Mario Kafouros

Metaphorical images of organization: How organizational researchers develop and select organizational metaphors

The article examines how metaphors are developed and selected within organizational theorizing and research. The issue addressed is not whether metaphors exist and play a part in organizational theorizing – as this is now widely accepted – but to draw out how metaphors are actually used and are of conceptual value, particularly as such insights may aid organizational researchers in a better use of them.Working from this position, the article reviews the extant theoretical literature on metaphor, surveys the organizational literature to document past and contemporary metaphors-in-use (1993–2003), and identifies the heuristics (i.e. judgmental rules) that have been used by organizational researchers in developing and selecting these metaphors. The identified heuristics are the integration, relational, connection, availability, distance and concreteness heuristics. On the basis of these identified heuristics, and the biases and errors associated with them, the article also posits a number of governing rules that can guide organizational researchers in their continued development and selection of metaphors in the organizational field.

R&D and productivity growth: Evidence from the UK

Although the econometric evaluation of R&D has attracted wide interest in many countries, it has not attracted much in the UK. The main objective of this paper is to fill this void, i.e., to estimate the impact of R&D on productivity growth of the UK manufacturing sector. However, there are some additional objectives. Firstly, we estimate the impact of R&D on productivity growth of large and small firms and we discuss a number of theoretical arguments regarding the role of firm size. Secondly, given that the technological infrastructure influences the innovative capacity of a firm, we compare the impact of R&D on productivity growth of high-tech firms with the corresponding impact on productivity growth of low-tech firms. Thirdly, we investigate whether the contribution of R&D to productivity growth has changed over time. Based on firm-level data (78 firms, 1989–2002), we find that the contribution of R&D is approximately 0.04. Although the R&D-elasticity of large firms (0.044) is higher than the corresponding elasticity of small firms (0.035), the difference is small. In contrast, the R&D-elasticity is considerably high for high-tech sectors (0.11), but statistically insignificant for low-tech sectors. Finally, the investigation of the elasticity of R&D over time revealed an interesting discontinuity showing that although until 1995 the R&D-elasticity was approximately zero, after 1995 it increased dramatically to 0.09. We investigate the potential causes of such non-linearity and we suggest a number of possible explanations.

Acquisitions from emerging countries: what factors influence the performance of target firms in advanced countries?

This study investigates the way in which acquisitions from emerging economies impact on the performance of target firms in advanced countries. The study makes a number of contributions to the international business literature. Firstly, it extends the resource-based view of the firm by explaining that both the resources of the target firm and the resources of the acquiring company play an important role in determining performance outcomes. Secondly, our theoretical analysis indicates that the performance of the target firm is influenced not only by its own network, but also by the national and international network of the acquiring company. Thirdly, this study sheds light on the strategic fit of the acquisition. According to our analysis, the performance of the target firm is likely to be maximised when there is a moderate level of relatedness between the target and the acquiring company.

The Role of Time in Assessing the Economic Effects of R&D

This study investigates the impacts of R&D on firm performance. It extends previous research by constructing alternative stocks of R&D‐Capital that take into account that time plays an important role in assessing the pay‐off of industrial research. The results show that even when we employed R&D‐Capitals that placed more emphasis on the industrial research that had been undertaken 7 years ago, the effects of R&D were very (statistically) significant and relatively high, thereby suggesting that the life of R&D (on average) tends to be long. The results however, vary across organizations depending on both firm size and the technological opportunities that a company faces. It appears that the depreciation rate of R&D investments is higher in the case of technologically sophisticated firms. In contrast, strategic investments in industrial research generate a relatively constant effect on the performance of other firms, supporting the notion that the corresponding returns for such firms decay slowly.

The Impact of Inward Foreign Direct Investment on the Nature and Intensity of Chinese Manufacturing Exports

The contribution of transnational corporations (TNCs) to exports from developing countries has long been a point of debate. Host countries often complain that TNCs export too little, and the findings in some studies support these arguments. For example, Lall and Mohammad (1983) found that TNCs performed rather poorly in generating exports from India. However, other empirical studies have suggested the opposite, showing that inward foreign direct investment (FDI) was export-oriented and raised the level of exports from host economies (O’Sullivan, 1993; Blake and Pain, 1994; Cabrai, 1995). Research on the role of inward FDI in improving Chinese export performance has been a more recent addition to the literature. Many studies found evidence of a generally positive and significant role for inward FDI in promoting the expansion of Chinese exports (Buckley, Clegg and Wang, 2002; Sun, 1999, 2001; Zhang and Song, 2000).

