Yuping Yin, Frank Crowley, Justin Doran, Jun Du and Mari O'Connor
This paper examines the innovation behavior of family-owned firms versus non-family-owned firms. The role of internal family governance and the influence of external stimuli…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines the innovation behavior of family-owned firms versus non-family-owned firms. The role of internal family governance and the influence of external stimuli (competition) on innovation are also considered.
Design/methodology/approach
The data of 20,995 family and non-family firms across 38 countries are derived from the World Bank Enterprise Survey during the period 2019–2020. Probit models are used to examine the impact of family ownership, family governance, and competition on innovation outcomes.
Findings
Family firms are more likely to make R&D investments, acquire external knowledge, engage in product innovation (including innovations that are new to the market) and process innovation, relative to non-family firms. However, a high propensity of family member involvement in top management positions can reduce innovation. Competition has a negative impact on innovation outcomes for both family and non-family firms, but it has a positive moderating effect on the innovation activities of family firms where a higher level of family member involvement in management is present.
Originality/value
This paper provides novel insights into family firm innovation dynamics by identifying family firms as more innovative than non-family firms for all types of indicators, debunking the idea that family firms are conservative, reluctant to change, and averse to the risks in innovation activities. However, too much family involvement in decision making may stifle some innovation activities in family firms, except in cases where the operating environment is highly competitive; this provides new insights into the ownership-management dynamic of family firms.
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Frank Crowley and Peter Barlow
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between an individual's social capital context and entrepreneurship using a multi-level modelling framework.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between an individual's social capital context and entrepreneurship using a multi-level modelling framework.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses data from 87,007 individual level observations across 428 regions in 37 countries. The data comes from the 2010 and 2016 Life in Transition Surveys. The paper uses a principal component analysis to identify the different dimensions of an individual's social capital context. Subsequently, a multi-level model is employed examining the relationship between the components of an individual's social capital context and entrepreneurship (which is proxied by an individual's attempt to set up a business), whilst controlling for both country and regional effects.
Findings
Greater levels of networking, informal connections and tolerance of others have a significant positive relationship with entrepreneurial activity. Trust of institutions and others have a negative relationship with entrepreneurial activity. Regional and country differences are also important for entrepreneurship, demonstrating the importance of the multi-level and social contextual environment for business development.
Originality/value
Firstly, the authors present a broad, but comprehensive social contextual framework incorporating many measures of social capital when examining the importance of social capital for business development. Secondly, the work provides interesting results on the “bright and dark sides of trust” for entrepreneurship, answering calls for improved understandings on the positive and negative relationships between social capital and entrepreneurial activity. Thirdly, the paper extends the burgeoning but limited number of studies that examine the multi-level contextual environment of entrepreneurial activities.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore product/service innovation and discontinuation using the firm as a unit of analysis. A key objective of the paper is to compare the results…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore product/service innovation and discontinuation using the firm as a unit of analysis. A key objective of the paper is to compare the results between manufacturing and service firms.
Design/methodology/approach
A two-step production function approach is employed to examine first, a firm’s decision to innovate and second, a firm’s decision to discontinue products/services.
Findings
The results indicate that the factors affecting product innovation and discontinuation are similar for manufacturing and service firms, where innovation was significant for product/service discontinuation and process innovation was found to be important for innovations. Similarly, monopoly power was important for innovation in both industry types. However, there were also some underlying differences, particularly in relation to firm age and economic geography effects.
Practical implications
The conclusion of the paper is that it is not appropriate to assume that the process of product innovation and discontinuation will be identical across industry types.
Originality/value
This study is the first study in the literature that examines product/service discontinuation at the firm level and the relationship between innovation and product/service discontinuation using the firm as a unit of analysis. This study further adds to the under-researched (relative to manufacturing studies) area of service innovation.
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Shane Barrett, Frank Crowley, Justin Doran and Mari O'Connor
This paper examines the relationship between open innovation (measured by exploratory and exploitative linkages) and firm-level innovative activity in the offshore renewable…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines the relationship between open innovation (measured by exploratory and exploitative linkages) and firm-level innovative activity in the offshore renewable energy (ORE) sector.
Design/methodology/approach
A unique, purpose-built survey that targeted firms operating in the ORE sector and its supply chain was used. The data provides novel insights into the research activities and networking capabilities of an industry in its infant stages of development. Regression models are used to estimate the relationship between firm-level external linkages and innovative activity.
Findings
Exploratory linkages are positively related to more innovative activity. This relationship is subject to diminishing returns, distinguishing the ORE sector from other sectors. Collaborating with suppliers and accessing scientific journals are conducive to research and development (R&D) activity and process innovation, whilst collaborating with customers is associated with the decision to introduce new products and processes.
Originality/value
This study provides evidence of a positive, but curvilinear, relationship between external knowledge linkages and innovative activity, adding novel insights into the relationship between open innovation (OI) strategies, research and innovation outcomes for firms predominantly in the introductory stages of the technological life cycle with limited commercialisation experience. The nuanced finding that specific linkages matter for certain research and innovation (R&I) outcomes adds deeper complexity to March’s (1991) framework, where tailoring certain exploratory or exploitative linkages to specific innovation activities is important.
