Knowledge Endowments Research Articles

2-HYDROXY-4-METHOXYBENZALDEHYDE, AN ASTOUNDING FOOD FLAVORING METABOLITE: A REVIEW

Objective: Rich endowment of traditional knowledge plays a critical role in health care, food security, culture, environment and development. Traditional knowledge is also widely used by the aromatic, flavoring, food and health industries. Plant-based traditional medicine has often been used to identify and fast-track the development of modern food and drugs. Plants synthesize such wide array of secondary metabolites that includes alkaloids, glucosinolates, terpenoids and phenylpropanoids. This study is aimed to review on indigenous and exotic medicinal plants containing an astounding food flavoring metabolite; 2-hydroxy-4-methoxybenzaldehyde (HMB).Material and Method: The review focuses on the isomer of vanillin, 2-hydroxy-4-methoxybenzaldehyde, also called MBALD, HMB, or 2H4MB, a flavor compound that is generally found in the roots and rhizomes of medicinal plants. This food flavoring phenylpropenoid is one of the least investigated isomers of vanillin. HMB is known to exhibit a wide array of medicinal properties. Though the molecular role of these metabolites remains largely unknown, they are known to play a key role in plant-environment interactions/stress response/defence signaling and application in pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries.Discussion and Conclusion: One of the key secondary metabolites is the group of phenylproponoids synthesized either through shikimic acid pathway or the malonate/acetate pathway. Phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) is the enzyme involved in phenylpropanoid pathway catalysing the deamination of phenylalanine to synthesize cinnamic acid that subsequently synthesizes variety of phenylpropanoid products. Inspite of its medicinal importance, the regulatory molecular mechanism underlying the biosynthetic pathway is largely unknown.

Measures, Drivers and Effects of Green Employment: Evidence from US Local Labor Markets, 2006-2014

This paper explores the nature and the key empirical regularities of green employment in US local labor markets between 2006 and 2014. We construct a new measure of green employment based on the task content of occupations. Descriptive analysis reveals the following: 1. the share of green employment oscillates between 2 and 3 percent, and its trend is strongly pro-cyclical; 2. green jobs yield a 4 percent wage premium; 3. despite moderate catching-up across areas, green jobs remain more geographically concentrated than similar non-green jobs; and 4. the top green areas are mostly high-tech. As regards the drivers, changes in environmental regulation are a secondary force compared to the local endowment of green knowledge and resilience in the face of the great recession. To assess the impact of moving to greener activities, we estimate that one additional green job is associated with 4.2 (2.4 in the crisis period) new jobs in non-tradable activities in the local economies.

R&D networks and regional knowledge production in Europe: Evidence from a space‐time model

AbstractIn this study we estimate space‐time impacts of the embeddedness in R&D networks on regional knowledge production using a dynamic spatial panel data model with non‐linear effects for 229 European NUTS 2 regions in the period 1998–2010. Embeddedness refers to the positioning in networks where nodes represent regions that are linked by joint R&D projects funded by EU Framework Programmes. We find evidence that increasing embeddedness in EU funded R&D networks leads to positive immediate impacts on regional knowledge production, and that regions with lower levels of own knowledge endowments more likely exploit the positive effects. However, the long‐term impacts of a region's embeddedness in these R&D networks are comparatively small.

Knowledge specialization and R&D collaboration

This paper contributes to the knowledge-based explanation of R&D networks. It argues that knowledge overlap and novelty are complementary inputs of a R&D alliance, in forms that depend upon the exploration breadth and depth of the R&D activity. The paper investigates how the hypothesis of specialization of the knowledge endowments can recover a number of characteristic empirical properties of a pattern of R&D collaboration in the economy. Implications for network evolution are discussed.