FDI from Emerging to Advanced Countries : Some Insights on the Acquisition Strategies and on the Performance of Target Firms

The paper deals with acquisitions from emerging to advanced countries and the performances of the target firms. We have used descriptive statistics to investigate the strategies and the impact of the entry of emerging multinational companies (EMNCs) from Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) on the performance of firms acquired in Europe, North America and Japan between 2000 and 2007. The results show that EMNCs do not always acquire firms with a high pre acquisition performance and that they do not significantly increase the post acquisition profitability of the target firms. Nevertheless, EMNCs contribute to increase target firms’ productivity and sales and to slow down their loss of jobs. We also show the importance of the acquisition experience of the acquiring firms. Experienced EMNCs not only acquire firms with a higher pre acquisition performance, but also contribute to increase more significantly the productivity and sales of the target firms. Ultimately, we highlight the differences in the sizes and the technology intensity of the target firms acquired by experienced and inexperienced EMNCs to provide further insights about the strategies and the effects of acquisitions from emerging to advanced countries.

The Performance Implications of Speed, Regularity, and Duration in Alliance Portfolio Expansion

Extant research on the management of time shows that the speed of undertaking new strategic moves has negative consequences for firm profitability. However, the literature has not distinguished whether this outcome results from the effects of speed on firms’ revenues or from the effects of speed on firms’ costs, or examined how firms can become more profitable by reducing the negative consequences of speed. We address these gaps for a specific strategic move: alliance portfolio expansion. We show that the speed at which firms expand their alliance portfolios increases managerial costs disproportionately relative to revenues, leading to an overall negative effect on firm profitability. However, a more regular rhythm of expansion and a longer duration of existing alliances reduce the negative profitability consequences of expansion speed by moderating the increase in managerial costs. These findings suggest that firms that make strategic moves, such as alliances, may reduce the negative profitability consequences of speed when they maintain a regular expansion rhythm and when their existing strategic engagements require modest managerial resources.

The impact of R&D strategy and firm size on the returns to innovation

Using a firm-level dataset of manufacturing firms, this study examines the economic returns to R&D in the UK. It contributes to the literature of innovation by investigating two firm-specific characteristics (firm size and R&D strategy) that may influence what a company itself gets for its own research efforts (private returns to R&D). The findings indicate that, on average, the rate of return to R&D is 0.33. However, the results show that the economic payoff for larger firms as well as for organisations that followed an R&D-intensive strategy is significantly higher, allowing such firms to improve their corporate performance. In contrast, the analysis indicates that less R&D-intensive and smaller firms cannot successfully appropriate the economic benefits of industrial research. The implications of these findings for academic research and regional economic development are discussed.

Effect of domestic and foreign technological collaborations on different level of product innovation radicalness

Based on a sample of 1,684 manufacturing companies from the Taiwanese Technological Innovation Survey for the period from 2004-2006, the paper examines the relationship between different types of domestic and foreign based collaborative partners and different levels of product innovation radicalness. A complex network of relationships emerges where the level of innovation radicalness is associated with the type and geographic location of partners. A firm that aims to develop radical innovations should consider collaborating with domestic universities and competitors but also with customers in foreign countries.

The role of globally dispersed knowledge in explaining performance outcomes

Purpose – Integrating insights from the literatures on internationalization and knowledge externalities, we posit that the reservoirs of scientific knowledge residing in different locations around the world have significant power in explaining interfirm performance variations. We assert that the ability to access and exploit such intangible resources differs considerably across multinationals, according to both firm-specific and exogenously determined factors. Methodology – Unlike previous research that typically focuses on knowledge flows within one nation or between two countries, our statistical analysis combines firm-level data with industry-level information on 18 countries and 15 manufacturing sectors. Findings and implications – The empirical findings indicate that the performance-enhancing effect of global knowledge reservoirs is positive and often higher than that of a firms own knowledge. Whereas some multinationals excel at exploiting such intangible resources, others fail to do so successfully. In this respect, the results indicate that a firms ability to benefit from global knowledge reservoirs is positively associated with its degree of international diversification, the intensity of its own research efforts, and exogenously determined opportunities pertaining to different technological domains.