High-technology Firms Research Articles

Evaluation of sustainability and technological management for Logistics 4.0

ABSTRACT The evaluation of technology management and sustainability has become a challenging topic. As high technology firms apply new technologies, managers expect their organisational and sustainability performance to increase. However, sustainability issues are multidimensional and turn into vital concerns for managers. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the causal effect possibilities related to sustainability in which new technologies are applied for Logistics 4.0. This study provides the rationale for the causal effect, offers improvement schemes, and enriches academic literature. Using a fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory, the proposed criteria were tested to generate suggestions on how managers would make the best practice and the most effective solutions. A case study of the automotive industry is conducted to test the validity of the proposal method. In conclusion, technology management has the greatest influence on sustainability.

The impact of R&D classification shifting in high-technology industries

PurposeThis study investigates the motivations and consequences of classification shifting from cost of sales to research and development (R&D) in high-technology industries.Design/methodology/approachThis study conducts a multivariate analysis using logistic and ordinary least squares regression methods on panel data of high-technology firms for the period 1988–2012 to examine the effect of R&D classification shifting on gross margin benchmarks and future performance.FindingsThe results show that R&D classification shifting increases the likelihood of meeting or beating gross margin benchmarks. They also show that firms engaged in R&D classification shifting exhibit lower future R&D productivity, stock returns, and operating performance. The findings indicate that the short-term benefits of achieving gross margin benchmarks are offset by the long-term negative impact of R&D misclassification.Practical implicationsThis paper provides insights that can help regulators develop clearer guidelines for the appropriate classification of R&D costs.Originality/valueMoving beyond the core earnings management paradigm, this study demonstrates the use of R&D classification shifting as a tool to manipulate gross profits and R&D in high-technology industries. Most prior studies focused on the determinants of R&D classification shifting, while few investigated the impact of the practice. The findings in this study provide initial evidence of the consequences of R&D classification shifting for future R&D productivity and firm performance in high-tech industries. Using five methods, this study also validates R&D classification shifting and addresses the alternative explanation of R&D overinvestment.

Choosing innovation alliance governance structure: The roles of performance feedback and top management team characteristics

Abstract While the importance of innovation alliance for high-technological firms is well-documented, existing literature provides little guidance on the role of performance feedback in an alliance governance structure choice. Drawing on performance feedback theory, this study sheds light on the association between performance deviating (either above or below) from firms’ social aspirations and the governance structure choice of innovation alliances. Using an unbalanced panel of Chinese biopharmaceutical firms spanning from 2007 to 2020, we find that firms experiencing negative performance feedback prefer a non-equity innovation alliance structure, whereas those with positive performance feedback are more likely to adopt an equity one. The strength of these relationships is contingent on top management team average tenure and educational-level diversity. Our findings both provide theoretical and practical insights into guiding how firms under different states of performance feedback select alliance governance structures.

Innovation capital disclosure and independent directors: evidence from France

AbstractThis study aims to understand whether corporate governance mechanisms affect innovation capital disclosure (ICD) provided voluntarily on corporate websites by SBF 120 listed firms in France. The study tests multivariate models using pooled OLS, random effects, and generalized method of moments models. Firms use ICD as a useful, timely communication tool to highlight their innovation efforts. Our findings suggest that independent non-executive directors (INEDs) exhibit a conservative approach to the nature of innovation that requires extensive investigations with risky outcomes. They support discretion by limiting the extent of publicly disclosed information about research and development (R&D) progress, technological advances, and innovation output to protect the firms’ intellectual proprietary. INEDs seem to balance preserving firms’ competitive advantage and ensuring higher transparency levels to satisfy stakeholders’ needs. Additionally, board tenure moderates the relationship between INEDs and ICD. This study underscores the importance of the financial reporting of information about innovation capital that captures firms’ innovation capacities in a knowledge-based economy. It provides significant insights for management, policy-makers, and regulators who are involved in refining corporate reporting policies. This study is the first to examine the incentives of INEDs in influencing reporting practices related to a firm’s innovation investments, particularly in high-technology firms.

