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Innovation and learning: two faces of R&D

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The authors assume that firms invest in R&D not only to generate innovations, but also to learn from competitors and extraindustry knowledge sources (e.g., university and government labs). This argument suggests that the ease of learning within an industry will both affect R&D spending, and condition the influence of appropriability and technological opportunity conditions on R&D. For example, they show that, contrary to the traditional result, intraindustry spillovers may encourage equilibrium industry R&D investment. Regression results confirm that the impact of appropriability and technological opportunity conditions on R&D is influenced by the ease and character of learning. Copyright 1989 by Royal Economic Society.
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... R&D expenditure, availability of skilled labor the stock of knowledge, and organizational competence, determine the innovative capacity of organizations (Romer, 1990). In the same line of argument, other researchers found the internal absorptive capacity of organizations as the main determinant of the innovative capacity of the firms (Cohen & Levinthal, 1989). Firms often copy or imitate the product of other firms and produce the same product at low cost which reduces the development of new products or innovation in the sector. ...
... Firms often copy or imitate the product of other firms and produce the same product at low cost which reduces the development of new products or innovation in the sector. Studies show that firms that protect their product enjoy the benefit of innovation, and this boosts the firms' profitability (Cohen & Levinthal, 1989). Other studies find that overemphasis on protection reduces innovation as such firms spend more on secrecy rather than on exploring modern technologies and sharing knowledge (Lewin et al., 2011). ...
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Studies show that gender diversity promotes creativity and innovative ideas. This paper highlights the link through which gender diversity affects the generation of innovative ideas. The paper modified the Jones (1995) R & D model by assuming that a team consisting of females would be able to generate more ideas and explicitly included gender diversity in the innovation function along with other factors. The paper used a robust check to identify the relevant estimation econometrics method and the results indicated that the Dynamic System Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) is suitable for estimating the impact of gender diversity on economic growth. To lend support to theoretical linkages, the paper employed the dynamic system Panel GMM to examine how gender diversity at the workforce impacts growth via its impact on the generation of innovative ideas using a sample of fifty-four countries for the period 1984-2017. The correlation analysis shows that gender diversity positively affects the economic growth performance of the panel countries. After considering the effect of gender diversity, the coefficient of patents granted improved, which confirms the hypothesis that gender diversity contributes to the growth process through its impact on the generation of innovative ideas. The results show that internet use, mobile usage, and trade liberalization work as channels of diffusion of innovation. The paper also finds gender diversity to be a proxy of informal institutions. Our findings suggest that gender diversity has a significantly positive impact on economic growth through the generation of novel ideas by a gender-diverse team at the workplace. The results have policy implications for policymakers and business managers.
... The spillover effect was varied and dependent on the domestic enterprise. This verified the importance of absorbability in FDI spillover (Cohen and Levinthal, 1989;Zahra and George, 2002;Farole et al., 2014). Age, type of private ownership, average pay, and import share all affected spillover. ...
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Purpose-This study addresses the empirical results of the spillover effect with export as the primary economic activity that enhances local businesses' total factor productivity (TFP). A learning mechanism is expected to be generated and used as the basis for the policy implication. Design/methodology/approach-This study adopted the Cobb-Douglas function and multiple estimation approaches, including the generalized method of moments, the Olley-Pakes and the Levinsohn-Petrin estimation techniques. The findings were estimated based on the panel data of a Vietnamese local businesses survey conducted by the General Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO) from 2010 to 2019. Findings-The results showed that the highest TFP belongs to the businesses in the Southeast region, the Mekong Delta region, the mining industry and the foreign-invested enterprises. The lowest impacted TFP are businesses in the Northwest region and agricultural, forestry and fishery sectors. In addition, the estimated results also show that the positive spillover effect on TFP is shown through forward and backward linkage. The negative spillover effect is expressed through the backward and horizontal channels. Research limitations/implications-This study offers original empirical evidence on the learning mechanisms via which exports contribute to productivity improvement in a developing Asian economy, so making a valuable contribution to the existing academic literature in this domain. The findings of this research make a valuable contribution to the advancement of understanding on the many ways via which spillover effects manifest such as horizontal, forward, backward and supplied-backward linkage. Practical implications-The study's findings indicate that it is advisable for governments to give priority to the development and improvement of forward and supply chain linkages between exporters and local suppliers. This approach is recommended in order to optimize the advantages derived from export spillovers. At the organizational level, it is imperative for enterprises to strengthen their technological and managerial skills in order to efficiently incorporate knowledge spillovers that originate from overseas partners and trade counterparts. Originality/value-This study sheds new evidence on the export spillover effect on productivity in emerging economies, with Vietnam as the case study. The paper contributes to the research's originality by adopting novel methodological aspects to estimate local businesses' impact on total factor productivity. Peer review-The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/
... Scholars of innovation have long understood that external knowledge is vital to the innovative performance of firms (Ahuja, 2000;Powell et al., 1996). However, firms cannot costlessly exploit external knowledge but must develop their own capability to do so (Cohen & Levinthal, 1989). This capability, which is termed absorptive capacity (Hereafter ACAP), refers to a firm's ability to evaluate the value of the knowledge, understand it, and utilise it to generate innovative outcomes (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990). 1 Since this concept was established, ACAP has been mainly studied from an organisational perspective. ...
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