Nola Hewitt-Dundas

Innovativeness and Performance: Evidence from Manufacturing Sectors

To investigate whether organisational behaviour can be understood from both the creators and the adopters perspectives, we construct and validate a quadratic typology of organisational innovativeness using a sample of 531 companies from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The results suggest distinctive links between the type of innovator and the associated effect on performance.

Output Additionality of Public Support for Innovation: Evidence for Irish Manufacturing Plants

Public support for private R&D and innovation is part of most national and regional innovation support regimes. In this article, we estimate the effect of public innovation support on innovation outputs in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Three dimensions of output additionality are considered: extensive additionality, in which public support encourages a larger proportion of the population of firms to innovate; improved product additionality, in which there is an increase in the average importance of incremental innovation; new product additionality, in which there is an increase in the average importance of more radical innovation. Using an instrumental variable approach, our results are generally positive, with public support for innovation having positive, and generally significant, extensive, improved and new product additionality effects. These results hold both for all plants and indigenously owned plants, a specific target of policy in both jurisdictions. The suggestion is that grant aid to firms can be effective in both encouraging firms to initiate new innovation and improve the quality and sophistication of their innovation activity. Our results also emphasize the importance for innovation of in-house R&D, supply-chain linkages, skill levels and capital investment, all of which may be the focus of complementary policy initiatives.

Catalysing open innovation through publicly-funded R&D: A comparison of university and company-based research centres

Public funding of university and company-based R&D centres of excellence is widespread both in core and more peripheral regions. What is less well-known is whether these R&D centres can catalyse multi-directional, multi-actor and iterative innovation. Based on data from a real-time monitoring study, this article explores the development of 18 R&D centres’ external connections. University-based R&D centres establish more new connections than company-based centres and are more likely to be interacting with small or micro-firms. However, there is a general bias towards links with larger firms; micro, small and medium-sized enterprises also are less likely to be involved in collaborative R&D with research centres than other types of relationships. The results suggest the potential for R&D centres to act as a catalyst for open innovation but emphasise the need to ensure that the focus of the R&D being conducted is relevant to the needs of smaller firms.

Knowledge Transfers from Multinational Plants in Ireland A Cross-Border Comparison of Supply-Chain Linkages

For regions or nations which historically have had low levels of domestic R&D investment - such as Ireland, North and South - inward investment represents a potentially important source of inward knowledge transfer. Using data from large multinational plants throughout Ireland, this paper examines the geography of knowledge within Irish manufacturing, focusing particularly on knowledge gaps and knowledge-transfer activity. The analysis suggests three main empirical results. First, no significant knowledge gaps exist between the Irish plants of multinational enterprises (MNEs) and international best practice. Second, larger knowledge gaps exist between MNE plants and their best local suppliers, suggesting the potential for local learning in the supply chain. Average knowledge gaps to suppliers also tend to be larger in the North. Third, there is no clear evidence that knowledge-transfer activity is more intensive where knowledge gaps are widest. In particular, developmental interaction between MNE plants and suppliers tends to be more common in the South. Our results suggest the potential benefit of policy measures both to increase knowledge-transfer activity along the supply chain and also to increase knowledge-transfer activity between companies which are not trading partners.

THE ADOPTION OF ADVANCED MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION STRATEGY IN SMALL FIRMS

The properties inherent in Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMT) create new opportunities for firms, and in particular small firms. The capability of this technology to modify production specifications quickly and accurately means that firms can customize their products and attain economies of scope based on low volume and low cost production. While traditionally technology has been perceived merely as a tool in implementing business strategy, this paper suggests that AMT has the potential to directly affect a firms innovation strategy. To date, however, empirical analysis to examine the technology-strategy relationship has not been forthcoming. Through empirical analysis this paper focuses on the relationship between the adoption of AMT and one element of firms strategy choice, that is, their innovation strategy. This relationship is examined in the context of firms market and industry structure and internal non-technological resource capabilities.

High growth and innovation with low R&D: Ireland

This major book presents case studies of ten small country national systems of innovation (NSIs) in Europe and Asia, namely, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden and Taiwan. These cases have been carefully selected as examples of success within the context of globalization and as ‘new economies’ where competition is increasingly based on innovation.

Exploring Market Failures in Open Innovation

There is now considerable empirical evidence demonstrating the innovation and performance benefits that accrue to firms engaging in open innovation (OI). Here, we use novel data on micro-businesses to show that the average level of engagement in OI falls well below the optimal level, a finding that reflects that of other empirical studies. We identify and examine three market failures which may help to explain this result. These relate to a lack of understanding of the potential benefits of OI by firms, a lack of information about the capabilities of potential partners and a lack of information about the trustworthiness of potential partners. Our findings provide evidence that policy initiatives designed to offset these information failures are likely to increase the range of partners with which firms engage with significant benefits for innovation.

International Innovation Comparisons: Insight or Illusion?

Recent developments in statistical methodology have facilitated international innovation comparisons. These, however, inevitably reflect both the industrial structure of the underlying economies, and the innovativeness of firms within each element of the industrial structure. The authors consider the extent to which structural differences between economies can influence international innovation comparisons. The impact of structural differences is considered both in conceptual and in empirical terms, with the aid of data from the first and second Community Innovation Surveys (CIS 1 and CIS 2). Conceptual analysis suggests a very restricted range of scenarios under which structural adjustment will be effective. Empirical results are more reassuring, however, suggesting that, although structural effects are in some cases quite large, they do not significantly distort international innovation relativities. The comparisons do, however, highlight significant inconsistencies between different innovation indicators and suggest policy priorities.

Strategic complexity and success – small firms’ strategies in a mature market

This paper develops a typology of strategic options for small firms in the furniture industry and examines the extent to which firms are re‐engineering their strategies in response to profit performance. Empirical analysis is based on data from 39 firms with between 10 and 100 employees in the Irish furniture industry. Three main results emerge from the analysis. First, firms in the Irish furniture industry predominantly adopt “simple” business development strategies. Secondly, in terms of profit performance, we find no evidence that simple strategies unambiguously outperform more complex approaches. Instead, the success of both simple and complex business strategies is directly related to the strength of firms’ resource base. Finally, systematic differences were found in firms’ ability or willingness to re‐engineer their strategies in the light of their profit performance.

Structural Capital of University Spin-Out Firms: The Moderating Role of University Incubators

University incubators (UI) are generally believed to be important in the successful commercialisation of university spin-outs (USO) with over half of all UK Universities having established an on-campus UI. In this chapter we examine the value of UIs in the spin-out process, focusing on the structural networks of USOs located in a UI as compared to USOs in a University with no access to a UI. Our primary research question is therefore: to what extent does the structural network of USOs with access to an on-campus UI differ from USOs without? The research therefore contributes to a growing critique of the effectiveness of UIs in commercialising academic research and the recognition of positive direct and indirect externalities from participation in networks. Through network mapping of all USOs from two research intensive universities, we profile and analyse the formal and informal network ties of USOs to various partners internal and external to the host university. Through interviews we also consider how these networks enhance the resources and capabilities of USOs. Our findings highlight significant differences, with USOs located in a UI having more informal but fewer formal ties, both to other USOs as well as within the host University. In contrast, location in an incubator was not found to affect the extent and nature of ties with external organisations. Reasons for these differences are examined through interviews with the USOs and point to various factors including the proactive brokering role of incubator and university staff, university bureaucracy, the hidden networks of executive board members across USOs, university equity investment policy and complementary technologies.