This paper reviews the characteristics and magnitude of information technology (IT) outsourcing as well as studies its labor productivity effects with a representative sample of Finnish businesses. Depending on the IT task in question, on average from one-third to two-thirds of IT has been...

This paper aims to provide new insights into the analysis of National Innovation Systems (NIS). Whereas the common approach is to analyze specific parts or a defined set of actors and their interactions, this paper attempts to take a more systemic approach by analyzing results of 13 surveys...

The importance of data and different sources of knowledge in the development of new services and products, and further in the creation of new markets, has dramatically increased during the past few decades. This empirical study uses data from 531 Finnish firms to explore the determinants of...

General purpose technologies (GPT) have a significant impact on economic activity through radical technological change and wide technological diffusion. This paper aims to address the generality of technologies associated with the GPT concept. Information and communications technologies (ICT),...

Using recently collected data on Finnish small businesses, we provide evidence that the debt capacity of growth options, defined as the amount of debt that firms optimally raise for an incremental project, is negative, especially in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector. We...

Labor productivity effects of portability as well as wireline and wireless connectivity of information and communication technology (ICT) are studied with Finnish firm-level data. It is found that a computer with only processing and storage capabilities boosts labor productivity by 9%...

This report concludes the first phase of The economic effects of information and communication technology research project. Its primary objectives were to compile the necessary data, establish research links, and conduct preliminary analysis. The findings show that widespread use of ICT is...

Network industries have special characteristics that may influence the nature and the order of magnitude of entry and exit barriers in these industries. Consequently, the entry and exit dynamics of network industries such as the information and communications (ICT) sector may differ from those...

New technologies in the globalized business environment are shaping competitive strategies in unprecedented ways. As important as the race for developing more advanced ICT products is the ability to convert these advances into a higher productivity of the assets in other economic activities....

Inter-firm collaboration in R&D is not a new phenomenon. What is new, however, is the rapid increase in such collaboration since the 1980s in parallel with increasing competition. Terms like “strategic R&D alliances” or “alliance capitalism” have been coined to conceptualise these...