When firms tap external knowledge sources, they risk spillovers of their own internal knowledge. If the value of this potential loss and the imitation capabilities of neighboring organizations are ...high, fear of imitation might overshadow the benefits of openness. In such situations, firms might voluntarily reduce their use of external sources, relative to knowledge available internally. Data pertaining to 4,623 European inventions and direct information about the use of knowledge sources confirm that firms reduce their use of external, relative to internal, knowledge when they conduct costly research projects in locations characterized by high levels of absorptive capacity in a specific technology. This study also reveals fear of imitation as a mediating factor of this behavior.
Purpose
The aim of the research is to analyze sustainability in energy companies in terms of financial innovation, innovation strategy and organizational innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
The ...analysis of this research was done by using the Mplus 7 package program, and the research model was tested using the existing latent variables and their expressions. Data from 298 administrative staff (white collar) working in companies operating in the energy sector were analyzed.
Findings
Both independent and mediation effects of financial innovation and innovation strategy positively affect sustainability performance. Therefore, it can be concluded that in order for sustainability performance to be positive, importance should be given to financial innovation, innovation strategy and organizational innovation activities.
Research limitations/implications
As the data were collected from energy companies in this research, it is not correct to generalize the evaluations. Therefore, in terms of the limitations of the research, the sector and sample size should be taken into account in future studies.
Originality/value
This research conducted in energy companies focuses on the importance of sustainability and has a unique value in the literature as the data is collected and analyzed from white-collar employees.
We investigate the extent to which financing constraints affect the innovation activities of over 120,000 mainly unlisted Chinese firms over the period 2000–2007. Based on a variety of specifications ...and estimation methods, we document that Chinese firms' innovation activities are constrained by the availability of internal finance. Specifically, private firms suffer the most, followed by foreign firms, while state-owned and collective enterprises are the least constrained. Moreover, the availability of internal finance represents a particularly binding constraint on the innovation activities of small firms, located in the coastal provinces, with low political affiliation, and fewer state shares, as well as for sole proprietorship firms.
•We investigate the link between cash flow and firm-level innovation activities.•We use a panel of 120,753 Chinese manufacturing firms over the period 2000–2007.•Innovation activities are constrained by the availability of internal finance.•The link is strongest for private firms, and weakest for state-owned enterprises.•The link is also strong for small coastal firms, without political affiliation.
Research background: Firms’ innovation activities play an important role in fostering firms’ competitiveness and enhancing economic growth of regions and countries. Regarding the significance of the ...issue, it is essential to explore indicators of firms’ innovation activities. Here, special attention was given to external linkages and intellectual assets. In the study, particular emphasis was put on firms from the Czech Republic and Poland as the countries distinguished by similar innovation performance. Purpose of the article: The aim of this paper is to explore whether external linkages and intellectual assets impact on innovation activities of Czech and Polish firms. Methods: In the study, the Cobb-Douglas function was employed. The study used data from the European Innovation Scoreboard 2018 with regard to firms’ innovation activities. In particular, special stress was put on variables related to external linkages and intellectual assets such as: innovative SMEs collaborating with others, private co-funding of public R&D expenditures, PCT patent applications and trademark applications. The time period was 2008–2015. Findings & Value added: This paper contributes to the existing literature by providing new insight on issues connected with indicators of firms’ innovation activities. The results reveal statistical significance of selected variables connected with external linkages and intellectual assets on innovation activities of Czech and Polish firms. These findings have policy and practical implications. There is a need to further stimulate, among others, the linkages between firms and universities, research organisations, institutional environment.
