R&D collaboration facilitates pooling of complementary skills, learning from the partner as well as sharing risks and costs. Research therefore repeatedly stressed the positive relationship between collaborative R&D and innovation performance. Fewer studies addressed potential drawbacks of...

Much of the empirical literature analysing the relation between environmental innovation and competitiveness has focused on the question whether “it pays to be green”. We differentiate between different types of environmental innovations, which will be disentangled in those aiming at...

We study the effects of a field experiment designed to motivate employee ideas, at a large technology company. Employees were encouraged to submit ideas on process and product improvements via an online system. In the experiment, the company randomized 19 account teams into treatment and control...

It is known that small firms rely mainly on the CEO’s individual knowledge for developing innovations. Recent work suggests that this approach is inefficient since it underutilizes other employees’ knowledge. We study to which extent using CEOs, managers and non-managerial employees’ ideas...

The surge in interfirm cooperative agreements can be seen as expressing a way for firms to respond to and to organize market failure, especially in technology markets. The incentives of firms to internalize activities are to avoid the disadvantages, or capitalize on the advantages, of...

Die vorliegenden Überlegungen sind darauf gerichtet, die Ideen und wesentlichen Gedanken Nationaler Innovationssysteme aufzugreifen und in den Kontext einer wissensbasierten Ökonomie zu stellen. Neben den Akteuren oder Spielern geht es um die Regeln und Funktionsmechanismen und schließlich...

Innovation activities in the German enterprise sector showed two opposing trends over the past two decades: While total innovation expenditures grew substantially, the number of firms conducting innovation activities fell sharply. Innovation expenditures hence concentrate on fewer firms. In this...

In this paper we analyze the conditions under which firms decide to offshore innovation. We consider the role of internal technological capabilities and technological dynamism in the firm environment, distinguishing speed and uncertainty of technological change. Using unique data from the German...

Social media open up new possibilities for firms to exploit information from various external sources. Does this information help firms to become more innovative? Combining firm-level survey data with information from firms' Facebook pages, we study the role that firms' and users' activities on...

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...