Low-tech Companies Research Articles

Implications for Mitigating Human Resource and Labor Market Restriction in Low-Tech Sector

The paper aims to explore the main restrictions of human resource (HR) and labor market specifically in Lithuanian low-tech sector and to provide implications for mitigating them in order to improve the competitiveness of this sector.In order to reveal the analyzed problem in depth the expert evaluation method has been chosen. The experts in this research cover professionals from the prominent low-tech companies in Lithuania, mainly top team members. The main findings suggest that the core restrictions for low-tech competitiveness in Lithuania include the lack of highly skilled managers, labor quality and qualifications, and such labor market related boundaries like strict labor laws and low labor market flexibility. According to experts opinion the great effort from Government's side should address the improvement improving labor market regulations in terms of simplification of them and increasing labor market flexibility.

Financial statement informativeness and intellectual capital disclosure

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between financial statement informativeness (FSI) and intellectual capital disclosure (ICD).Design/methodology/approach– While FSI was measured as the explanatory power of financial information in explaining market value, ICD was collected through content analysis of annual reports. A sample of 126 US companies, divided into two groups – high-tech and low-tech companies – were used in this study. Empirical analysis was carried out using the Poisson regression method.Findings– The results show a negative (substitutive) relationship between FSI and ICD, especially in high-tech companies. This indicates that companies with low FSI disclose more information about their IC in annual reports.Practical implications– This study confirms the role of voluntary ICD as a solution towards mitigating the problem of the distortion of financial information due to the lack of accounting recognition of IC as an asset in the financial statements.Originality/value– This is the first empirical study to analyse the relationship between FSI and ICD. Therefore, it serves as feedback to the regulators and standard-setters that recently published recommendations on voluntarily disclosing IC.

Gestão da Cadeia de Valor da Inovação em ambientes de baixa intensidade tecnológica

Neste trabalho propõe-se contribuir para a discussão do tema gestão da inovação em empresas low-tech. A perspectiva da Cadeia de Valor da Inovação aqui adotada, possibilita uma visão ampla da gestão da inovação, não restrita à abordagem tradicional focada no processo de desenvolvimento de produto ou em atividades intensivas em P&D. Através da metodologia de múltiplos casos, buscou-se verificar como essas empresas gerenciam e organizam suas cadeias de inovação e a análise de uma possível convergência com o “modo típico low-tech de inovar” preconizado pela literatura. Os resultados encontrados não sinalizam para a existência de um modo típico de inovar de empresas low-tech vis-à-vis empresashigh-tech. De acordo com a análise dos casos, evidências empíricas apontam que embora essas empresas tenham estratégias, objetivos, recursos e demandas diferenciadas, contrariando a literatura e o senso comum, foi constatado que essas elas organizam e gerenciam suas cadeias de inovação de forma muito semelhante, o que não caracterizaria um modo típico low-techde inovar.

The Balanced Score Card (BSC) in Israeli Hi-Tech and Low-Tech firms

The goal of this research was to explore whether High-Tech and Low-Tech firms apply the BSC approach [13] and whether there are differences in the way and degree of BSC use among these firms. Furthermore, the research explored what are the core measures of each perspective of the BSC and whether Low-Tech and High-Tech companies differ in their use of these core measurements 215 managers from High-Tech and Low-Tech firms, answered performance questionnaire and several background questions. The results show that High-Tech firms implement the BSC model more than Low-Tech firms do. The current research also shows that the leading performance measures can be found in each perspective, and that the High-Tech firms in Israel use the leading measures that belong to the inner processes factor and part of the measures that belong to the customers and sales factor more than the Low-Tech firms. In contrast, there were no distinctive differences between these firms in the case of utilization of the leading measures of the financial factor. The meaning and implications of these findings are discussed and a shorter set of measures: The Kremer Scale of BSC Performance comprised of the core measures that belong to each of the four perspectives of the BSC model, is been proposed.

The impact of autotelic and dynamic capabilities on the performance of knowledge-intensive, low-tech ventures

This article explores the impact of autotelic capabilities on the performance of knowledge-intensive low-tech ventures at start-up stage in terms of initial competitive advantage, survival, growth and innovativeness. It also examines the effect of dynamic capabilities on the performance of these newly-established firms and indicates links among the two types of capabilities. The paper provides evidence that the development of autotelic capabilities can play a significant role in the creation of new knowledge-intensive low-tech ventures. The dimensions of autotelic capabilities, bricolage, improvisational and transcendental capabilities create novel business concepts and establish successful ventures in saturated competitive arenas. Autotelic capabilities act as precursors of dynamic capabilities. The study indicates that low-tech companies that invest and build their strategy on knowledge intensiveness and innovation may develop relatively strong DCs to gain competitive advantage.

