Hidden Champions (HCs) are firms unknown to the wider public, but global leaders in the niche markets they serve. This paper looks at distinctive features of these firms, focusing on their dynamic capabilities. Employing a unique data base on German firms, we identify a representative sample of...

Building on the notion of general and specific human capital proposed by Becker (1962), the paper highlights the importance of employee training practices undertaken in firms as an important tool for human resource and knowledge management and focuses on the role of works councils as a specific...

Dieser Bericht präsentiert die Ergebnisse zu zwei Schwerpunktfragen der Innovationserhebung 2010 im Rahmen des Mannheimer Innovationspanels (MIP). Zum einen werden ausgewählte Aspekte des Managements von Innovationsprojekten, insbesondere im Hinblick auf Ansätze zur Flexibilität der...

In this paper, we are going to report on the results of an exploratory piece of research about the typical front-end-related activities in 28 innovation projects carried out by 14 German and 13 Japanese companies to reduce project uncertainty. In all cases we observed a range of activities to...

This paper presents results of an empirical large-scale study on uncertainty reduction of R&D projects and R&D project selection. The empirical field is the German automotive supplier industry. We explore R&D project selection practices in this specific industry and briefly contrast our findings...

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effects of knowledge management on the innovation success of firms in Germany. Using a matching procedure on data from the German Innovation Survey of 2003 (“Mannheim Innovation Panel”), we pair firms applying knowledge management with twin firms with...