The role of proximity in university-business cooperation for innovation

The potential for universities to contribute positively to business innovation has received much attention in recent years. While the determinants of university-business cooperation have been examined extensively, less attention has been given to the mediating influence of proximity in this relationship. The analysis in this paper builds on theUKbusiness innovation survey (2002–2005) by incorporating measures of the university research environment for each of the 16,500 businesses surveyed. These measures allow us to look beyond business-level characteristics as determinants of the geography of university cooperation and account for the character of the local university environment. Measures include the distance from each business to its nearest university, the quality of local university research and the density of the university research environment. The findings suggest that significant differences exist between those businesses that cooperate with local universities and those that cooperate with non-local universities. These differences relate to business size, sales profile, location, absorptive capacity and innovation activity. In addition, we also find that if a business is located close to a research excellent university, cooperation tends to remain local, however, the distance between businesses and the nearest university is not a significant determinant of university-business cooperation and further, the higher the concentration of universities in the business locale, the more likely businesses are to cooperate with non-local universities.

The Business of Building Peace: Private Sector Cooperation across the Irish Border

The sustainability of cross-border peacebuilding initiatives is increasingly pertinent in a context of reduced public funding (national and European), yet the potential contribution to be made to this from private sector cooperation remains under-explored. This paper brings together quantitative data on cross-border trade with qualitative evidence from business leaders in the Irish border region in order to examine the nature of cross-border cooperation within the private sector and its possible connections to peacebuilding. This evidence is analysed in the light of three theses: spillover, contact and business-based peacebuilding. The first part of this paper assesses the conditions for cross-border business cooperation in Ireland, including funding support for economic development, European integration, and (post-Agreement) institutional change. The second part examines the particular contributions made by the private sector to peace, centring upon consciously non-political motivations (such as pragmatism and profit), networking and leadership.

Recomendaciones para la integración de la industria textil en la conformación del cluster

Este trabajo de grado se realizó con el objetivo de obtener un diagnóstico sobre los factores internos de las empresas del sector textil en Bogotá-Cundinamarca, para determinar cuáles son los factores fundamentales, que afectan o benefician a las compañías, en el momento de la toma de decisión de ser partícipes de la política de asociatividad. Dicha política específicamente hace referencia al programa del Clúster de la moda Bogotá, el cual busca vincular los diferentes actores pertenecientes al mismo sector económico y estratégico, para crear un ambiente cooperativo donde exista el flujo continuo de información, logrando ser competitivos a nivel mundial. De igual manera para entender a fondo el tema a tratar, se desarrollaron investigaciones en fuentes primarias y secundarias, que permitieron identificar la situación que ha tenido el sector textil en la capital, además se estudió el programa Clúster de moda Bogotá, el cual se comparó con una de las regiones líderes en Colombia en programas de cooperación empresarial, como lo es el clúster de moda Medellín y por último se implementó una entrevista a profundidad a microempresarios del sector principalmente, con el fin obtener un diagnóstico más detallado de la realidad actual. Una vez condesada dicha información, se generó las conclusiones y recomendaciones pertinentes para poder validar la proposición planteada.

La adopción de un enfoque de trabajo en red: implicaciones en torno al proceso estratégico de las organizaciones

En el mundo actual el enfoque del proceso estratégico es una variable que cada vez va tomando un mayor peso e incidencia en las decisiones de los directores de empresa, sin embargo, poco se ha estudiado sobre esta variable al ser adoptado por los nuevos modelos de cooperación empresarial en las organizaciones. Es por esta razón que esta investigación busca esclarecer la aplicabilidad de las metodologías y herramientas utilizadas en la planeación estratégica de una empresa en una red, además de servir como un primer acercamiento a los aspectos más importantes en la planeación estratégica de una red.