The Innovation Management and Partnerships (Knowledge Flow) of the Finnish Small Low Tech Companies

The purpose of this paper is to examine small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) partnerships and co-operation utilization within innovation processes. Industrial firms are gaining ideas for innovation from various sources and their innovative performance depends, besides their internal knowledge resources, also on how successful they are at appropriating knowledge from external sources. This seems to be true also with smaller, low tech and remote firms. According to analysis of Finnish data small low tech companies have a growth oriented innovation activity. The main findings from Finnish cases show that when the renewal is important at the firm level only, cooperation with business partners (consultants, suppliers) is emphasized; however, when the renewal is important at market level then the public sector cooperation with universities etc. is emphasized. 25% of the studied companies had university co-operation. Informal co-operation and short-term education was seen the most important forms of co-operation. The study of SME innovation in Eastern Finland is included in which implemented innovations during 2003?2005 were investigated. This paper is based on a quantitative study of a sample of SMEs located in the Eastern Finland region in Finland. The entrepreneurs completed a research questionnaire which was sent to 3226 entrepreneurs. 381 completed answers were received and the response rate was modest 11,8%, the final analyzed data contains 370 completed answers. The results suggest that the largest backlog appears to be in utilizing universities and public research organizations. The choices of knowledge sources can be attributed to different capabilities of firms and network partners (consumers, universities etc.) in creating and utilizing (exploitation and exploration) respective innovation-enhancing knowledge. Universities and consulting firms also need to exploit new knowledge created in science, practice and by end-users. This means a challenge for universities and other actors to develop their services and capabilities to meet the needs of SMEs and the manner of SMEs to implement innovation processes hand in hand with daily business.

Productivity effects of basic research in low-tech and high-tech industries

R&D encompasses plenty of activities which are usually summarized under the terms of basic research, applied research and development. Although basic research is often associated with low appropriability it provides the fundamental basis for subsequent applied research and development. Especially in the high-tech sector basic research capabilities are an essential component for a firm's success. We use firm-level panel data stemming from Belgian R&D surveys and apply a production function approach which shows that basic research exhibits a premium on a firm's output when compared to applied research and development. When we split the sample into high-tech and low-tech companies, we find a large premium of basic research for firms in high-tech industries, but no premium in low-tech sectors.

Productivity Effects of Basic Research in Low-Tech and High-Tech Industries

R&D encompasses plenty of activities which are usually summarized under the terms of basic research, applied research and development. Although basic research is often associated with low appropriability it provides the fundamental basis for subsequent applied research and development. Especially in the high-tech sector basic research capabilities are an essential component for a firm's success. We use firm-level panel data stemming from Belgian R&D surveys and apply a production function approach which shows that basic research exhibits a premium on a firm's output when compared to applied research and development. When we split the sample into high-tech and low-tech companies, we find a large premium of basic research for firms in high-tech industries, but no premium in low-tech sectors.

Productivity Effects of Basic Research in Low-Tech and High-Tech Industries

R&D encompasses plenty of activities which are usually summarized under the terms of basic research, applied research and development. Although basic research is often associated with low appropriability it provides the fundamental basis for subsequent applied research and development. Especially in the high-tech sector basic research capabilities are an essential component for a firm's success. We use firm-level panel data stemming from Belgian R&D surveys and apply a production function approach which shows that basic research exhibits a premium on a firm's output when compared to applied research and development. When we split the sample into high-tech and low-tech companies, we find a large premium of basic research for firms in high-tech industries, but no premium in low-tech sectors.

Law and Innovation: Evidence from State Trade Secrets Laws

Here, I study the effect of trade secrets laws on R&D and patenting. Stronger secrecy protection could increase or reduce R&D. By reducing spillovers, stronger protection might reduce or raise the return to R&D, depending on whether spillover and own R&D are complements or substitutes. By strengthening appropriability, stronger protection would raise the return to R&D. Empirically, I find a nuanced relation between changes in trade secrets law and R&D among U.S. manufacturers between 1976 and 2006. The relation increased with company size, as measured by sales revenue, and was present among high-tech companies, but not among low-tech companies. The increase in trade secrets protection in California between 1978-84 and 1990-98 was, for the average company in the respective industry, associated with 4.9% less R&D in industrial inorganic chemicals (SIC 2810), a low technology industry, and 14.8% more R&D in pharmaceuticals (SIC 2834), a high technology industry. Further, I find that stronger trade secrets law was associated with reduced patenting, suggesting that trade secrets and patents served as substitutes.

