This paper considers the effect of different firm leadership on the innovative performance of firms from seven EU countries. We investigate whether owner-led or manager-led firms achieve a larger share of their turnover with product innovations. Economic theory does not propose clear answers to...

We investigate the effect of international differences in corporate taxation on the realization of productivity gains in M&A deals. We argue that tax differentials distort the efficient allocation of productive factors following an M&A and thus mitigate the resulting productivity improvement....

Searching for external knowledge has frequently been characterized as crucial for firm success. However, little is known about how the direction of search strategies influences innovation performance. In this paper, we argue that firms need to specialize their search strategy and that its...

The shift towards more open and interconnected innovation activities has been a major topic of recent academic and practitioner discussions. Firms have to connect their in-house R&D activities with external partners, such as leading customers or universities, to increase the effectiveness of...

The link between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities and financial performance of firms has been intensively examined and debated in academics and politics, but the connection to innovation has so far lacked research attention. This paper investigates whether CSR is complementary to...

This paper aims at analysing the risk of intellectual property (IP) infringements by competitors from abroad and in particular whether this risk is higher for international innovating firms. We distinguish three different types of IP infringements from abroad: the usage of firms' technical...

Corporate scientific publications are often presented as a strategic means for firms to create prior art with the objective to prevent others from patenting related inventions. This presumes that corporate publications enter the pool of prior art which is relevant to judge the novelty of patent...

China recently surpassed the USA as the greatest global source of patent applications. However, without internationally comparable measures of patent quality it remains questionable whether China's patent expansion constitutes the rise of a new technological superpower. Our novel quality index...

Gaining access to technological assets and patents, in particular, has long been a major motive and objective for firm acquisitions. On the one hand, patents are used as a building instrument for the acquirer's technology portfolio. On the other hand, patents can be attractive because of their...

In this paper, we analyse whether bank owners or bank managers were the driving force behind the risks incurred in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007/2008. We show that owner controlled banks had higher profits in the years before the crisis, and incurred larger losses and were more likely...