Different forms of supplier involvement, knowledge orchestration capability, technological uncertainty and new product development performance: a test of three-way interaction

PurposeThis paper examines the role of purchasing in facilitating early supplier involvement in new product development (NPD) in contexts of technological uncertainty (TU). Taking a purchasing perspective, it develops a moderate model to explain the effects of supplier involvement on NPD performance and whether and how knowledge orchestration capability (KOC) and TU affect these relationships. Additionally, KOC drivers are defined.Design/methodology/approachA total of 317 usable questionnaires from Chinese high-technology firms were collected. Moderated multiple regression (MMR) was used to test all hypotheses. Resource orchestration theory (ROT) was the adopted theoretical lens.FindingsTwo forms of supplier involvement (as knowledge source and co-creator) were found to distinctly affect NPD performance and have potential substitutive relationships. Purchasing KOC positively moderates the relationships between forms of supplier involvement on NPD performance. TU strengthens the moderating role of purchasing KOC. Furthermore, purchasing status and supply complexity are important antecedents for purchasing KOC.Practical implicationsThese findings serve as a blueprint for involving purchasing in technologically uncertain NPD projects and improve supplier NPD integration. Additionally, management should recognize the purchasing function's role and empower it to identify ideas, knowledge and solutions within supply networks.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the ROT by examining the role of purchasing KOC on supplier involvement in NPD performance, especially under TU. Moreover, it demonstrates significant and positive relations between purchasing department status and external supply complexity on its KOC.

Corporate Sustainability: The Impact of Environmental, Social, and Governance Performance on Corporate Development and Innovation

As a comprehensive concept that integrates the environment, society, and corporate governance, little is known about whether and how Esg affects firm development, as the concept of sustainable development is deepened and promoted. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of Esg performance on corporate development. This paper selects the data of A-share-listed companies from 2010 to 2020 as samples, utilizes the linear regression model to empirically study the impact mechanism of Esg performance on enterprise development, and considers transmission pathways. It is found that the development of high-technology firms is more significantly affected by Esg performance than the development of non-high-technology firms. It is further found that Esg performance can promote enterprise development by reducing financing constraints. Meanwhile, corporate innovation can enhance the promotion effect of Esg performance on corporate development. After the robustness tests of instrumental variables and the lagged effects, the research conclusions still hold.

Sector connectors, specialists and scrappers: How cities use civic capital to compete in high-technology markets.

This article uses three cities in the same Canadian province (Ontario): Toronto, Ottawa and Waterloo, to examine how regions compete in high-technology markets. We find that regions use civic capital to leverage new, technological windows of opportunity, but they do so in very different ways. Tracing Toronto's evolution from a marketing hub for foreign multinationals into a centre for entrepreneurship, we illustrate how weak ties and cross-sectoral buzz created a 'super connector', scaling high-technology firms in a wide variety of areas. In Ottawa, task-specific cooperation in R&D, education and specialised infrastructure enabled the region to overcome the disadvantages of its small size as a 'specialist' in a single, capital-intensive niche, telecommunications equipment. Finally, entrepreneurs in Waterloo eschewed task-specific cooperation for peer-to-peer mentoring. By diffusing generic knowledge about how to circumvent the liabilities of smallness, mentoring networks enabled this 'scrapper' city to support smaller start-ups in a broad range of niches.

The role of intuiting practices in navigating strategic opportunities

This study addresses the question of how strategists use intuiting practices in the process of sensing, navigating and creating strategic opportunities. Existing literature highlights the significant role and nature of intuition in strategy from a theoretical cognitive perspective, but does not examine intuition empirically as a practice utilised by strategists. We undertook a two-year longitudinal study of seven strategists in high-technology firms as they attempted to progress new strategic opportunities. Using abductive analysis of the resulting data, we found that when navigating novel opportunities the practitioners’ intuiting practices were predominantly based on unfolding creative and social types of intuition, as opposed to a rapid expertise-based intuition, previously thought to be the dominant type. We extend existing typologies to propose a dynamic cyclic model of unfolding intuiting practice in the opportunity navigation process. This model draws on dual process theory and includes phases of intimation, investigation, validation and incubation. We found that strategists cycle through these different phases in order to navigate novel spaces, leading to continuation or abandonment of the opportunity development.

