Workers cooperation within the firm: an analysis using small and medium size firms

We investigate the determinants of teamwork and workers cooperation within the firm. Up to now the literature has almost exclusively focused on workers incentives as the main determinants for workers cooperation. We take a broader look at the firm's organizational design and analyze the impact that different aspects of it might have on cooperation. In particular, we consider the way in which the degree of decentralization of decisions and the use of complementary HRM practices (what we call the .rm.s vertical organizational design) can affect workers'collaboration with each other. We test the model's predictions on a unique dataset on Spanish small and medium size firms containing a rich set of variables that allows us to use sensible proxies for workers cooperation. We find that the decentralization of labor decisions (and to a less extent that of task planning) has a positive impact on workers cooperation. Likewise, cooperation is positively correlated to many of the HRM practices that seem to favor workers'interaction the most. We also confirm the previous finding that collaborative efforts respond positively to pay incentives, and particularly, to group or company incentives.

Innovation or Imitation? The effect of spillovers and competitive pressure on firms' R&D strategy choice

This article provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of a firm's optimal R&D strategy choice. In this paper a firm's R&D strategy is assumed to be endogenous and allowed to depend on both internal firms. characteristics and external factors. Firms choose between two strategies, either they engage in R&D or abstain from own R&D and imitate the outcomes of innovators. In the theoretical model this yields three types of equilibria in which either all firms innovate, some firms innovate and others imitate, or no firm innovates. Firms'equilibrium strategies crucially depend on external factors. We find that the efficiency of intellectual property rights protection positively affects firms'incentives to engage in R&D, while competitive pressure has a negative effect. In addition, smaller firms are found to be more likely to become imitators when the product is homogeneous and the level of spillovers is high. These results are supported by empirical evidence for German .rms from manufacturing and services sectors. Regarding social welfare our results indicate that strengthening intellectual property protection can have an ambiguous effect. In markets characterized by a high rate of innovation a reduction of intellectual property rights protection can discourage innovative performance substantially. However, a reduction of patent protection can also increase social welfare because it may induce imitation. This indicates that policy issues such as the optimal length and breadth of patent protection cannot be resolved without taking into account specific market and firm characteristics. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C35, D43, L13, L22, O31. Keywords: Innovation; imitation; spillovers; product differentiation; market competition; intellectual property rights protection.

R&D cooperation between Spanish firms and scientific partners: what is the role of tertiary education?

This paper explores the factors that determine firm’s R&D cooperation with different partners, paying special attention on the role of tertiary education (degree and PhDs level) in facilitating the connection between the firms and the to scientific bodies (technology centres, public research centres and universities). Here, we attempt to answer two questions. First, are innovative firms that carry out internal and external R&D activities more likely to cooperate on R&D projects with other partners? Second, do Spanish innovative firms with a high participation of researchers with degrees or PhDs tend to cooperate more with scientific partners? To answer both questions we apply a three-dimensional approach on a firm level Panel Data with a sample of 4.998 manufacturing and services Spanish firms. First, we run a complementary test between external R&D acquisition and skilled research workers and find that firms which carry out external R&D activities obtain a greater return on R&D cooperation when they have skilled workers in R&D, especially in high-tech manufactures and KIS services. Second, we carry out a 2-step tobit model to estimate, in the first stage, the determinants that explain whether Spanish innovative firms cooperate or not; and in the second stage the factors that affect the choice of partners. And third, we apply an ordered probit model to test the marginal effects of explanatory variables on the different partners. Here we contrast some of the most interesting empirical hypotheses of previous studies, and which emphasize the role of employees with degrees and PhDs in facilitating cooperative R&D between firms and scientific partners. JEL classification: O31, O33, O38. Key words: Determinants R&D cooperation, industry-university flows, PhD research workers.

The Innovation and Imitation Dichotomy in Spanish firms: do absorptive capacity and the technological frontier matter?

This paper analyses whether a firm’s absorptive capacity and its distance from the technological frontier affect the choice between innovation and imitation in innovative Spanish firms. From an extensive survey of 5,575 firms during the 2004-2009 period, we found two significant results. With regard to the role of absorptive capacity, the empirical evidence shows that when innovative firms have difficulties in accessing external information and hire skilled workers, their innovative capacity is reduced. Meanwhile, with regard to distance from the technological frontier, the firms that reduce this gap manage to increase their innovative capacity at the expense of imitation. To summarise, when we studied firms’ absorptive capacity and their relative position to the technological frontier in tandem, we found that the two factors directly affected firms' ability to innovate or imitate. Key words: R&D sources, innovation and imitation strategies, absorptive capacity, technological frontier, ordered probit.

