Sam Tavassoli

Innovation strategies and firm performance : Simple or complex strategies?

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the effect of various innovation strategies (ISs) of firms on their future performance, captured by labor productivity. Using five waves of the Community Innovation Survey in Sweden, we have traced the innovative behavior of firms over a decade, that is, from 2002 to 2012. We defined ISs to be either simple or complex (in various degrees). We call an IS a simple IS when firms engage in only one of the four types of Schumpeterian innovations, that is, product, process, marketing, or organizational, while a complex IS is when firms simultaneously engage in more than one type. The main findings indicate that those firms that choose and afford to have complex ISs are better off in terms of their future productivity in comparison with those firms that choose not to innovative (base group) and also in comparison with those firms that choose simple ISs. The results are mostly robust for those complex innovators that have a higher degree of complexity and also keep the balance between technological (product and process) and non-technological (organizational and marketing) innovations.

Critical Success Factors and Cluster Evolution: A Case Study of the Linköping ICT Cluster Lifecycle:

This paper investigates the variation in the importance of critical success factors (CSFs) in the evolution of the Linköping ICT (information and communication technology) cluster in Sweden. The international empirical evidence of CSFs in ICT clusters reported in the literature is systematically reviewed. On this basis an object-oriented conceptual model is developed encompassing fifteen CSFs; each attributed to one or more objects: for example, firms, institutions, entrepreneurs. The lifecycle of the Linköping ICT cluster is delineated and its stages segmented. The existence and importance of each CSF at each stage of the cluster lifecycle is established empirically on the basis of interviews with key experts. The main findings comprise a stage-specific group of CSFs whose importance varies across the clusters lifecycle stages with different patterns. The findings are aimed to stimulate policy makers and researchers alike to pursue further the line of enquiry developed in this paper.

Survival of entrepreneurial firms: the role of agglomeration externalities

Abstract This paper analyzes the role of various types of agglomeration externalities on the survival rate of entrepreneurial firms. In particular, we trace the population cohort of newly-established and self-employed Swedish firms in the Knowledge-Intensive Business Service sector in 1997 up to 2012 and investigate the role of Marshallian and Jacobian externalities on the survival of these firms. We find that only Jacobian externalities (diversity) is positively associated with the survival of entrepreneurial firms. Not all Jacobian externalities matter though. Only the higher the ‘related variety’ of the region in which an entrepreneurial firm is founded, the higher will be the survival chance of the firm, while ‘unrelated variety’ barely has any significant correlation. The result is robust after controlling for extensive firm characteristics and individual characteristics of the founders. The main message here is: for a newly-established entrepreneurial firm, not only it matters who you are, but also where you are.

Manufacturing Renaissance: Return of manufacturing to western countries

Manufacturing Renaissance, i.e. return of manufacturing to west, has been recently observed. This paper analyzes the patterns observed within each of the four main drivers behind this new phenomenon and delves more deeply into the driver that centers on the new manufacturing technologies such as Additive Manufacturing (AM) and 3D Printing. Next, this paper will make the case that the location of manufacturing will be in west, relying on the established theory that has been able to explain the location of manufacturing, i.e. Product Life Cycle Model (PLC).

Closing the gap: empirical evidence on firms’ innovation, productivity and exports

It is well known that exporters are productive firms, but the source of their productivity is left unexplained. This chapter aims to endogenize the productivity heterogeneity of exporting firms by incorporating innovation in a structural model framework. In doing so, we close the gap between the innovation–productivity and productivity–export literature. Two waves of the Swedish Community Innovation Survey (CIS) are merged. This allows for a setup that takes into account the links from innovation input to innovation output and also from innovation output to productivity and exports. The main findings highlight that exporters are productive firms with innovation output in the past, which in turn was driven by prior R&D and other innovation activity investments.

The impact of ethnic communities on immigrant entrepreneurship: evidence from Sweden

ABSTRACT This paper seeks to provide novel insights into the effects of ethnic communities on immigrants’ entrepreneurial activities. We investigate to what extent the decision of an employed immigrant to become an entrepreneur is associated with his or her embeddedness in ethnic networks in the host region. We capture such embeddedness through various mechanisms. Using longitudinal-registered data from Sweden and employing a logit model, we find that merely being located in an ethnic community does not have an influence on immigrant entrepreneurship; rather, what matters is being located in ethnic communities that have a high share of entrepreneurs themselves.

In the quest for economic significance: Assessing variable importance through mean value decomposition

Economic significance is frequently assessed through statistical hypothesis testing, which however, does not always correspond to the implicit economical questions being addressed. In this article we propose using mean value decomposition to assess economic significance. Unlike most previously suggested methods the proposed one is intuitive and simple to conduct. The technique is demonstrated and contrasted with hypothesis tests by an empirical example involving the income of Mexican children, which shows that the two inference approaches provide different and supplementary pieces of information.

Cultural diversity and employment growth : Moderating effect of the recent global financial crisis

This article analyses the effect of cultural diversity on employment growth, considering the recent global financial crisis (GFC) as a moderating factor. In doing so, we developed competing hypotheses based on Blau’s theory of heterogeneity versus an alternative perspective which combines the resource-based view (RBV) with social identity theory (SIT). We empirically test such theories using a unique longitudinal dataset comprising the population of all firms in Sweden between 2003 and 2012. We find support for the latter hypothesis, that is, the relationship between cultural diversity and employment growth is inverted U-shaped, which is even more pronounced during/after the GFC. We discussed the implications of these findings for other contexts. JEL Classification: M14, M51, E24, G01

The role of product innovation on export behavior of firms: Is it innovation input or innovation output that matters?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of innovation on the export behavior of firms. Design/methodology/approach Using two waves of Swedish Community Innovation Survey merged with register data on firm-level, the authors estimate the influence of the innovation output and innovation input of firms on their export propensity and intensity. Findings The authors find that the innovation output of firms (measured as sales due to innovative products) has a positive and significant effect on their subsequent export behavior, particularly on export intensity. The results also show that there is no direct effect of innovation input (innovative efforts) on export behavior. Originality/value This is one of the first paper that clearly distinguishes between input and output parts of innovation process and empirically investigate their differentiated impact on export behavior of a representative sample of firms in an entire economy.