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John Paul Clifford, Justin Doran, Frank Crowley and Declan Jordan
This article examines the links between average city size, fiscal decentralisation, and national economic growth in 33 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development…
Abstract
Purpose
This article examines the links between average city size, fiscal decentralisation, and national economic growth in 33 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.
Design/methodology/approach
The data in this paper comprise an unbalanced panel dataset which contains economic growth indicators, average city size, fiscal decentralisation indicators and control variables in 33 OECD member countries from 1975 to 2015 in five-year intervals. Fixed-effects (FE) estimators are used for the analysis.
Findings
This research finds i) countries with larger weighted average city sizes have higher economic growth, ii) countries with greater fiscal decentralisation have higher economic growth, but iii) countries with larger weighted average city sizes with greater decentralisation have lower rates of economic growth.
Originality/value
The research highlights the importance of agglomerations and decentralised governance and management for economic growth. While the findings are consistent with previous evidence that larger city sizes and fiscal decentralisation are separately associated with higher rates of economic growth, the authors find countries which have larger cities and greater fiscal decentralisation experience lower rates of economic growth highlighting a need for caution on decentralisation agendas in such cases. The implications of this suggest policymakers should proceed with caution on decentralisation agendas in countries with large cities.
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It gives me much pleasure to acquaint the readers of RSR with some important reference materials that have appeared in Australia, New Zealand and neighbouring countries. Prices…
Abstract
It gives me much pleasure to acquaint the readers of RSR with some important reference materials that have appeared in Australia, New Zealand and neighbouring countries. Prices are quoted in the currency of the country of publication.
The purpose of this paper is to explore the origins of tensions between the benefits (such as technologies and skills) and the substance of knowledge (often described as “pure…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the origins of tensions between the benefits (such as technologies and skills) and the substance of knowledge (often described as “pure inquiry”) in Australian universities. There are advantages to considering this debate in Australia, since its universities were tightly connected to scholarly networks in the British Empire. After the Second World War, those ties were loosened, enabling influences from American research and technological universities, augmented by a growing connection between universities, government economic strategy and the procedures of industry. This paper thus traces some of routes by which arguments travelled and the ways they were articulated in post‐war Australia.
Design/methodology/approach
Ideas do not travel on their own. In this paper, the author takes a biographical approach to the question of contrasting attitudes to university knowledge in the post‐war period, comparing the international scholarly and professional networks of two British scientists who travelled to Australia – contemporaries in age and education – both influencing Australian higher education policy in diametrically opposing ways.
Findings
This research demonstrates that the growing connection with economic goals in Australian universities after the Second World War was in part a result of the new international and cross‐sectoral networks in which some scholars now operated.
Originality/value
Australian historiography suggests that shifts in the emphases of post‐war universities were primarily the consequence of government policy. This paper demonstrates that the debates that shaped Australia's modern university system were also conducted among an international network of scholars.
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Purpose – This chapter will utilize the apprenticeship model developed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in their Preparation for the Professions series…
Abstract
Purpose – This chapter will utilize the apprenticeship model developed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in their Preparation for the Professions series to study how American Library Association (ALA)-accredited Master of Library Science (MLS) programs could be reformed to better integrate the interests of educators with those of the practicing profession and the public they serve.
Design/Methodology/Approach – The Carnegie model uses three “apprenticeships” to distinguish the three areas professional education must address, labeled in this chapter as knowledge, practice, and identity. Each of these three areas is explored as it relates to the education of librarians, with an emphasis on what constitutes the general knowledge, skills, and identity of librarianship. Examples of how these three components could be integrated into an MLS program are given.
Findings – Current ALA-accredited MLS programs differ widely on the number and content of required courses. Applying the model developed in the other Carnegie studies to the field of library education yields a clearer vision for the professional education of librarians and to a reorienting of the educational experience students encounter in their MLS studies.
Originality/Value – Using examples from other professional education programs allows library educators to see the means by which a holistic education is achieved in other professions. The novelty of this approach is in the breakdown of the various components of a professional education program. The tripartite approach to professional education also provides a useful framework around which to build an MLS program.
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Martha Crowley, Julianne Payne and Earl Kennedy
Labor process research has documented a shift in the nature of control – from techniques that aim to limit worker discretion to consent-oriented controls that are believed to…
Abstract
Labor process research has documented a shift in the nature of control – from techniques that aim to limit worker discretion to consent-oriented controls that are believed to generate greater effort by increasing intrinsic rewards or bonding employees to managers and/or the firm. Over the past several decades, however, growing pressure to increase profits has prompted firms to adopt cost-cutting strategies that have eroded job security, relationships with management and commitment to organizational goals. This study investigates how a changing labor process and rising job insecurity shape workers’ orientations toward work, managers and the firm, and in turn influence workplace behavior. Analyses of content-coded data on 212 work groups confirms that discretion-limiting controls (supervision, technology and rules) are associated with more negative orientations and/or reductions in effort (with variations across distinct forms of control), while investment in workers’ human capital (but not involvement of workers in decision-making) has the reverse effect – generating more positive orientations toward work, managers and the firm, and (in turn) promoting discretionary work effort and limiting covert effort restriction. Implications of insecurity are more complex. Both layoffs and temporary employment reduce commitment to the organization, but layoffs generate conflict with management without reducing effort, whereas temporary employment limits effort without producing conflict. We illuminate underlying processes with evidence from the qualitative case studies.