Measures, Drivers and Effects of Green Employment: Evidence from US Local Labor Markets, 2006-2014

This paper explores the nature and the key empirical regularities of green employment in US local labor markets between 2006 and 2014. We construct a new measure of green employment based on the task content of occupations. Descriptive analysis reveals the following: 1. the share of green employment oscillates between 2 and 3 percent, and its trend is strongly pro-cyclical; 2. green jobs yield a 4 percent wage premium; 3. despite moderate catching-up across areas, green jobs remain more geographically concentrated than similar non-green jobs; and 4. the top green areas are mostly high-tech. As regards the drivers, changes in environmental regulation are a secondary force compared to the local endowment of green knowledge and resilience in the face of the great recession. To assess the impact of moving to greener activities, we estimate that one additional green job is associated with 4.2 (2.4 in the crisis period) new jobs in non-tradable activities in the local economies.

Labour as a knowledge carrier: how increased mobility influences entrepreneurship

According to the knowledge-based spillover theory of entrepreneurship (KSTE), entrepreneurship is positively associated with the knowledge endowment level. An increase in knowledge expands the opportunity set, which is then exploited by heterogeneous entrepreneurs. The objective of this paper is to empirically test the validity of the KSTE by employing a detailed database comprising more than 19 million observations for the period 2001–2008 at the level of individuals, firms and regions in Sweden. Knowledge is claimed to be partly embodied in labour, implying that an increase in labour mobility can be expected to influence knowledge endowment at the regional level. Our dependent variable is an individual who has remained in a region throughout the time period considered. Controlling for a number of other variables, inter-regional labour inflows and intra-regional mobility levels are shown to exert a strong positive effect on entrepreneurship. This contrasts with inter-regional outflows, which negatively affect entrepreneurial entry. Another noteworthy result is that the probability of exploiting an increased knowledge stock through entrepreneurship increases by 15 % points if the individual has previous experience in starting a firm.

Context-dependent evaluation of climate change policies: competing policies, knowledge and emotions

Climate change policies can compete with policies on other social and environmental problems for limited economic resources. This paper investigates the potential influence of alternative policies on citizens’ preferences for climate change policies. A contingent valuation study was implemented to estimate the impact of observable and unobservable contextual effects of competing polices on climate change valuation. Individuals are also investigated about their endowment of knowledge and emotional reactions to such problems. The results show that citizens’ valuation of climate change policies crucially depends on the context-dependent competing policies. The valuation rises as the number of competing policies increases. This increment becomes economically significant when the competing policies are related to specific problems such as forest fires and development. In addition, the valuation also rises with the amount of knowledge endowed by the individual about the climate change problem, and with the experience of negative emotions such as fear and sadness.

Networking, context and firm-level innovation: Cooperation through the regional filter in Norway

The paper assesses the role for innovation of one aspect which has been generally overlooked by evolutionary economic geography: context. It analyses how context shapes the impact of collaboration on firm-level innovation for 1604 firms located in the five largest city regions of Norway. Specifically, the analysis shows how the benefits to firms of collaborating within regional, national, and international innovation networks are affected by the knowledge endowments of the region within which the firm is located. Using a logit regression analysis, we find, first, that only national and international networking have a significant positive impact on the likelihood of innovation (the former only for process innovation), whereas the regional knowledge endowments have no direct effect. Second, regional cooperation is particularly effective in regions with high investments in R&D, whereas international cooperation is important in regions with an educated workforce – and regional and national collaboration may be ineffective in such cases. We conclude that, in the case of Norway, context is essential in determining the capacity of firms to set up networks and innovate. Regions with an educated workforce can use the resulting absorptive capacity to successfully assimilate knowledge being diffused through global pipelines from faraway places. However, this absorptive capacity is likely to be heavily filtered if regional firms mainly rely on internal connections within Norway.

