This insightful book shows how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from some of the traditionally less dynamic peripheral economies of the "old" EU--namely Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain--have responded to the twin challenges of globalisation and industrial restructuring. Through a series of...

Das Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW) erhebt seit 1993 jährlich die Innovationsaktivitäten der deutschen Wirtschaft. Die Erhebungen finden im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) statt und sind als ein Panel konzipiert(Mannheimer Innovationspanels...

We analyze the effects of captive off-shoring of innovation activities on the firms' ability to adapt their organizational processes and structures. Starting from complexity theory, we use three consecutive waves of the German part of the Community Innovation Survey to test our hypotheses. We...

The creation of spinoff companies is often promoted as a desirable mechanism for transferring knowledge and technologies from research organizations to the private sector for commercialization. In the promotion process, policymakers typically treat these 'university' spinoffs like industry...

This paper analyses the effects of minimum wages on competition in the German roofing sector. The case is particularly interesting since this sector is faced with a uniform minimum wage despite significant regional disparities in productivity and wages. As a control industry we take the plumbing...

Increasing investment in innovation has been a major goal of research and innovation policy in Europe over the past decade. Yet to secure competitive advantage and achieve growth, R&D investment has to be translated into successful innovations, and this is first and foremost the task of firms....

The global economic crisis of 2008/2009 hit many firms hard. Faced with rapidly declining sales and highly uncertain economic prospects, firms had to cut costs and reconsider their business strategies. With respect to innovation, cost cutting often means to stop or underresource innovation...

Innovativen Unternehmen, insbesondere kleinen und mittelgroßen Betrieben (KMU) wird eine Schlüsselposition für den technischen Fortschritt und die internationale Wettbewerbsfähigkeit von Industrienationen zugewiesen. Die Fähigkeit, neues Wissen zu generieren und in marktfähige Produkte,...

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...

Our study shows empirically that the choice of resource allocation strategy affects innovation performance. A policy of allocating resources to a broader range of innovation projects increases sales of new products, especially if these are truly novel, i.e. new to the market. The effect of...