High Growth Firms and Innovation: an empirical analysis for Spanish firms

This paper analyzes the effect of firms’ innovation activities on their growth performance. In particular, we observe how important innovation is for high-growth firms (HGFs) for an extensive sample of Spanish manufacturing and services firms. The panel data used comprises diverse waves of Spanish CIS over the the period 2004-2008. First, a probit analysis determines whether innovation affects the probability of being a high-growth firm. And second, a quantile regression technique is applied to explore the determinants and characteristics of specific groups of firms (manufacturing versus service firms and high-tech versus low-tech firms). It is revealed that R&D plays a significant role in the probability of becoming a HGF. Investment in internal and external R&D per employee has a positive impact on firm growth (although internal R&D presents a significant impact in the last quantiles, external R&D is significant up to the median). Furthermore, we show evidence that there is a positive impact of employment (sales) growth on the sales (employment) growth. Keywords: high-growth firms, firm growth, innovation activity JEL Classifications: L11, L25, O30

Determinants of high-growth firms:why do some countries have more high-growth firms than others?

High-growth firms have been shown to be a key factor for economic growth and structural change. This paper analyses the determinants of the number of high-growth firms in a country for 17 OECD countries between 1999 and 2005, using the Amadeus data set, the GEM data set, and others. The first contribution of this paper is that it is – as far as we know – the first empirical analysis of high-growth firms at the country level on the basis of actual measured growth. Second, we find indicative empirical evidence for three driving forces of high growth, viz. entrepreneurship, institutional settings, and opportunities for growth, all in accordance with theory and empirical findings in related fields of research. Third, the paper gives a tentative explanation of the differences in the average percentage of high-growth firms between countries. Finally, the paper gives some clues for policy makers how to promote high-growth firms. Keywords: high-growth firms, fast growing firms, entrepreneurship, institutional obstacles, opportunities for growth

What underlies localization and urbanization economies? Evidence from the location of new firms

The objective of this paper is to analyze why firms in some industries locate in specialized economic environments (localization economies) while those in other industries prefer large city locations (urbanization economies). To this end, we examine the location decisions of new manufacturing firms in Spain at the city level and for narrowly defined industries (three-digit level). First, we estimate firm location models to obtain estimates that reflect the importance of localization and urbanization economies in each industry. In a second step, we regress these estimates on industry characteristics that are related to the potential importance of three agglomeration theories, namely, labor market pooling, input sharing and knowledge spillovers. Localization effects are low and urbanization effects are high in knowledge-intensive industries, suggesting that firms (partly) locate in large cities to reap the benefits of inter-industry knowledge spillovers. We also find that localization effects are high in industries that employ workers whose skills are more industry-specific, suggesting that industries (partly) locate in specialized economic environments to share a common pool of specialized workers.

Innovation strategies in the presence of technology markets: evidence from spanish innovative firms

The development of markets for technology has eased the acquisition of technology and reshaped the innovation strategies of firms that we classify as producers of innovations or as imitators. Innovative activities of firms include research, acquisition of technology and downstream activities. Within an industry, firms producing innovations tend to conduct more research and downstream activities than those imitating innovations. Acquisition of technology is equally important for both. To implement innovation strategies, firms producing innovations require both the capability to scan the external environment for technology and the capability to integrate new technology. Firms producing innovations require both, while firms imitating innovations require scan capabilities only

Engineering the thermal emission of macroporous silicon

Todos los cuerpos emiten luz espontaneamente al ser calentados. El espectro de radiacion es una funcion de la temperatura y el material. Sin embargo, la mayoria de los materiales irradia, en general, en una banda espectral amplia. Algunas matereiales, por el contrario, son capaces de concentrar la radiacion termica en una banda espectral mucho mas estrecha. Estos materiales se conocen como emisores selectivos y su uso tiene un profundo impacto en la eficiencia de sistemas sistemas tales como iluminacion y conversion de energia termofotovoltaica. De los emisores selectivos se espera que sean capaces de operar a altas temperaturas y que emitan en una banda espectral muy concisa. Uno de los metodos mas prometedores para controlar y disenar el espectro de emision termico es la utilizacion de cristales fotonicos. Los cristales fotonicos son estructuras periodicas artificiales capaces de controlar y confinar la luz de formas sin precedentes. Sin embargo, la produccion de dichas estructuras con grandes superficies y capaces de soportar altas temperaturas sigue siendo una dificil tarea. Este trabajo esta dedicada al estudio de las propiedades de emision termica de estructuras 3D de silicio macroporoso en el rango espectral mid-IR (2-30 m). En particular, este trabajo se enfoca en reducir la elevada emisividad del silicio cristalino. Las muestras estudiadas en este trabajo tienen una periodicidad de 4 m, lo que limitan los resultados obtenidos a la banda del infrarrojo medio, aunque estructuras mucho mas pequenas son tecnologicamente realizables con el metodo de fabricacion utilizado. Hemos demostrado que el silicio macroporoso 3D puede inhibir completamente la emision termica en su superficie. Mas aun, esta banda se puede ajustar en un amplio margen mediante pequenos cambios durante la formacion de los macroporos. Tambien hemos demostrado que tanto el ancho como la frecuencia de la banda de inhibicion se puede doblar mediante la aplicacion de tecnicas de postprocesado adecuadas. Finalmente hemos mostrado que es posible crear bandas de baja emisividad arbitrariamente anchas mediante estructuras macroporosas aperiodicas.