Trade policy uncertainty and corporate innovation: evidence from resource dependence perspective

ABSTRACT Corporate innovation activities under uncertain environment have attracted growing academic attention, yet didn’t reach a consistent result, and the mechanism of firms’ interdependence with other organisations is not well explored. This paper is committed to uncover the latent mechanism from a resource-dependence perspective behind the environment–innovation relationship. Adopting an unbalanced dataset of Chinese public listed firms from 2006 to 2020, this study testifies the positive association between trade policy uncertainty (TPU) and corporate innovation, based on the two-way fixed empirical model. Furthermore, levels of buyer companies’ dependence on major suppliers and implicit government guarantee reinforce the strength of TPU’s prompting effect on innovation output. Our conclusions are robust to a series of sensitivity tests and two-stage least squares (2SLS) instrumental variable method. Heterogeneous analysis shows that the buyer dependence mechanism is exclusively prominent in high-technology firms, and the implicit government guarantee mechanism is more significant among non-high-tech firms.

Examining Environmental Turbulence Intensity: A Strategic Agility and Innovativeness Approach on Firm Performance in Environmental Turbulence Situations

Environmental turbulence refers to the unpredictable changes, developments, and uncertainties in a firm’s external environment. Environmental turbulence consists of market turbulence, technological turbulence, and competition intensity. It causes a shortening of firms’ product life cycles, changes in customer demands, and rapid technological developments. Companies do not control the changes in their external environment. In addition, they cannot manage change by using traditional methods where environmental factors are constantly changing. Thus, environmental turbulence and strategic plans might be reconsidered in today’s business world. This article examines the intensity of environmental turbulence from the strategic agility and innovativeness perspective. The study was conducted using data from Turkey, including medium-high or high technology firms that were located in a technopark or had an R&D center. The survey method was used to collect data for the study and the SPSS Process macro was used to analyze the effects of moderator variables on the relationship between strategic agility and firm innovativeness. Findings indicate that strategic agility positively affects firm innovativeness and that this effect might decrease due to increases in turbulence intensity. Moreover, firm innovativeness positively affects performance, and this effect becomes more robust with increases in turbulence intensity. This study provides practical implications for companies and researchers depending on environmental turbulence diversity.

The negative effects of the US-China trade war on innovation: Evidence from the Chinese ICT industry

Many countries, including China, have gradually realized the importance of leading innovation capabilities in the world market. The innovation capabilities of the information and communication technology (ICT) industry have received widespread attention as an important means to stimulate a productivity revolution in the new era and its innovative development. This paper adopts a differences-in-differences method and treats the US-China trade war as a quasi-natural experiment to empirically analyze its impact on technological innovation in the Chinese ICT industry. The results find that the US-China trade war has a significant negative impact on ICT firms' technological innovation, mainly by increasing their operating costs, and that the negative impact of the trade war is much greater than the positive impact from the reverse incentive effect. Moreover, the decline in technological innovation of ICT firms is mainly due to the reduction in innovation efficiency caused by the decrease in the number of patent applications for inventions with the highest technological content, rather than the change in R&D investment. In the US-China trade war, firms with low financing constraints and non-state enterprises are more significantly affected. Thus, it can be seen that the intention of the US-China trade war to inhibit the development of Chinese high-technology firms has been achieved to a certain extent, which requires new countermeasures from the Chinese government.

Entrepreneurial Entropy: A Resource Exhaustion Theory of Firm Failure From Entrepreneurial Orientation

Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) can generate substantial gains and losses, exhausting firm resources and straining a firm’s ability to sustain its activities. We develop and test a resource exhaustion theory of firm failure, conceptualizing conditions under which EO increases the risk of firm failure by generating unsustainable amounts of entrepreneurial entropy. Using panel data on 804 large U.S. high-technology firms over 18 years, we find that EO increases the risk of firm failure, which is mediated by the lack of organizational resource slack. An abrupt change in EO increases the risk of firm failure, especially among underperforming firms.

Collaborative HRM, climate for cooperation, and employee intra-organizational social ties in high-technology firms in China: A cross-level analysis.

