Knowledge Compensation in the German Automobile Industry

Knowledge is one of the most important determinants in single-industry studies of firm survival over the life cycle. Different kinds of knowledge, namely post-entry experience, pre-entry experience, and knowledge acquired by innovative activity positively influence the survival chances of firms. This paper investigates how the kinds of knowledge are able to compensate for each other. Therefore, a statistical survival analysis is performed for the German automobile industry which applies a new approach that combines the Cox regression with instrumental variable estimation. The results show that innovative activity is able to compensate for lacking post-entry experience, supporting Schumpeterian creative destruction.