of French and UK manufacturing firms using CIS4 (2002–2004).•Unconditional tests are ...inconclusive, we suggest conditional pairwise relations.•Complementarities between product and process innovations in French and UK firms.•Complementarities depends on national context, firm size and firm capabilities (R&D).
This paper explores the relationships among product, process and organizational innovation, examining the complementarities-in-performance between these forms of innovation, within a supermodularity framework. Drawing upon two large samples of French and UK manufacturing firms using CIS4 (2002–2004), we explore whether firms can find a beneficial interplay between different forms of innovation. Since unconditional tests are often inconclusive about these complementarities, we implement a new procedure testing pairwise relations conditional on the presence/absence of a third form. Using this approach, we find conditional complementarities between product and process innovations in French and UK firms and between organizational and product innovations in French firms, but no complementarities between all three forms of innovation. Using different sub-samples, we show that the presence of complementarities depends on the national context as well as on firm size and firm capabilities, which gives support to the contingency perspective.
A central part of the innovation process concerns the way firms go about organizing search for new ideas that have commercial potential. New models of innovation have suggested that many innovative ...firms have changed the way they search for new ideas, adopting open search strategies that involve the use of a wide range of external actors and sources to help them achieve and sustain innovation. Using a large-scale sample of industrial firms, this paper links search strategy to innovative performance, finding that searching widely and deeply is curvilinearly (taking an inverted U-shape) related to performance.
Laursen K., Reichstein T. and Salter A. Exploring the effect of geographical proximity and university quality on university-industry collaboration in the United Kingdom, Regional Studies. This paper ...concerns the geographical distance between a firm and the universities in its local area. It is argued that firms' decisions to collaborate with universities for innovation are influenced by both geographical proximity to universities and the quality of these universities. The findings show that being located close to a lower-tier university reduces the propensity for firms to collaborate locally, while co-location with top-tier universities promotes collaboration. However, it is also found that if faced with the choice, firms appear to give preference to the research quality of the university partner over geographical closeness. This is particularly true for high-research and development intensive firms.
Laursen K., Reichstein T. et Salter A. Examiner l'impact de la proximité géographique et de la qualité des universités sur la collaboration industrialo-universitaire aux Etats-Unis, Regional Studies. Cet article traite de l'importance de la distance géographique entre une enterprise et les universités environnantes. On affirme que les décisions de l'entreprise quant aux possibilités de collaborer dans le domaine de l'innovation sont influencées à la fois par la proximité géographique des universités et par la qualité de ces universités. Les résultats laissent voir que la proximité des universités de rang inférieur réduit la propension des entreprises à collaborarer sur le plan local, tandis qu'un emplacement à proximité des universités de rang supérieur encourage la collaboration. Néanmoins, il s'avère aussi que, par choix, les entreprises semblent préférer un partenariat universitaire fondé sur la qualité de la recherche que sur la proximité géographique des universités. Cela vaut notamment pour les entreprises à fort niveau de recherche-développement.
Collaboration industrialo-universitaire Proximité géographique Qualité des universités
Laursen K., Reichstein T. und Salter A. Die Auswirkung der geografischen Nähe und der Qualität von Universitäten auf die Zusammenarbeit zwischen Universitäten und Industrie in Großbritannien, Regional Studies. In diesem Beitrag untersuchen wir den geografischen Abstand zwischen einer Firma und den Universitäten in ihrer Umgebung. Es wird argumentiert, dass die Entscheidungen von Firmen, im Bereich der Innovation mit Universitäten zusammenzuarbeiten, sowohl von der geografischen Nähe zu Universitäten als auch von der Qualität dieser Universitäten beeinflusst werden. Aus den Ergebnissen geht hervor, dass die Nähe zu einer Universität der unteren Stufe die Bereitschaft von Firmen zur lokalen Zusammenarbeit senkt, während die Nähe zu einer Universität der obersten Stufe die Zusammenarbeit fördert. Gleichzeitig stellen wir aber auch fest, dass Firmen, wenn sie die Wahl haben, offensichtlich der Forschungsqualität der Partneruniversität einen höheren Stellenwert einräumen als der geografischen Nähe. Dies gilt vor allem für Firmen mit einem hohen Anteil an Forschung und Entwicklung.
Zusammenarbeit zwischen Universitäten und Industrie Geografische Nähe Qualität von Universitäten
Laursen K., Reichstein T. y Salter A. Análisis del efecto de proximidad geográfica y la calidad universitaria en la colaboración entre la universidad y la industria en el Reino Unido, Regional Studies. Este artículo trata sobre la distancia geográfica entre una empresa y las universidades en su comunidad. Sostenemos que las decisiones de las empresas de colaborar con universidades para la innovación están influenciadas por la proximidad geográfica a las universidades y la calidad de las mismas. Los resultados muestran que si una empresa está ubicada cerca de una universidad de nivel inferior, se reduce su predisposición a colaborar localmente, mientras que estar ubicado cerca de una universidad de nivel superior fomenta la colaboración. Sin embargo, también observamos que si tienen la opción de elegir, parece que las empresas dan preferencia a la calidad de investigación de la universidad socia en vez de la proximidad geográfica. Este hecho se pone particularmente de manifiesto en empresas con alto nivel de investigación y desarrollo.
Colaboración universidad-industria Proximidad geográfica Calidad universitaria
•Business and management academics have a strong preference of impact over publications, even when this impact is not associated with the formal research assessment system.•Academics’ preference for ...impact over publications is increased by their organizational tenure and non-academic work experience and whether they work in a research-intensive context.•Academics will prefer publications over impact when they have high academic productivity, extrinsic career motives and seniority.
Academics are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the impact of their research with external actors. Some national research assessment systems have mandated academics to document their impact on non-academic actors, and linked research funding to assessments of these impacts. Although there has been considerable debate around the design of these systems, little is known about how academics perceive the value of impact against more conventional academic outputs, such as publications. Using multisource data, including a large-scale survey of UK business and management academics, this paper explores the individual and institutional factors that explain an individual’s preference for impact versus publication. The results show that academics display a preference for impact over publications, even when that impact is not associated with requirements of the assessment system in terms of rigour of the underpinning research. The preference for impact over publications is heightened by organization tenure, non-academic work experience, intrinsic career motivations and research-intensive contexts, while it is weakened by academic influence, extrinsic career motives and academic rank. We explore the implications of these findings for the design of research assessment systems and academics’ reactions to them.
Although the literature on university–industry links has begun to uncover the reasons for, and types of, collaboration between universities and businesses, it offers relatively little explanation of ...ways to reduce the barriers in these collaborations. This paper seeks to unpack the nature of the obstacles to collaborations between universities and industry, exploring influence of different mechanisms in lowering barriers related to the orientation of universities and to the transactions involved in working with university partners. Drawing on a large-scale survey and public records, this paper explores the effects of collaboration experience, breadth of interaction, and inter-organizational trust on lowering different types of barriers. The analysis shows that prior experience of collaborative research lowers orientation-related barriers and that greater levels of trust reduce both types of barriers studied. It also indicates that breadth of interaction diminishes the orientation-related, but increases transaction-related barriers. The paper explores the implications of these findings for policies aimed at facilitating university–industry collaboration.
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