Abstract: Technological merger and acquisition (M&A) has become an increasingly popular mode of innovation for firms. We investigate the determinants of innovation creation through technological M&As. Based on the concept of relative absorptive capacity, the study examines how the acquiring firm absorbs and assimilates the knowledge of the acquired firm and creates innovation. Specifically, the technological M&As are examined by presenting dyadic perspective variables, including technological similarity and technological digestibility which affect the assimilation, transformation, and exploitation processes of the absorptive capacity. We additionally investigate the role of M&A experience as a moderator of dyadic characteristics and innovation performance of technological M&As. Two hundred and twelve cases of technological M&As in the biopharmaceutical industry from 1993 to 2007 are investigated using zero-inflated negative binomial regression and negative binomial regression. The findings confirm a positive effect...

Abstract: This study examines whether and how university knowledge affected industry R&D in the period when university–industry collaborations encountered institutional barriers. Panel estimation of the regional knowledge production function (1983–1996) revealed that university research had localised impacts on industrial innovations, measured by patents filed by the Japanese firms, with a five-year lag. University–industry joint research did not act as a conduit of university spillover, which suggests that informal channels, such as voluntary transfer of academic inventions in return to donation, worked in the pre-reform period. Intermediaries as a part of regional innovation policy, represented as local public technology centres, exerted a positive impact on industrial innovations in the region. Their immediate impacts suggest the contribution of technology diffusion, such as technical consultation, that help small local firms solve current problems while their far-reaching impacts suggest the importance of knowl...

Abstract: A few researchers have studied the relationship of open innovation and firm performance, but the results are controversial. One of the reasons for this inconsistence may be the ignorance of the impact on the external environment. Under the context of open innovation, innovation activities are divided into inbound open innovation and outbound open innovation. Based on a sample of 224 Chinese entrepreneurs from the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta, the relationship between the two kinds of open innovation and firm growth is discussed, and how this relationship is being affected by environment competitiveness (EC) and environment munificence (EM) is explored. Results show that both the inbound open and outbound open innovations have a positive effect on firm growth. Both EC and EM weaken the relationship between inbound open and firm growth. The study also finds a negative effect of both EC and EM on the relationship between outbound open innovation and firm growth significantly. Limitations and sug...

Abstract: Chinese innovation in low-cost, ‘good enough’ electronic products has been very active. Such products may be copies of current branded goods that are positioned as straightforward counterfeits, knock-offs, or Shanzhai. In this paper, we argue that this simplistic analysis is inadequate to describe novel approaches to the production of new goods and that a new system of innovation is emerging. This novel innovation system has a distinct set of context specific actors and intra- and inter-firm structures that have aided the technology innovations and the development of new business models. This paper employs a case study method and uses qualitative data to explore how innovations emerge in new mobile technologies and the innovation system that supports their emergence. It examines the Shanzhai mobile phone industry as a case and provides a first attempt to map the innovation system that has developed. The results suggest that the distinctive characteristics of the Chinese innovation system contribute to the...

Abstract: Technological Innovation (TI) is a critical outcome of innovation systems. Previous studies have investigated the drivers of university–industry (U–I) collaborations without looking at relationships and their influencing factors. This paper fills this gap by examining U–I links in the automotive and biotechnology sectors in Malaysia. The exercise produced three key results. Firstly, there was a significant but negative association between perceived importance of universities and firm-level TI, which indicates that firms have used universities in Malaysia less than their perceived importance. Secondly, the results demonstrate that the sequential effect of knowledge transfer (KT) channels and perceived barriers fully mediate the relationship between universities and TI. Firms that regard universities as important to TI also placed emphasis on KT channels and barriers. While professional recognition and advancement depend on being first to disclose and publish research results, industrial innovation relies h...

Abstract: In recent years, industrial cluster innovation has received considerable attention from economists and industrial analysts. Currently, innovation is a source of competitive advantage for firms and interest in identifying its driving forces has increased from the perspective of industrial clusters. In this paper, we explore the innovation process of industrial cluster towards innovative clusters in developing countries. Based on prior studies, we developed a driving forces model incorporating three main factors – cluster resources, cluster networks, and cluster environment – to simulate and analyse industrial cluster innovation using the Cellular Automata method. Our findings validate the positive relationships between our three factors and industrial cluster innovation. These findings reveal that firms with more resources, higher knowledge sharing, and better networking accelerate their innovation process more effectively. Beyond the immediate implications of our findings, we highlight policy recommendati...