Service economy, knowledge, and the need for T-shaped innovators

The paper is rooted in the recent Service Science line of research focused on the notion of `T-shaped' knowledge. To the aim of theoretically and conceptually discuss the knowledge endowment required to a `T-shaped' innovator, focus is on the notion of dynamic capabilities as characterizing the human side of service innovation. After a short introduction (Section 1), a model of the affirmation of the knowledge economy and the emergence of the consequent need for T-shaped innovators according to an escalation framework is presented (Section 2). Then, on the basis of the interpretation of T-shaped knowledge developed by adopting a Viable Systems Approach (vSa) perspective, conceptual links between the notions of incremental and radical innovation, on the one hand, and of capabilities and competences, on the other hand, are explored (Section 3). The paper findings provide a taxonomy of T-shaped innovators' capabilities that turn out to be more and more crucial to develop innovation in a context of growing complexity (Section 4). Finally, it moves on to discuss the organizational and technological aspects of management of T-shaped innovators (Section 5), outlining some managerial implications and future research paths (Section 6).

Knowledge, Innovation and Productivity Gains across European Regions

Capello R. and Lenzi C. Knowledge, innovation and productivity gains across European regions, Regional Studies. This paper studies the relationship between knowledge, innovation and productivity in European regions, looking for the sources of spatial heterogeneity across regions in the type of knowledge needed for innovation and in the propensity to innovate, which mostly depend upon specific and systemic context conditions. The conceptual framework of analysis is based on the strong belief that different modes of innovation characterize regions, according to the presence/absence of some context conditions that allow for the creation and/or adoption of knowledge and innovation. Given the differences in knowledge and innovation intensity that characterize each mode/pattern of innovation, expectations are formulated on the achievement of productivity gains in regions characterized by different innovation patterns. Empirical evidence supports the conceptual expectations and shows that in regional innovation patterns based on local scientific knowledge-creation processes there are positive returns to scientific knowledge. However, in less knowledge-intensive patterns considerable productivity gains can also be achieved by local actors exploiting non-scientific knowledge and innovative capacity. Importantly, whereas the benefits accruing from knowledge appear rather selective and concentrated in a relatively small number of regions, the benefits generated by innovation seem more pervasive and beneficial, even in regions with a low endowment of scientific knowledge. These results have considerable implications for the current design of European Union innovation policies at the regional level.

The effects of opportunities and founder experience on new firm performance

Much prior research in entrepreneurship has focused on the role of the founder's knowledge in affecting new firm performance. Yet, little is known about how and why the entrepreneurial opportunity itself shapes outcomes in this arena. We begin filling in this critical gap in the literature by examining how the riskiness of the opportunity not only affects start-up performance, but also conditions the relevance of the founder's distinct knowledge endowments. Analyses of a sample of 451 new firms show that the riskier the opportunity, the greater the performance of the start-up, above and beyond founder characteristics. Moreover, the value of founder knowledge is relative to the type of opportunity exploited: high-risk opportunities favor founders with managerial experience, whereas low-risk opportunities favor founders with industry experience. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Distinguishing between spinouts and non-spinouts: allocating control rights in biotechnology alliances

Spinouts are startups founded by employees of established firms in the same industry. Spinouts inherit technological and market-related knowledge from their parent companies. In contrast, non-spinout startups that do not have such close connections to an industry incumbent firm will have a different endowment of technological and market knowledge. Given this contrast between different startups in a risky science-based industry such as biotechnology, we explore whether spinout startups are different from non-spinouts in how control rights are allocated in strategic alliances. We develop a predictive model to distinguish whether an alliance is a spinout startup or a non-spinout startup.

How Can Imitation Increase Inter-Firm Heterogeneity?

Imitation is thought to lead to a decrease in inter-firm heterogeneity. This outcome rests on the assumption that imitation engenders only one type of implication for the imitating firm: an endowment of knowledge (technologies, product designs, strategies, etc.) about successful practices that makes the imitator more similar to its target. Yet research in the Carnegie tradition points to a second mechanism — imitation moderates a firm's post-imitation adaptation, which we term the generative effect of imitation. In this paper, we use a computational model to examine the implications of this dual role of imitation for inter-firm heterogeneity. As intuition suggests, we find the endowment effect of imitation reduces inter-firm heterogeneity. However the generative effect of imitation is double-edged: it tends to make firms more similar in practices but more different in performance. Our results suggest that the generative effect of imitation produces a bimodal performance distribution; some firms achieve significant benefits from imitation, while many others find themselves significantly worse-off than they would have been had they foregone imitation. Because of its generative effect, imitation can lead to an increase in performance heterogeneity.

