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The purpose of this paper is to study how job reductions affect product innovation and marketing innovation in a sample of 2,034 Spanish manufacturing firms in the period 2007–2014.

Poisson and logistic regression models with random effects were used to analyse the impact of downsizing on some innovation outcomes of firms.

The results of this research show that the stressful measure of job reductions may have unexpected consequences, stimulating innovation. However downsizing combined with radical organisational changes such as new equipment, techniques or processes seems to have a negative impact on product and marketing innovation.

This research has two original features. First, it explores the unconventional direction of causality from the planned elimination of jobs to innovation outputs. Secondly, the paper looks at the combined effect of downsizing and other restructuring measures on different types of innovation. Following the threat-rigidity theory, we assume that this combination represents a major threat for survivors that leads to lower levels of product and marketing innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of knowledge complexity, absorptive capacity and weak ties between franchisor and franchisee on standards compliance related to quality and operative procedures.

A franchisee outlets survey was carried out to investigate the effect of knowledge, franchisee and relationships characteristics on franchise systems uniformity. A linear regression analysis was conducted on a sample of franchisees from different franchise chains and sectors of activity operating in Spain. The authors also controlled for transformation type, which represents the kind of activities carried out in the franchisee units, whether just commercial or both transformative and commercial activities.

Partial support was found for the hypothesis. Knowledge complexity and absorptive capacity do not affect uniformity, although weak ties do affect it: the fewer weak ties, the greater franchise system uniformity. These results allow the authors to identify differences between outlets that carry out commercial and physical transformation activities and those in which only commercial activities are carried out. Specifically, uniformity is greater in outlets that perform both commercial and productive activities, and lower in outlets that only carry out commercial activities.

The paper shows that uniformity can be regarded as a source of competitive advantage in the context of franchise operations with multiple centres dispersed geographically.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the unclear relationship between industry structure and open innovation.

The focus of the study is on firms that received external help to develop their products or that helped third parties in developing their products. The hypotheses were tested on a large panel of more than 7,000 firms using generalized estimating equations.

The results show that open innovation adoption is positively related to technology complexity and market uncertainty while it is negatively related to market concentration. Larger firms are more likely to adopt open innovation strategies.

The research makes an important contribution to the literature by examining on a large sample of firms the moderating effects of industry concentration, industry research and development intensity and the technology life cycle stage on the adoption of open innovation.