Abstract: ‘Emerging economies’ like Korea in the 2000s face major challenges as they make a transition from (a) a phase of economic development characterised by ‘catching up’ with the global technological frontier, involving technological ‘imitation’, to (b) a phase of continuing development based on the development of new knowledge for globally leading (post catchup) product and process innovation. That transition is about accumulating new narrowly defined ‘technological’ components of innovation capability and changing the broad organisational and institutional context within which the technological (and economic) process of innovation takes place. During the catch-up phase of technological and economic development in successful emerging economies, that institutional dimension of the innovation system evolves particular characteristics that are well adapted to achieving effectiveness in the catch-up mode of innovation. This paper suggests that (1) these institutional characteristics may be less effective with res...

Abstract: While previous literature on organisational ambidexterity research has largely focused on the organisational or top management level, research on individual ambidexterity is in the early stage. The present study expands research in this area by proposing conceptual separation of core competencies for individuals' ambidexterity and their relations to behavioural ambidexterity. Drawing from the literature on organisational ambidexterity and knowledge management, the authors coined the term knowledge workers' integrated ambidexterity competency, a multidimensional construct that consists of cognitive, information, and social skills. Hypotheses are developed to test the multidimensionality and causal relationships among constructs. Empirical analysis with survey data from 293 knowledge workers in South Korea supports the validity of the multidimensional construct and indicates that integrated ambidexterity competency, involving an interaction of cognitive, information, and social skills, drives behavioural am...

Abstract: This paper explains why and how deep tube well as a safe drinking water technology has become dominant in mitigating the arsenic crisis in rural Bangladesh. We do so by applying insights from the Multi-Level Perspective on transitions in explaining changes in the safe socio-technical drinking water regime in rural Bangladesh. Data about seven dimensions of regime change were gathered from key actors through in-depth interviews, focus groups sessions, a survey, and a workshop. The findings reveal that with the introduction of deep tube well as an arsenic mitigation technology, the observed changes in the seven dimensions help to transform the existing safe drinking water regime in order to re-stabilise it. Technological attributes, symbolic meaning, industry structures, and techno-scientific knowledge have supported an evolving dominance of the deep tube well. Besides, user practices as well as related infrastructures have adapted to the use of deep tube wells, and new policies stimulated its application. ...

Abstract: Little published work exists on innovation in construction, which is not helped by the diverse set of activities that characterise the industry. The early attempt to category sources of innovation in the industry depicted it as a supplier driven industry using large data sets from secondary sources. Given the lack of profound firm-level research in the industry, this paper uses four case studies of national firms in Malaysia to examine innovation in the industry. The evidence shows that major innovations in these firms evolve as a crystallization of project demand that drives firms to seek external sources of knowledge that is adapted to meet the construction demand of clients. In doing so two firms demonstrated radical innovations as its diffusion has transformed construction in Malaysia. The remaining two firms are engaged in incremental engineering activities. Also, innovations in two firms were led by their own managements, while the remaining two were supplier-led. In addition, while innovations in a...

Abstract: This study investigates how firms manage different innovation modes in the context of technological discontinuities. Using the aluminium-to-copper transition process, we collected patent data from the time period 1997 to 2001 for the top two firms in the IC foundry industry, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and the United Microelectronic Corporation. We suggest that environmental responsiveness to technological uncertainty can provide a background for understanding how incumbent firms respond to managerial challenges associated with the exploratory–exploitative innovation tension. The statistical results indicate that incumbent firms simultaneously conduct exploratory and exploitative innovation and, furthermore, engage in significantly more exploratory innovation than exploitative innovation when faced with technological discontinuities.

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to show the impact of the R&D and marketing integration on new product development (NPD) success without any parametric assumptions on model specification. In the high-tech innovation management context, it has generally been accepted that tight integration between R&D and marketing successfully influences the development of an innovative product by stimulating a mutual understanding between people from different departments. However, a few researchers also pointed out that a too close relationship between R&D personnel and marketing personnel can cause important information to be overlooked, thus reducing NPD success. Our research results, which are based on empirical data and the application of the nonparametric regression method Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines, show an even more diverse effect of integrating R&D and marketing if different performance criteria are considered. Results demonstrate that the effect of integration between R&D and marketing is nonconstant...