Determinants of Spanish firms' life cycle and job

This paper examines the role of human capital, individual entrepreneurial traits and the business environment on firms' life cycle and on job creation in Spain. For this purpose, we have constructed a pseudo-panel, by using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor survey over the period 2001-2008. We have found that the creation, maturity and survival of firms were aided by the availability of bank credit and the large immigration inflows that Spain received over this period. However, of these two factors, only bank credit had a positive effect on the creation of jobs and on improving expectations of job expansion. The relatively high levels of youth unemployment experienced even before the crises of 2008 hurt the firm's chances of maturity and survival. The results also suggested that the gender gap in entrepreneurial activities had narrowed. In relative terms, women with higher levels of education were more likely to create mature firms than men. Based on the empirical findings and those of related literature, the paper offers policy recommendations to foster a sustainable entrepreneurial sector capable of contributing to the recovery of the Spanish economy.

Tax incentives and direct support for R&D: What do firms use and why?

This paper studies whether firms' use of R&D subsidies and R&D tax incentives is correlated to two sources of underinvestment in R&D, financing constraints and appropriability. We find that financially constrained SMEs are less likely to use R&D tax credits and more likely to obtain subsidies. SMEs using legal methods to protect their intellectual property are more likely to use tax incentives. Results are ambiguous for large firms. For both having previous experience in R&D increases the likelihood of using tax incentives, while it reduces the likelihood of using exclusively subsidies, suggesting that the latter induce entry into R&D. Results imply that direct funding and tax credits do not have the same ability to address each source of R&D underinvestment, and that on average subsidies may be better suited than tax credits at least for SMEs. From a policy perspective these tools may be complements rather than substitutes.

Applying recommendations to aligncompetences, methodology and assessment in Telematics, Computing and Electronic Engineering courses

The alignment between competences, teaching-learning methodologies and assessment is a key element of the European Higher Education Area. This paper presents the efforts carried out by six Telematics, Computer Science and Electronic Engineering Education teachers towards achieving this alignment in their subjects. In a joint work with pedagogues, a set of recommended actions were identified. A selection of these actions were applied and evaluated in the six subjects. The cross-analysis of the results indicate that the actions allow students to better understand the methodologies and assessment planned for the subjects, facilitate (self-) regulation and increase students’ involvement in the subjects.

The role of the Teaching Quality and Innovation Support Unit in the ICT Engineering Studies at Universitat Pompeu Fabra

One of the strategies of Universitat Pompeu Fabra to support Quality Learning has been the creation of Units for the Support of Teaching Quality and Innovation within each faculty. In the seminar we will present the role and activities of the Polytechnic School Unit in charge or coordinating the efforts towards quality learning in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Engineering Studies. We will also discuss how these activities are informed to relevant academic stakeholders.

Credit Constraints, Firms' Precautionary Investment, and the Business Cycle

This paper studies the macroeconomic implications of firms' precautionary investment behavior in response to the anticipation of future financing constraints. Firms increase their demand for liquid and safe investments in order to alleviate future borrowing constraints and decrease the probability of having to forego future profitable investment opportunities. This results in an increase in the share of short-term projects that produces a temporary increase in output, at the expense of lower long-run investment and future output. I show in a calibrated model that this behavior is at the source of a novel and powerful channel of shock transmission of productivity shocks that produces short-run dampening and long-run propagation. Furthermore, it can account for the observed business cycle patterns of the aggregate and firm-level composition of investment.

Entrepreneurship, organization and economic performance among Spanish firms, 1930-1975. The case of the motor industry

Before the Civil War (1936-1939), Spain had seen the emergence offirms of complex organizational forms. However, the conflict andthe postwar years changed this pattern. The argument put forwardin this paper is based on historical experience, the efforts willbe addressed to explain the development of Spanish entrepreneurshipduring the second half of the twentieth century. To illustrate thechange in entrepreneurship and organizational patterns among theSpanish firms during the Francoist regime we will turn to the caseof the motor vehicle industry.