Explore the vast range of titles available.

Prior studies show that the success of firms in industrial clusters is the result of two main reasons; the transfer of knowledge and routines from parent firms to spinoffs that locate in the same locality, and the returns from co-location of firms. While previous research has largely inferred the presence of parent-spinoff networks, few studies have measured them. Furthermore, the lack of geographic precision has led to conflicting results for evidence of returns from location, as the gains from geographic proximity may not always be linear. This paper introduces network measurement and a refined geographic measure to separate these two respective channels of knowledge transfer, and analyzes their impact on firm survival (as a proxy for firm success). It is found that the gains with respect to location are nonlinear. Furthermore, a firm’s historical links formed through parent-spinoff linkages have a significant impact on survival, which differ depending on the motivations of the entrepreneur. Moreover, these channels of knowledge are complementary in nature.

This research aims at addressing the factors that constrain the flow of knowledge between universities and industry when these players are embedded in peripheral contexts. A multiple-case study was carried out in order to describe and understand the limitations of universities as agents of innovation in peripheral ecosystems. Twenty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted with the coordinators of five Technological Innovation Centers (entities equivalent to TTO) of all Federal Institutes (five) located in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The findings show that there are constraining elements associated with the socioeconomic environment (the lack of economic dynamism and low absorptive capacity at firms), with universities (a lack of infrastructure, resources, and available researchers) and intermediary agents (the lack of staff and institutional legitimacy). The observed conditions lead to challenges in fostering dense knowledge flows, thus perpetuating regional economic asymmetries and hindering the institutional evolution of academic institutions toward the notion of entrepreneurial universities. Our research contributes to literature by addressing in detail the limitations of universities in spurring dense innovation networks in laggard ecosystems. Instead, more complex co-evolutionary processes seem to be at play – and “silver bullet” policies are likely to offer disappointing results.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical and empirical exploration of link between organization intellectual capital and knowledge flows with its incremental and radical innovation performance.Design/methodology/approachThis paper adopts relevant literature of social capital and organizational learning to examine the impact of intellectual capital and knowledge flows on incremental and radical innovation based on surveying 95 firms. To test the research hypotheses, regression analysis is used.FindingsResults of the study show that human capital and top-down knowledge flows significantly and positively influence both incremental and radical innovations. Social capital and bottom-up knowledge flows do not have any significant impact on incremental or/and radical innovation. Organizational capital has a positive impact on incremental innovation as expected.Practical implicationsThe results offer several practical implications for business managers to harvest its knowledge bases resident in the firm’s different forms appropriately to make innovation successful. Particularly, knowledge resident in human capital and organizational capital is useful for making incremental innovation. Especially, new knowledge, new skills and new perspectives resident in human capital are crucial important for making radical innovation. Both incremental and radical innovations are positively influenced by dynamic managerial capabilities.Originality/valueThis study contributes to literature by providing new evidence linking organization intellectual capital and knowledge flows with its innovation performance. Especially, the missing link between top-down knowledge flows and radical innovation is empirically examined. Value of this study is that social capital and bottom-up knowledge flows are not universally beneficial for enhancing innovation and their impacts on innovation performance are context dependent and more sophisticated than it is recognized in the literature.

Knowledge is inherently intangible, invisible and resistant to quantification, particularly when in dynamic motion. This makes it a considerable and persistent challenge to understand, visualize and measure. The research described in this article builds upon emerging knowledge measurement techniques and well-established knowledge flow theory to develop a system for measuring dynamic knowledge in the organization. This measurement capability is developed judiciously and analogically from the author's understanding of dynamic physical systems. As a background, the key literature on knowledge measurement and knowledge flow theory is reviewed. Then this system for measuring dynamic knowledge is conceptualized, and its use, utility and theoretical coherence are illustrated through practical application. This research makes a theoretical contribution by advancing a coherent approach to dynamic knowledge measurement, and it makes a practical contribution through illustration in the organization context. A related goal is to stimulate considerable thinking, discussion, debate and continued research.

Research Summary This research addresses firms' use of external knowledge sources to develop patented inventions and explores the validity of patent citations as an indicator of interfirm knowledge flows. By comparing patent citations with primary data reported by the inventors, we uncover systematic measurement errors in patent citations and show that they depend on the firms' patent strategies (e.g., to reduce the risk of imitation or litigation), the source of knowledge employed (e.g., competitors, users), the technology of the underlying invention, and the institutional characteristics of the patent system. Our findings about the role of these factors in external knowledge sourcing and citing propensity highlight the importance of firms' strategic behavior and offer novel insights for the use of patent citations as an indicator of knowledge flows. Managerial Summary Firms' open innovation strategies rely on the sourcing of knowledge from other organizations. Tracing these knowledge flows is difficult, such that the empirical research on this matter typically uses citations that patents make to prior art in order to track them. However, patent citations might be added also for reasons other than the actual transfer of knowledge. We use primary information from a large survey of inventors to assess the accuracy of patent citations to measure knowledge flows, and we find evidence of measurement errors that depend on the applicants' patent strategies, the type of knowledge sources used, the filing jurisdiction, and the technology of the underlying invention. We offer insights to evaluate the settings in which patent citations are a reliable measure of knowledge flows.