Abstract: Building on absorptive capacity and bureaucracy research, we investigate in this paper how bureaucracy within organisations moderates the relationship between absorptive capacity and market responsiveness. Using data collected from 254 firms in China, we show that the effects of absorptive capacity on market responsiveness are contingent upon the degree of bureaucracy within organisations. In particular, the results indicate that the positive effects of absorptive capacity on market response speed become less positive under higher degrees of bureaucracy.

Abstract: Despite the increasing attention paid to the dispersion of research and development (R&D) activities, scholars have presented opposing arguments with respect to its effects on innovation output to date. To address this controversy, we conceptualize and empirically test a model that links different dimensions of R&D activities dispersion and innovation output. Moreover, few studies have explicitly addressed R&D activities dispersion among firms in emerging markets. Using a sample of 244 Chinese high-tech firms collected from 2000 to 2009, this study aims to determine how firms in developing countries domestically and globally distribute their activities. The results show that a firm in an emerging market with a decentralized R&D organizational structure with geographically centralized R&D activities has better innovation outputs. Moreover, institutional development positively moderates the relationship between the dispersion of R&D activities and innovation performance.

Abstract: The analysis of the determinants of a successful economic catch-up has been the key focus of many studies on innovation. The emergence of East Asian and Latin American economies, after the Second W...

Abstract: This study focuses on production engineers’ skill formation to explain how the Hyundai Motor Company has succeeded remarkably since the 2000s as a litmus test of the post-catch-up question. Upgrades in Hyundai’s technological capabilities, and in the sophistication of its production system during this period, are described and analysed in relation to a change in corporate governance, monopolised domestic market structure followed by industrial restructuring in the late 1990s, hostile industrial relations and the working of the internal labour market for production engineers. This study concludes that production engineers’ skill-formation process is closely related to Hyundai’s production system, which is distinct from those of foreign automakers. Its excessive automation utilises flexible production technology, which saves on skills on the shop floor; this is the key factor in Hyundai’s considerable growth since the 2000s, given the systematisation and codification of project-based problem-solving capabil...

Abstract: This study investigates benefit sharing practices in supplier networks as a new incentive scheme that manufacturers can use to gain suppliers’ active participation in collaborative innovation. Based on observations from the case study, Samsung’s benefit sharing practices are analysed and their featured characteristics and the requisite conditions extracted. The findings illustrate the operating mechanisms of benefit sharing practices. The findings also demonstrate the requisite infrastructure that manufacturers should build to ensure the success of benefit sharing. This study, the first examination of the mechanisms of benefit sharing in the context of a rapidly changing industry, not only enriches inter-organisational learning research but also provides new insights into collaborative-innovation for companies and government authorities.

Abstract: This paper sets out to examine a key issue: how a latecomer like Taiwan may develop its industry in a post catch-up manner. We make intensive inquiries into this issue via case studies on two sectors in Taiwan, namely the bicycle industry and the electric vehicle (EV) industry. Our conceptual framework gives special account to fuzzy front-end at the industrial level and how market cultivation and innovative business models come to play an important role in shaping the innovation path for post catch-up. For leading players in Taiwan’s bicycle industry, a key issue they faced was how to transform themselves and local setting in Taiwan to become a leader in high-end bicycles to fend off escalated international competition. In the emerging EV industry, the Taiwanese players try to overcome its structural weaknesses in the mainstream automotive industry to explore the possibility of levelling the playing field with the forerunners in the advanced countries. Our case studies suggest that technological catch-up ...

Abstract: Innovation is the outcome of interactions among multiple actors and institutions. In actor-based innovation system studies, researchers have investigated with whom actors should collaborate to create innovation. In reality, however, actors do not choose their collaboration network only based on information at the actor level; they also consider ‘something’ specific that their partner may possess. In the era of Internet Things, collaboration network is more important than ever because it is getting more difficult for a firm to innovate alone, as information and communication technology (ICT) converges with other industries. This paper introduces a factor-based innovation system and then derives via an empirical analysis the effect of factor networks in the innovation system on innovation with adaption to the Korean ICT industry.