The Latin American Pacific Basin initiative and the Asia-Pacific region

Includes bibliography

Opportunities for trade and investment between Latin America and Asia-Pacific: the link with APEC

Includes bibliography

Diretrizes de práticas para transferência de tecnologia de gestão entre Clusters industriais

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Processo de medição de desempenho em micro e pequenas empresas de um arranjo produtivo local

The local productive arrangements (LPA) are organizational mechanisms that enable the continuous performance of small businesses in production processes and business management models. To promote continuous improvement is essential that companies make decisions based on data that reflects business’ performance (performance measurement) and promote the cluster performance. This way, the aim of this article is to describe the performance measurement process that will support the corporate management of Micro and Small enterprises (SME) of a Local Productive Arrangement in Maringá, State of Paraná, Brazil. To develop this paper, the bibliographic search and action research methods were used. The field research was developed from the cooperation project (PROJVEST) conducted at the LPA, which goal is to deploy improvement actions in project’s participating companies. Metrics and performance indicators constructed from the diagnosis in the areas of Production, Quality and Ergonomics in companies will be presented. Among the main results, can be pointed out that the performance management of LPA is promoting the introduction of corporate management practices in SMEs, stimulating business cooperation, the continuous innovation in manufacturing processes and product quality and business processes.

The significant role of third-party logistics (3pl) operators as fosterers of organizational performance in colombian companies

La eliminación de barreras entre países es una consecuencia que llega con la globalización y con los acuerdos de TLC firmados en los últimos años. Esto implica un crecimiento significativo del comercio exterior, lo cual se ve reflejado en un aumento de la complejidad de la cadena de suministro de las empresas. Debido a lo anterior, se hace necesaria la búsqueda de alternativas para obtener altos niveles de productividad y competitividad dentro de las empresas en Colombia, ya que el entorno se ha vuelto cada vez más complejo, saturado de competencia no sólo nacional, sino también internacional. Para mantenerse en una posición competitiva favorable, las compañías deben enfocarse en las actividades que le agregan valor a su negocio, por lo cual una de las alternativas que se están adoptando hoy en día es la tercerización de funciones logísticas a empresas especializadas en el manejo de estos servicios. Tales empresas son los Proveedores de servicios logísticos (LSP), quienes actúan como agentes externos a la organización al gestionar, controlar y proporcionar actividades logísticas en nombre de un contratante. Las actividades realizadas pueden incluir todas o parte de las actividades logísticas, pero como mínimo la gestión y ejecución del transporte y almacenamiento deben estar incluidos (Berglund, 2000). El propósito del documento es analizar el papel de los Operadores Logísticos de Tercer nivel (3PL) como promotores del desempeño organizacional en las empresas colombianas, con el fin de informar a las MIPYMES acerca de los beneficios que se obtienen al trabajar con LSP como un medio para mejorar la posición competitiva del país.

Adaptation in a Business Network Cooperation Context (summary section only)

In today’s business one can say that competition does not take place inside the network, but between networks. Change and dynamics are central issues in network studies, and a company, due its changing environment, can identify opportunities and threats and respond to them accordingly. These opportunities are vital, but also complex and demanding for the management. Earlier research has identified a shortcoming in explanations of how the micro-level interactions to macro-level patterns are connected. The IMP-group has been trying to fill this research gap with research on interactions within business networks. In this area of research lies the focus of research on relationships between organizations. Adaptation in cooperation is a central concept within business network research. Adaptation has been dealt with in previous literature, but the focus of the studies has mainly been outside this phenomenon, and it has mostly had a supporting role. Most literature has also described the buyers' point of view in studied supply networks, whereas much less attention has been paid to the suppliers' view on them. This study focuses on this research gap. The results of the study stress that adaptation should be included to a greater extent in the strategy work of companies. The adaptations should be carefully planned and, as far as possible, made consciously. Conscious, well-planned adaptations can be seen as investments into present and future relationships, and resources should be invested into something that does not increase the company’s dependence, but divides the power in the relationship between the companies. Adaptations should be planned so that they result in a more offensive way of responding to the demands that are placed upon the companies. In this way, the actions can be viewed and analyzed in accordance with whether the actions make the company weaker or stronger.