"LOW-TECHNOLOGY": A FORGOTTEN SECTOR IN INNOVATION POLICY

In the discussions on research and technology policy focuses mainly on the dynamic innovation of new technologies. Long term growth, competitive advantages on the world market and employment effects are primarily perceived in new high-tech products. According to this perspective the question as to the future of industrial sectors that produce mature and conventional standard products is not raised at all. Such industrial sectors are, following well-known OECD categories, regarded as low-tech. However, there are a number of convincing examples of sectors and companies that have been successfully innovating low tech products in “high-tech countries” of the European Union.The paper focuses on low-tech companies analysing their innovative capabilities and developmental perspectives. The argumentation is based on results of a recently finished research project on the developmental perspectives of low-tech industries funded by the European Commission (project title: “Policy and Innovation in Low-tech Industries in Europe – PILOT“).

Japan’s banking crisis: An event-study perspective

We calculate abnormal stock returns for Japanese non-financial companies around major events associated with the banking crisis (1995–2000), and find that not all companies were equally sensitive to the malaise of the banking sector: the most affected were small, leveraged, low-tech companies with low credit ratings and low market to book ratios. This is consistent with “credit crunch” theories (companies with limited access to financial markets are sensitive to changes in bank lending) and with claims that innovation is rarely financed by bank debt. We do not find much evidence on the alleged misallocation of loans to support ailing bank clients.

Effect of technological intensity on the relationships among Six Sigma design, electronic-business, and competitive advantage: A dynamic capabilities model study

The implementation of Six Sigma programs must take into consideration the level of technological intensity of the organization to determine the relative impact of program design factors and the applications for electronic business on sustainable competitive advantage (SCA). From a Dynamic Capabilities Model perspective, this research studies the moderating effect of technological intensity on the relationships among Six Sigma program design factors, e-business applications, and SCA for sixty-six manufacturing and service organizations. Technological intensity of a firm is defined as the level of research and development (R&D) expenditures as a percentage of corporate sales revenues. Corporations with greater technological intensity invest more heavily in Research and Development to become more competitive. Factor analysis for ten Six Sigma program design items resulted in five program design factors. High technological intensive firms are perceived as attaching a greater importance to certain design factors that are related to electronic-business practices, as compared to other design factors for low technological intensive companies. Similarly, different program design factors are associated with SCA for high-tech than for low-tech companies. Finally only high-tech companies have applications of Six Sigma to electronic-business practices that are correlated with SCA. The recent evolution of Six Sigma programs from manufacturing companies to service organizations suggests competitive opportunities exist for firms to enhance their success, especially in terms of process improvement design factors and applications to electronic-business.

High tech firms: Does mission matter?

What role does a mission statement play in the context of high tech organizations? And what is the nature of the relationship between a high tech company's formal mission statement and performance? Traditionally, the mission statement has been regarded as the essential starting point in designing an effective and successful strategy for virtually any firm. However, the role and impact of mission statements within high tech firms has not received any significant empirical consideration in the literature of the past twenty years. This is somewhat surprising since the importance of high tech firms to an economy's future growth is well accepted. Moreover, it is almost impossible to pick up a standard text on strategic planning without some mention of the virtues and importance of having a well developed mission statement. At the same time, there is much literature and research which confirms the existence of unique and special organizational arrangements for high tech (as opposed to low tech) companies. Thus, if mission is important to firm success, one would also expect to find significant differences in the content and characteristics of mission statements between high tech and other corporate situations. The current study reports the results of a survey on the use and performance impact of mission statements among a group of high-tech and low-tech companies. The research confirms that there are important and major differences in the content of the mission statements between these two groups. However, for high tech firms, differences in mission statements do not necessarily translate into variations in financial performance. The research also demonstrates that significant differences exist between high and low tech companies in terms of the factors “driving” the mission statements. These drivers, in turn, sometimes bear somewhat significantly on firm performance but, more critically, impact the behavior of organizational members. The research, therefore, confirms an emerging notion that mission statements primarily influence the behavior of firm members and it is the organizational members' behaviors which, in turn, impact financial performance.

The politics of technology management: influence and tactics in project selection

It is observed that technical information presented in aformalized way is used as ‘rational’ evidence to suport one particular point of view during the process of project selection. This ‘political’ action increases the chances of a favoures course of action being carried through provided that its output lends support to the actor's prior viewpoint. It is argued that the framework provided that its output lends support to the actor's prior viewpoint. It is argued that the framework provided by the rational actor model gives a biased and unrealistic view of the selection process because this political dimension is ignored. In the evidence presented here, and attempt is made to identify the discriminating factors associated with the supportive use of technical information at the level of the individual, the organization and the project. The data indicate that technical information is most likely to be used in a political manner by mature managers working in relatively small, low-tech companies. It is concluded that the supportive role played by technical information is political and symbolic in nature.