Policy makers seek to identify an institutional framework that facilitates the commercialization of publicly funded R&D. In the space industry, the formation of such a framework is complicated by certain non-economic factors, such as national security considerations and the fact that numerous...

This paper reviews quantitative and qualitative evidence on the impact of IT on economic performance in developed and developing countries. Two strands of this literature are considered: the IT-productivity connection and the effects of IT on labor composition and the work environment. Policy...

Edith Penrose was one of the first scholars to point out that firms may need to rely on research joint ventures (RJVs) to acquire access to resources that can help them achieve and sustain a competitive advantage. We estimate an econometric model of the propensity of firms to disclose their...

We present evidence on the relative efficiency of U.K. university technology transfer offices (TTOs) using data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier estimation (SFE). We find that U.K. TTOs exhibit low levels of absolute efficiency. Universities located in regions with higher...

In October 2001, the U.K. government implemented a dramatic shift in the taxation of gambling, resulting in a substantial decline in taxes levied on U.K. bookmakers. Using data before and after this event, we present econometric evidence on the demand response to this tax reduction. Our results...

A burgeoning literature on "skill-biased" technological change (SBTC) reveals that investment in information and communications technology (ICT) is associated with workforce reductions and an increase in the demand for highly educated workers. Based on extensions of the neo-classical paradigm,...

We describe some perspectives on corporate social responsibility (CSR), in order to provide a context for considering the strategic motivations and implications of CSR. Based on this framework, which is based on characterizing optimal firm decision making and underlies most existing work on CSR,...

Formal university technology transfer mechanisms, through licensing agreements, research joint ventures, and university-based startups, have attracted considerable attention in the academic literature. Surprisingly, there has been little systematic empirical analysis of the propensity of...

Scholars who study multinational enterprises (MNEs) recognize the complex relationship between international business and society. However, compared to other international business topics, research on politics, corruption and corporate social responsibility (CSR) -- three 'lenses' on the MNE --...

In this introduction to the special issue, we provide a brief review of the CSR literature with attention to some of the difficulties in globalizing the existing CSR concepts. Following this we provide a brief summary of each of the four papers that comprise the special issue, with emphasis on...