Individual social ties have been an important source of competitive advantages for hightech firms in the knowledge economy. However, the existing cross-level studies have mainly investigated the impact of HRM systems on traditional individual attitudinal or behavioral outcomes, and few studies have examined the effect of SHRM on individual social ties. Based on the data collected from 363 knowledge employees working in 64 high-tech firms in China, we examine the cross-level relationships among collaborative HRM practices, climate for cooperation and employee intra-organizational social ties. The hierarchical linear model results show that organizational-level collaborative HRM practices have significant positive effects on the number and strength of individual-level intra-organizational social ties, and the climate for cooperation mediates the positive cross-level relationship between collaborative HRM and individual intra-organizational social ties. This study makes three contributions to the literature. First, with a cross-level model, this study helps us better understand how collaborative HRM acts as an approach to manage individuals' social capital formation. Second, this study makes contribution to the social network literature by showing how organizational contextual factors (HRM practices and organizational climate) affect employee individual social ties. Third, based on the AMO model, this paper developed a more clear construct and a three-dimension measurement of the collaborative HRM.

U.S. Military Assistance to Europe, NATO’s Military Build Up, and the Start of Intra-European Economic Cooperation, 1947-1955

This contribution pinpoints the interconnectedness between Nato's military buildup at the start of the Atlantic Alliance under the umbrella of U.S. military assistance to Europe, the revamping of a few manufacturing sectors that it fostered across Western Europe, and the early steps in the making of intra-European economic integration through cooperation in military productions. After an introduction, section two cast light on the early U.S. bilateral military assistance programs to western European nations prior to the founding of the Atlantic Alliance. This early U.S. military assistance was based on the transfer of military spare parts, end-items and machine tools and took place without entailing the foundation of full production capacity across Europe. Section three makes sense of the transition from U.S. bilateral assistance to the multilateral structure of NATO’s coordinated production programs, which since 1950 combined military rearmament defence target with domestic economic expansion in each NATO’s member states, close industrial and trade cooperation among them, and continued targeting of dollar gap in Europe through a system of coordinated productions placed by NATO and paid for in U.S. dollars based on a principle of financial burden-sharing among the member nations. Section four pinpoints the evolution of this multilateral procurements system, the OSP programs, through the case study of ammunition contracts and NATO’s infrastructure programs, which served as a flywheel to introduce higher technical content in both high capital intensive and low technological content European firms. After shedding light on the influence of Cold War confrontation on the placing of OSP contracts by the mid-1950s and the ill-functioning of multilateral productions (section five), the article rounds off by stressing how the OSP programs were on the whole successful in combining trade integration, financial stability and technological drift under the umbrella of orders placed and rewarded either by NATO or the Pentagon.

No silver bullet: Cognitive technology does not lead to novelty in all firms

Cognitive technologies including artificial intelligence (AI) represent new ways for firms to create novelty, from finding hidden patterns in data to expanding combinatorial innovation options. All firms should be able to derive value from these approaches, but whether the impacts are felt equally remains unclear. This study sheds light on this dilemma by exploring whether different learning modes and knowledge integration mechanisms yield different innovation outcomes from cognitive technology use. For a representative sample of publicly listed Australian firms, data from a survey coupled with secondary financials reveals strong differences. Scientific and technology-based innovation (STI) firms benefit strongly, implying high-technology firms using codified knowledge can create and sustain an uneven competitive advantage. However, firms innovating by doing, using, and interacting (DUI) – such as service-based firms – yield incremental innovations. These firms may use cognitive technology to solve discrete problems and not for combinatorial innovation, an indication that the myopia of learning extends to the digital domain.

Exploring the influence of innovativeness on the pace of internationalisation of university spin-outs: a born global perspective

ABSTRACT To date, understanding and empirical investigation of the internationalisation processes of university spin-outs (USOs) have been limited. Few studies have explored the role of the specific characteristics of their core technology, in particular their innovativeness, as a determinant of their early internationalisation. This is also an issue which is under-explored within the general international business field. To address this gap, the purpose of our paper is to examine how the innovativeness of USOs influence the pace of their internationalisation. To achieve this, we explore how innovativeness is nurtured and cumulatively developed during born global (BG) and non-born global (NBG) USOs’ pre-foundation technology development trajectory. BGs represent a category of young, usually, high-technology firms that internationalise within 3 years of inception. By exploring the pre-foundation technology development process of Italian USOs across two research-intensive universities, we found that BG and NBG USOs differed in aspects around their innovative proclivity, firm innovativeness and the nature of the innovation. Specifically, we found that BG USOs had a longer pre-foundation period, focused on a specific invention with limited fields of application, and offered ‘really new’ innovations. BG USOs’ products or services were also developed and largely standardised before market entry, which accelerated their internationalisation. In contrast, NBG USOs were characterised by short pre-foundation periods, relied on incremental innovation and a wide spectrum of innovative competencies. They also relied on technologies with a broad scope of market application and customised their offerings based on client needs, which slowed their market entry and internationalisation.