When does inward technology licensing facilitate firms' NPD performance? A contingency perspective

Many firms find inward technology licensing (ITL), as a means to access external technological knowledge, an effective and relatively inexpensive way for new product development (NPD). However, although the literature has suggested some advantages and disadvantages of ITL with respect to NPD, the relationship between ITL and licensee firms' subsequent NPD performance has not yet been found convincingly evident. Sharing with many other likeminded scholars and practitioners, we believe that the dynamics between external knowledge, internal capability, external environment, and firm performance should be investigated through a contingency perspective. Thus, this study posits that a firm's propensity to develop new products through ITL is contingent upon two categories of contingency factors that are internal and external to firms. Using a dataset containing information about Chinese firms' licensing activities, we find support for our hypotheses: the positive relationship between ITL and NPD performance of a licensee firm is moderated by firms' absolute and relative absorptive capacity and the knowledge endowment in the region where the licensee firm operates.

Toward moving ‘race-acting’ research into a global perspective

This brief article lightly critiques the research of Burrell and colleagues that examines an innovative theory for understanding the low academic achievement scores of African-American adolescents compared to those of their White peers. It goes on to raise some hitherto muted emotive but attainable scholarly issues about cognitive repertoires and achievement dispositions of the Dark Continent – Africa – its race and Diaspora peoples. It forcefully muses over what and how African-American scholars can contribute to uplift “race-acting” and “acting White” research to a global Black scholarship platform, not in isolation but within scientific communities with the objective of enriching and extending global research trends with humanity’s experiences from Black peoples. This stance is premised on scientific psychology as a racialized discipline that has subverted and continues to exclude or trivialize the social historical experiences and psychological profiles of Black peoples, which are an obvious endowment of human knowledge. It is the onerous task of Black scholars in Africa and its Diaspora to transcend their awful history and fragmented perspectives to research and input, within leading-edge global scholarships, the timeless wisdom and ingenuities intrinsic in Africa’s heritages into global knowledge systems. The terrible circumstances of Black peoples must no longer be allowed to define them; rather they must be applied to define where they want to be in a globalized world. It is incumbent on Black researchers worldwide to evolve science-based actionable vistas of how to attain that desired, respectable end.

Impact of local knowledge endowment on employment growth in nanotechnology

This article investigates the contribution of local knowledge endowment to employment growth in nanotechnology firms. We exploit a unique data set focusing on firms operating in fields that apply nanotechnology. Our findings suggest that regions that offer knowledge can stimulate employment growth in smaller and younger firms. By contrast, being embedded into specialized regions might be counterproductive, especially for firms belonging to a particularly knowledge intensive sector and older firms.

A knowledge-based model of radical innovation in small software firms

In this paper, we adopt the lens of absorptive capacity (ACAP), defined by two dimensions--the knowledge base (consisting of knowledge diversity, depth, and linkages) and routines (consisting of sensing and experimentation)--to explain how a software firm's knowledge endowments influence its level of radical information technology innovation during a technological breakthrough. We distinguish three types of IT innovations--base, processes, and service innovation--that form an innovation ecology. We posit that (1) ACAP is a relational construct where the impact of the knowledge base is mediated by routines; (2) IT innovations are either externally adopted or internally generated; and (3) knowledge antecedents associated with different types of innovations differ. We hypothesize a three-step, mediated path (knowledge base → sensing → experimentation → innovation) for external innovation adoption, and a two-step path (knowledge diversity/depth → experimentation → innovation) for internal innovation creation to explain the software firm's level of radical innovation across three IT innovation types. We validate the model through a cross-sector study that examined how 121 small software firms innovated with Internet computing. We confirm the mediated nature of ACAP for external base innovations, which are driven by all three knowledge-based factors as follows: (1) knowledge depth (direct positive effect); (2) knowledge diversity (mediated three-step path), (3) knowledge linkages (mediated three step path). Process innovations are externally driven by a three-step mediated path for knowledge linkages, as well as being directly affected by knowledge diversity, but negatively and directly impeded by knowledge depth. Service innovations are not driven by any mediated influence of ACAP, but driven directly by knowledge diversity. At the same time, both service and process innovations are strongly influenced by prior IT innovations: base and/or service. Several directions for future studies of radical IT innovation are proposed.