PurposeThe aim of the present study is to examine the impact of human resource (HR) practices (human resource empowerment, organizational culture and transformational leadership) on innovation ...activities as well as the effect of innovation activities on perceived financial performance within sport services firms.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed relationships were examined using empirical data from 172 managers of Greek sport services firms. Seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) analysis was used to investigate the role of human resource management (HRM) practices on innovation activities and whether innovation activities affected the perceived financial performance.FindingsThe results of the study indicated that HRM practices, such as human resource empowerment, organizational culture and transformational leadership, significantly impact innovation activities and subsequently innovation activities have a significant and positive effect on perceived financial performance as measured by satisfaction levels in relation to specific key performance indicators (KPIs) such as profit, ROI, sales volume and market share.Practical implicationsThis study presents useful theoretical and managerial implications that can be used by sport service firms to assess the effects of HRM practices on innovation activities and perceived financial performance.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature on several merits. Firstly, the authors jointly estimate the impact of HRM practices on innovation and its concurrent effect on perceived financial performance, which is not methodologically considered before. Secondly, the authors incorporate a more thorough measure of perceived financial performance including four dimensions of performance, and finally the authors analyze a larger sample of sport services firms relative to previous studies, leading into more concrete conclusion on the research hypotheses.
Innovation in the construction industry is affected by the incorporation of new technologies that allow a change in the way of working in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry. The ...objective of this paper is to analyze the behavior of the main innovations (prod- uct, process and organizational) through a PLS model applied to the Spanish construction industry. The results applied to 257 companies indicate that organizational innovation exerts a mediating effect on the relationship between process and product innovation. Therefore, this research contributes to a better understanding of the innovative behavior of the Spanish construction sector and demonstrates the importance of managing a plan for organizational innovation.
Purpose
This paper aims to understand the strategic management of innovation by examining the effect that management control systems (MCS) have on innovation activities during the strategic change ...process.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study was carried out at an innovative company as they undertook a strategic change from closed innovation to open innovation. Simons’ levers of control was used to frame the ways in which MCS were designed and used by managers and the effect MCS have on the innovation activities of organization members.
Findings
The findings indicate that while managers designed and used MCS to support a drive toward open innovation, organization members did not change their innovation activities. Instead, the findings show that new MCS enabled improvements to their closed innovation strategy. This led to a decrease in the time taken to develop new products, which resulted in increased customer satisfaction, which contributed to the achievement of organizational goals.
Originality/value
By focusing on the relationship between MCS and innovation activities in the strategic change process, the paper sheds new light on the ability of MCS to change the innovation activities of organization members. Even though the innovation activities at our case company did not change the interactions between the MCS enabled organizational goals to be achieved as they provided the necessary information infrastructure and motivated goal congruence.
This paper provides novel evidence on co-evolution patterns of the technological specialization of innovation activities of firms and academic institutions located in the same European region during ...the years from 2003 to 2014. We exploit a novel and unique dataset merging data on EU-funded R&D projects, universities, patents, and economic region-level data for a large sample of universities and firms co-located in geographical areas at the third level of the
Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics
(NUTS3), which correspond to a sub-regional scale of analysis. Our results indicate the presence of substantial heterogeneity across the analyzed EU regions with respect to the co-evolution of industry and academia specializations. In particular, we find that the specialization into a new technological domain is led by the local academic research system only in a few cases. We also document that a number of factors, at both the university and region levels, are associated with convergent or divergent processes in the relative specialization of the innovation activities carried out by firms and universities co-located in the same region.
The allocation of executives’ environmental attention (EEA) is of great significance in promoting the green upgrading of industrial structures and achieving corporate green transformation. Based on ...upper echelon theory and the attention-based view, we use panel data of Chinese manufacturing companies from 2015 to 2020 to construct a two-way fixed effects model to explore the impact mechanism of EEA on corporate green transformation performance (CGTP). Baseline regression shows that EEA significantly improves CGTP. The reliability of findings is verified by reducing time windows, replacing the independent variable, expanding the data source, and adding missing variables. In the heterogeneity analysis, the positive effect of EEA on CGTP is significant for eastern companies and does not differ in the property rights grouping. After propensity score matching, environmental attribute grouping shows that the positive effect of EEA on CGTP is more significant for non-heavy polluters. Extended research shows that government subsidies have a positive moderating effect, while female executives play only a symbolic role. Moreover, green innovation activities have positive partial mediating effects. Green innovation is the best way to address environmental pollution and achieve corporate green transformation. Our research provides implications for decision-makers to allocate their attention, and thereby achieve green development appropriately.
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