A Boundedly Rational Perspective on the Role of Above-Aspiration in Ambidextrous Aliances Choices

This study investigates an unexplored issue: how firms make boundedly rational decisions in response to above-aspiration performance when configuring exploration and exploitation in an alliance portfolio. We employ behavioral heuristics to explore the role of above-aspiration performance and the influence of a CEO’s cognitive bias towards overconfidence. We also argue that the role of a CEO’s overconfidence in an alliance strategy depends on the degree of attention s/he pays to the latter, and how the attention allocation process is influenced by environmental factors. Three hypotheses are tested using a sample of U.S. high technology firms during 1992-2015. Our results establish that above-aspiration performance motivates firms to engage in exploration rather than exploitation alliances when configuring an alliance portfolio, and that a CEO’s overconfidence strengthens this relationship. The moderating effect of a CEO’s overconfidence decreases with environmental munificence and dynamism. Our study contributes to the literature on the behavioral theory of the firm by adopting a consistent capacity-based logic to examine a firm’s response to above-aspiration performance, and makes an additional contribution to the alliance portfolio literature by deconstructing the alliance portfolio configuration in terms of exploration versus exploitation alliances as a product of bounded rationality.

The Effects of Multi-Dimensionality and Context-Dependency of Patent Signals on Alliance Formation

We extend the literature on the signaling role of patents in terms of unveiling innovative capabilities of the firm by investigating the multi-dimensionality and context-dependency of patent signals in the setting of research and development (R&D) alliance formation. While prior work has largely focused on the signaling effects of the level of patent performance, we argue that such effects are conditioned by the consistency of patent performance (which is another quality dimension of a patent signal) as well as technology overlap and prior ties between prospective partners (both of which constitute a signaling context). Based on empirical analysis on R&D alliances formed between high-technology firms from 1990 to 2000, we find that the tendency of homophilous matching around the patent performance level is positively, curvilinearly, and negatively moderated by the similarity in patent performance consistency, by technology overlap, and by prior ties, respectively. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on alliance formation and quality signals.

Agglomeration and Firm Financing: Evidence from High and New Technology Chinese Firms in the Pearl River Delta

Using firm-level panel data from 1998 to 2015 for high and new technology firms in the Pearl River Delta in China, I investigated the effect of policy-directed industrial agglomeration on firm financing (trade credit and bank loan). I find that small and young firms are more likely to utilize trade credit, while large and old-established firms tend to rely on bank loans. I also find that the agglomeration effect is more remarkable for foreign and private-owned firms both in trade credit and bank loans, while state-owned firms fail to benefit from the effect of industrial agglomeration. These findings suggest that in China, policy-oriented industrial agglomeration plays an important role in alleviating financial constraints. Additionally, endogeneity issue is addressed by using two-stage estimation with instrumental variable and system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation.

Corporate Nature, Financial Technology, and Corporate Innovation in China

Corporate innovation has become the main driving force for the long-term development of enterprises, but the characteristics of high risk, long cycle, and high capital demand of corporate innovation activities expose enterprises to high financial rejection. Financial technology, formed by combining digital technology with traditional financial services, is gradually changing the financial service model and providing new ideas for corporate investment and financing. In this study, using the data of non-financial and non-real estate listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen markets, A-shares from 2015 to 2020, we examine the effect of financial technology on corporate innovation through a fixed-effects model and investigate the influence of corporate characteristics on the relationship between financial technology and innovation through a moderating-effects model. The results show that financial technology enhances the ability to serve real enterprises by reshaping financial services, which in turn effectively drives an increase in corporate innovation, and the mechanism is conditionally heterogeneous. In addition, the moderating effect of the firm’s nature is found to be more significant in non-state-owned firms, high-technology firms, and firms in the growth and maturity stages by life cycle. The policy implications of this study are to continuously promote theoretical research, to guide the development of fintech, and to improve the construction of financial technology infrastructure. Additionally, to deepen the integration of financial technology with real enterprises and establish differentiated financial technology support tools, so as to improve the precision of promoting enterprise innovation.