Research and development (R&D) internationalization is on the rise for advanced economy multinationals (AMNEs) as well as emerging economy multinationals (EMNEs). We study EMNE R&D internationalization by comparing it to that by AMNEs in the context of an emerging, knowledgeintensive industry. We find that these two are fundamentally different processes. While the internationalization of AMNEs' R&D activities can largely be explained in terms of the twin strategies of competence exploitation and competence creation, EMNE R&D internationalization is rooted in the firms' overall catch up strategy to get on par with industry leaders. An in-depth comparison of knowledge flows reveals that within AMNEs, headquarters often serves the primary source of knowledge for R&D subsidiaries. In contrast, within EMNEs, headquarters accesses knowledge from R&D subsidiaries in advanced economies for innovation catch-up. Within this dichotomy, the innovative capabilities of EMNE headquarters develop more slowly and with greater difficulty than those of AMNE subsidiaries.

Although firms in many industries have been forming alliances at an increasing rate in their effort to develop new competencies by learning from their partners, many alliances fail to achieve their learning goals. In this study, we investigate how information technology (IT) can help firms to deal with this problem. We explicate four mechanisms through which IT will enable knowledge flows between alliance partners: decrease the knowledge dispersion inside an organization and increase knowledge transparency; provide the infrastructure to create multiple links between alliance partners; enable weak ties among people in the partnering firms; and increase communication and social interaction. Our findings based on data from 272 firms suggest that knowledge flows to a firm are enhanced when the focal firm and its partner in an alliance have high IT intensity. We find support for our argument that IT is a necessary complementary resource that facilitates learning from partners in alliances. Strategic alliances have become popular organizational forms in the last two decades. Prior research suggests alliances promote knowledge sharing between the partners. In this research, using patent data, we study the impact of information technology (IT) intensity on knowledge flows in alliances. Research has shown that prealliance knowledge stocks of the partners facilitate knowledge flows to the focal firm. We find that knowledge flows to the focal firm are enhanced when the focal firm and its partner have high IT intensity. We find support for our theorizing that IT is a necessary complementary resource that facilitates knowledge flows among partners in alliances.

Research Summary Ethnic migrant inventors may differ from locals in terms of the knowledge they bring to host firms. Using a unique dataset of Chinese and Indian herbal patents filed in the United States, we find that an increase in the supply of first‐generation ethnic migrant inventors increases the rate of codification of herbal knowledge at U.S. assignees by 4.5%. Our identification comes from an exogenous shock to the quota of H1B visas and from a list of entities exempted from the shock. We also find that ethnic migrant inventors are more likely to engage in reuse of knowledge previously locked within the cultural context of their home regions, whereas knowledge recombination is more likely to be pursued by teams comprising inventors from other ethnic backgrounds. Managerial Summary Managers and policy makers around the world face a vigorous debate on whether to hire skilled migrants or hire locals. We argue that if western firms stop hiring ethnic migrants, innovation at these firms would suffer in two ways: knowledge transfer and knowledge recombination would both be impeded. We argue and show that skilled ethnic migrants bring to their employers, unique knowledge from the cultural context of their host country. Also, local inventors engage in “knowledge recombination” by combining their existing knowledge to knowledge transferred by migrants. Our empirical results relate to the patenting of Chinese and Indian herbal formulations at western pharmaceutical firms before and after an immigration shock related to the admittance of skilled migrants from these two countries.

This paper assesses the validity and accuracy of firms' backward patent citations as a measure of knowledge flows from public research by employing a newly constructed data set that matches patents to survey data at the level of the research and development lab. Using survey-based measures of the dimensions of knowledge flows, we identify sources of systematic measurement error associated with backward citations to both patent and nonpatent references. We find that patent citations reflect the codified knowledge flows from public research, but they appear to miss knowledge flows that are more private and contract based in nature, as well as those used in firm basic research. We also find that firms' patenting and citing strategies affect patent citations, making citations less indicative of knowledge flows. In addition, an illustrative analysis examining the magnitude and direction of measurement error bias suggests that measuring knowledge flows with patent citations can lead to substantial underestimation of the effect of public research on firms' innovative performance. Throughout our analyses we find that nonpatent references (e.g., journals, conferences, etc.), not the more commonly used patent references, are a better measure of knowledge originating from public research. This paper was accepted by Lee Fleming, entrepreneurship and innovation.

The increasing interconnection of local, trans-local and transnational knowledge networks is the outcome of the coevolution of (i) knowledge centers, typically city regions, (ii) epistemic communities that are grounded in and connect these regions and (iii) firms, usually multinational enterprises (MNEs). This interaction has created opportunities for innovation, but it is also impeded by a range of frictions that arise in the process of integrating locally embedded knowledge from geographically dispersed and culturally disparate regions across different countries. This article develops a simple model of how such frictions that MNEs encounter in their knowledge internationalization process can be overcome through ongoing processes of connecting, sense-making and integrating.