Abstract: This study investigates the mediating role of entrepreneurial alertness of a top management team (TMT) between organizational learning and corporate entrepreneurship (CE). We conducted two studies. In Study 1, based on TMT members’ responses from a group of Korean companies, we examined a factor structure of TMTs’ entrepreneurial alertness and its influence on CE. We identified that TMTs’ entrepreneurial alertness is a second-order construct, constituting scanning and searching, association and connection, and evaluation and judgment, which positively influence CE. In Study 2, based on TMT members’ responses from another group of Korean companies, we confirmed a second-order structure of TMTs’ entrepreneurial alertness. Furthermore, while breadth and depth of learning positively influenced TMTs’ entrepreneurial alertness, speed of learning had a negative effect. In addition, TMTs’ entrepreneurial alertness partially mediated the relationship between breadth of learning and CE, and fully mediated the relat...

Abstract: This paper aims to fill the gap in the extensive literature on the results of interaction between public and private R&D expenditures. Two types of public R&D subsidies, the appropriations and loan interest, are investigated in the effect of public subsidies by applying for a unique micro data set of Chinese manufacturing firms combined with the Innovation Fund for Small and Medium Technology-based Firms (Innofund). The results are consistent with the prediction that loan interest subsidies based on more competitive selective system are more effective for the public R&D subsidies than the appropriations. Firms’ heterogeneity, measured by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and private-owned enterprises (POEs), is tested for the different impact of public subsidies on corporate R&D investment. The results show that the crowding-in effect is mainly driven by POEs, not by SOEs, which confirms the theoretical assumption by Aghion and Tirole that the agency problem play a dominant role in corporate R&D activities. ...

Abstract: Although entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has been shown to play a key role in increasing firm performance (FP), the effects of EO have been extremely oversimplified. The plethora of empirical studies on EO and FP suggest that the EO–FP relationship is linearly positive regardless of the amount of EO investment. The results show that EO increases FP at the bounded level (i.e. an inverted U-shape). We argue that the excessive use of EO, organisational incapability and institutional constraints may contribute to the non-linearity of such effects. We also find that environmental dynamism has no significant effect. Further, contrary to the normative contention, we find that environmental hostility has a negative effect on the EO–FP relationship. The effect of environmental hostility on EO may vary depending on various factors such as firm size, resources, and institutional settings. We present prescriptive implications to practitioners on the antecedent conditions for EO practices.

Abstract: This study empirically examined the patterns of division of labour in championing activities for technological innovations in Korea, and their relationships with project and organisational complexity and the consequences of performance. Based on data from 88 new product development (NPD) projects in Korea, this study found that there were six different types of champion role structures: two solo champion structures, three dual champion structures, and one triple champion structure. This study examined the characteristics of key people who played three different champion roles in terms of education level, functional area, and hierarchical position in the organisation. It also revealed that organisational complexity led to specialisation of the champion role structure. Role specialisation in championing activities in general and the existence of an executive champion in particular had a significant impact on uncertainty reduction in terms of technology, market, resource acquisition, and organisation support...

Abstract: Sustainability has already become one of the most important items on innovation policy agendas in many countries. South Korea has attempted to emulate a global trend towards a sustainable socio-technical system but faces different challenges. These challenges must be resolved independently and not by adopting the policies and technologies of other nations. From the post catch-up perspective, this study reviews the ongoing experiments on a transition to a sustainable socio-technical system in Korean cities and villages and analyses the limitations of these experiments. The present study reviews the Low-Carbon Green Village Project and the Seoul City Hatbit (Solar) Power Plant Project launched, respectively, in 2008 and 2012. The two case studies share commonalities in that both attempt a transition into a new socio-technical system based on the shared recognition of the valuable ‘environment’ under the existing catch-up policy mode. These case studies are reviewed as examples of transition to a post catch-...

Abstract: This study uses the dynamic data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to evaluate intertemporal efficiency for high-tech industries in China. The significant difference from previous studies is the assumption for patents, which are defined to be a carry-over intermediate linking different terms. The model further provides an indicator of adjustment ratio for patents, based on the assessment of optimal quantity of patents. Output and input inefficiency indicators are also developed in the model to explore the sources of operational inefficiency. The empirical results conclude that intertemporal efficiency trends upward over time; the quantity of patents is assessed to be in shortage during the early terms, but excessive in recent terms; and that deficits in financial output is a significant factor in creating inefficiency.