When Do Global Pipelines Enhance the Diffusion of Knowledge in Clusters?

abstractRecent studies have stressed the role played by global pipelines in fostering the growth of clusters and innovativeness. In this article, we develop a formal model to investigate when global pipelines contribute to an increase in local knowledge, depending on various characteristics of clusters such as size, knowledge endowment, and the ease of transmission of internal knowledge. This model is an extension of C owan and J onard’s () model in which we introduce the concept of cluster and a role for spatial proximity in the diffusion of knowledge. Our results reveal that there is a natural tendency of actors within global pipelines to act as external stars, rather than gatekeepers of knowledge. Global pipelines are beneficial for the accumulation of knowledge only if the cluster is either characterized by a high-quality local buzz or is small and weakly endowed in terms of knowledge.

A Knowledge-Based Model of Radical Innovation in Small Software Firms

In this paper, we adopt the lens of absorptive capacity (ACAP), defined by two dimensions--the knowledge base (consisting of knowledge diversity, depth, and linkages) and routines (consisting of sensing and experimentation)--to explain how a software firm's knowledge endowments influence its level of radical information technology innovation during a technological breakthrough. We distinguish three types of IT innovations--base, processes, and service innovation--that form an innovation ecology. We posit that (1) ACAP is a relational construct where the impact of the knowledge base is mediated by routines; (2) IT innovations are either externally adopted or internally generated; and (3) knowledge antecedents associated with different types of innovations differ. We hypothesize a three-step, mediated path (knowledge base → sensing → experimentation → innovation) for external innovation adoption, and a two-step path (knowledge diversity/depth → experimentation → innovation) for internal innovation creation to explain the software firm's level of radical innovation across three IT innovation types. We validate the model through a cross-sector study that examined how 121 small software firms innovated with Internet computing. We confirm the mediated nature of ACAP for external base innovations, which are driven by all three knowledge-based factors as follows: (1) knowledge depth (direct positive effect); (2) knowledge diversity (mediated three-step path), (3) knowledge linkages (mediated three step path). Process innovations are externally driven by a three-step mediated path for knowledge linkages, as well as being directly affected by knowledge diversity, but negatively and directly impeded by knowledge depth. Service innovations are not driven by any mediated influence of ACAP, but driven directly by knowledge diversity. At the same time, both service and process innovations are strongly influenced by prior IT innovations: base and/or service. Several directions for future studies of radical IT innovation are proposed.

The Biotechnology Industry in the Prague Metropolitan Region: A Cluster within a Fragmented Innovation System?

Previous research on regional innovation systems (RISs) has shown that Prague is a prime example of a fragmented metropolitan RIS. Fragmented innovation systems are characterized by a strong endowment of knowledge and innovation infrastructure elements, but they suffer from a lack of local networking, cooperation, and knowledge transmission. The aim of this paper is to investigate the nature and geography of innovation, knowledge sourcing, and collaboration in the emerging and still embryonic biotechnology industry in the Prague metropolitan region. The key questions to be answered are whether this general feature of Prague's innovation system (ie its fragmented structure and the lack of local networking) can also be found in a knowledge-intensive sector, such a biotechnology, or whether sectoral drivers are more significant and the generalized ‘local buzz and global pipelines’ model can also be applied to Prague biotech firms. Our research, in contrast to previous studies, shows that relatively intensive linkages exist within the biotechnology sector. Therefore, our results imply that an RIS, even within a single city, might be more diversified and structured than existing studies and typologies of RISs have suggested.