Yannis Caloghirou

Internal capabilities and external knowledge sources: complements or substitutes for innovative performance?

Abstract This paper attempts to investigate the extent to which the existing internal capabilities of firms and their interaction with external sources of knowledge affect their level of innovativeness. Part of these capabilities result from a prolonged process of investment and knowledge accumulation within firms and form what has been addressed as the “absorptive capacity” of firms (Cohen & Levinthal, Admin. Sci Q., 35 (1990) 128). There are however other efforts that enhance the “original” definition of absorptive capacity and these relate to the way firms interact with their environment. Empirical data from an extensive survey that was carried out in seven European countries, namely Greece, Italy, Denmark, UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands, provides evidence for studying the relative effectiveness of specific mechanisms of knowledge creation and knowledge transfer. The results show that both internal capabilities and openness towards knowledge sharing are important for upgrading innovative performance.

Research Joint Ventures

Inter-firm collaboration is not new. What is new is that such collaboration has exploded during the past couple of decades, in parallel to the intensification of international competition. Moreover, the nature of collaboration has changed, shifting from peripheral interests to the very core functions of the corporation, and from equity to non-equity forms of collaboration. Importantly, cooperation focusing on the generation, exchange, and/or adaptation of new technologies has risen at very fast rates. Research joint ventures, the focus of this paper, belong in the latter category. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2003.

Univeristy-Industry Cooperation in the Context of the European Framework Programmes

This paper investigates the characteristics of university-industry collaboration in a large set of research joint ventures (RJVs) established in the context of the European Framework Programmes over a period of fourteen years. The share of university-industry RJVs is found to have gradually increased. Such RJVs have tended to be relatively larger in terms of participant numbers. Universities from peripheral European regions have been rather active in the examined RJVs. Firms cooperate with Universities to exploit research synergies leading to cost savings or improvements in R&D productivity, keeping up with major technological developments, and sharing R&D cost. Firms reported that the most important benefit from such collaboration has been the positive impact on their knowledge base.

Project prioritization under policy restrictions. A combination of MCDA with 0-1 programming

Abstract Multiple Criteria Decision Aid methods are increasingly used in financial decision making in order to capture the multifaceted character of modern enterprises activated in a complex and versatile market environment. This paper presents a multiple criteria approach for the selection of firms applying for financial support from public funds. Besides the budget constraint, the specific decision situation imposes the consideration of additional policy constraints that prevent from directly exploiting rankings provided by a multiple criteria method. In such a case the problem solution is to find a set of alternatives satisfying the constraints and at the same time maximizing a measure of global performance. The proposed procedure relies on the PROMETHEE V method which belongs to the well-known PROMETHEE family of multiple criteria outranking methods and is combined with an integer programming formulation capable to effectively deal with the problem’s combinatorial character. This method is modified in order to avoid any bias in the selection of the optimal set that may arrive because of the apparent contradiction between the rate of resources consumption and the coefficients of the alternatives in the additive objective function.

The dualism of greek firms and management: Present state and future implications

In this article, the authors begin by examining the current position of the Greek economy, its business environment and firms, noting a duality of extremes between family-owned firms and the subsidiaries of multinationals. They then report the results of a large survey of Greek executive officers seeking their views on the current and future state of Greek management. Comparisons are made with characteristics of CEOs in advanced economies. Finally, they discuss the future of Greek firms in the 21st century and propose strategic alternatives such as niche marketing, strategic alliances and abandoning products to move into services. They make a special plea for greater research into the management of business firms in advancing countries like Greece, as well as for more tailor-made management education.

Industrial energy substitution during the 1980s in the Greek economy

Abstract Factor substitution in Greek manufacturing during the 1980s is examined, using pooled data in static and dynamic translog expenditure share models. Inputs are capital, labor, electricity and non-electrical energy (liquid, solid, gas). Own-price elasticities for capital and labor are inelastic, but for electricity more elastic (−0.90). Results indicate substitutability among factors in the short run. In the long run, electricity and capital are complements, as are labor and non-electrical energy. Greek manufacturing is predicted to continue decreased consumption of liquid fuels to the year 2000, continuing the electrification begun in the 1970s.

Science and technology policies towards research joint ventures

Since the early 1980s, developed country governments have made a strong effort to promote cooperative industrial research. Europe has been at the forefront. The support of international research consortia has been the major funding mechanism of the Framework Programmes on research, technological and development (RTD). Awareness and support for cooperative RTD has also increased at the national level, but there are great policy approach differences between member states, and between Europe and the USA and Japan. An interesting development of the last two decades in Europe has been the increasing convergence of key policy areas at the national level that directly affect the incentives of firms to participate in research partnerships, including competition and intellectual property rights policies. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Policy-driven collaborative research networks in Europe

This paper examines the nature and structure of particular types of networks, i.e. policy-driven collaborative research networks. More specifically, it analyses the emerging networks formed under the fourth, fifth, and sixth EU Framework Programmes in the area of Information Society Technologies. This considerable time-span of roughly 12 years allows for comprehensive monitoring of these networks’ evolution. Four sets of results with significant policy implications arise: (a) the networks analysed display characteristics of complex networks such as small-world property and scale-free distributions, (b) the networks examined are structured around a core of organizations, mainly universities and research institutes which have assumed a very influential role over time, (c) the introduction of new instruments in FP6 has considerably increased interconnectivity compared with the previous FPs, thus contributing to the implementation of the European Research Area initiative. In addition, another set of targeted instruments for upgrading the strategic position – within the networks – of promising peripheral actors should be designed.

European Collaboration in Research and Development

The contributions collected in this volume focus explicitly on cooperative R&D in Europe. The first part of the book offers empirical evidence on the extent, scope and direction of this collaboration and explores the motives and problems of the participating firms, as well as the perceived benefits they have enjoyed. The second part deals with the difficult policy issues that diverse national R&D regimes create for successful cooperative research and international convergence. The extensive survey results of European firms allow the authors to compare collaborative research policies in various EU countries and contrast the policy design that has emerged in the EU with that of the USA.

Cooperative R&D as a means for knowledge creation. Experience from European publicly funded partnerships

This paper explores the performance of cooperative R&D agreements in terms of organisational knowledge creation. A unique dataset of subsidised cooperative R&D agreements is used to provide evidence on the relationship between the benefits from undertaking research cooperation and a set of factors that describe technological and organisational capabilities of firms and constraints arising in the context of cooperation. Findings point to an enhanced notion of absorptive capability as an enabling condition for effective exploitation of firms involvement in R&D cooperation.