Terms Of New Products Research Articles

Free trade agreements (FTAs) and export structures: evidence from Thailand

This study aims to investigate the role of (in-effect) FTAs in influencing export structures, defined as intensive margin, extensive margin (products and markets) and sophistication at product level using Thailand’s FTA-partner countries as a case study during 2006-2020. The results show that FTAs tended to generate favorable impacts in enhancing export structures in Thailand, except the extensive margin in terms of new products. The preferential treatments noticeably expanded (existing) export products of Thailand into the FTA-partner countries (the extensive margin in terms of markets) and helped maintain traditional products exporting into these countries. Impacts of FTAs in improving the intensive and extensive margins were pronounced in Middle-income partners and in manufacturing products. ASEAN and China were export destinations where FTAs driven the intensive and extensive margins (markets) played a noticeable role. Importance of AFTA and ASEAN-China FTA was also observed when export sophistication is concerned. Imports through FTAs only helped enhance export sophistication.

Investments in R&D and innovative behavior: an exploratory cross-country study

The relationship between investments in research and development (R&D) and innovative behavior, measured in terms of new products or services being delivered to the market, is well documented in the literature. This paper departs from the extant literature in that the unit of observation is a country rather than a firm. Using World Bank aggregate data, this level of analysis thus allows for a systematic study of cross-country observations on an R&D ➔ Innovation relationship.

Export diversification, margins and economic growth at industrial level: Evidence from Thailand

AbstractThis paper examines the relationship between export diversification, export margins and economic growth at the industry level using Thailand as a case study during 2002–16. Our results show that the effects of export diversification and margins on economic growth vary across industries. Export diversification helps boost growth only in some sectors, including electronics, automotive and chemicals, plastic and rubber, while in the processed food, and textiles and apparel industries, specialisation matters more in promoting growth. In almost all industries, a non‐linear relationship between diversification and economic growth is not revealed, except in textiles and apparel. The diversification is crucial in enhancing the impact of exports on growth only in the processed food and textiles and apparel industries. Expansion of intensive margins plays an important role in boosting growth in key industries within Thailand. The role of extensive margins, both in terms of new products and new market destinations, in promoting economic growth is limited. For extensive margins (new products), it is found to be significant in boosting economic growth only in processed food and textiles and apparel, while in the case of extensive margins (new market destinations), its significance in boosting growth is revealed only in the electronics sector.

Food and non alcoholic beverages: Branding through social media

Food and non-alcoholic beverages industry in India has shown major growth and development as one of the fastest growing sectors in India in terms of new products introduced and markets captured. The young population of India who are the major consumers of this sector have meanwhile grown up with internet and a majority of them are prolific users of social media. Brands have discovered social media as a vehicle for marketing communications during this last decade. Major food and non-alcoholic beverages companies are now using popular social media to reach their customers. This article describes a study on the use of social media by the brands in this sector. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube users have been studied through a survey to understand the impact of brand communications by food and non-alcoholic beverages brands. Overall satisfaction with social media brand communications, brand equity. and purchase intention has been studied. Social value in this context refers to the perceived benefits of enhancing customer's social well-being and relationships. Followers of a brand's communications through various platforms are people who share some common interest on a certain brand. The social aspects enable customers to share information and help others solve product related problems. Their educational qualifications and familiarity with internet and web 2.0 technologies ensure that they have a higher participation in social media. It was observed that 60% of the sample consists of students followed by professionals, businesspeople and private employees. This is also consistant with the age groups where majority are between 18–25 since most people study during this age.

Strategy, Corporate Culture, Structure and Operational Processes as the Context for the Innovativeness of an Organization

Abstract The paper refers to relationships between the innovativeness of an organization and its selected determinants such as strategy, corporate culture, structure and operational processes. Research was conducted among 200 managers at the top, middle and operational levels of management (200 companies operating in Poland implementing innovations - innovative companies). Conditions leading to innovations are described as the combination of processes, which result from the internal and external dynamics of a given entity. The analysis assumed that the assessment of company innovativeness would be based on an assessment of whether the company is a leader in the industry in terms of new products (the higher the rating, the more innovative the company is considered to be). The relationship between the dimensions of the company's functioning and the degree of its innovativeness was rated on the basis of two measures: the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient and the chi-square coefficient. It was assumed that the most innovative companies have structures similar to organic ones, with a weak influence of the elements of mechanistic structures. This assumption was proven in relation to features of organizations considered important for innovativeness.

Food and Non Alcoholic Beverages: Branding through Social Media

Food and non-alcoholic beverages industry in India has shown major growth and development as one of the fastest growing sectors in India in terms of new products introduced and markets captured. The young population of India who are the major consumers of this sector have meanwhile grown up with internet and a majority of them are prolific users of social media. Brands have discovered social media as a vehicle for marketing communications during this last decade. Major food and non-alcoholic beverages companies are now using popular social media to reach their customers. This article describes a study on the use of social media by the brands in this sector. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube users have been studied through a survey to understand the impact of brand communications by food and non-alcoholic beverages brands. Overall satisfaction with social media brand communications, brand equity. and purchase intention has been studied. Social value in this context refers to the perceived benefits of enhancing customer's social well-being and relationships. Followers of a brand's communications through various platforms are people who share some common interest on a certain brand. The social aspects enable customers to share information and help others solve product related problems. Their educational qualifications and familiarity with internet and web 2.0 technologies ensure that they have a higher participation in social media. It was observed that 60% of the sample consists of students followed by professionals, businesspeople and private employees. This is also consistant with the age groups where majority are between 18–25 since most people study during this age.

What Is Known About Defence Research And Development Spill-Overs?

This article surveys the body of available evidence regarding the spill-over effects of defence R&D. It reviews the routes through which defence R&D spills over to the economy with positive externalities – in terms of new products, technologies or processes; the barriers that impede or block such a process; potential negative repercussions, and the measure of such effects. The main conclusion is that the uncertainty of these effects, and the inaccurate appraisal of their value, hardly supports informed decisions concerning defence R&D policies.

Labor time measurement at an enterprise: it`s importance and trends under modern conditions (review)

In modern conditions, the enterprise exhibits an increasing interest in the instruments helping to rationalize the work. The rationalization presents the base to regulate the labor process and its remuneration and the instrument to manage labor expenses. It can be used as a factor to increase the employees motivation and as a tool to manage labor costs. Application of an effective system of labor rationing ensures a more efficient use of labor and of all other production factors as well. However, in the absence of a clear understanding of the role of the processes of labor normalization in the functioning of enterprises, it often becomes difficult to adapt the regulation system to production trends. The main feature of the labor evaluation at this stage is the growing share of research and development activities, the difficulty to develop standards because it is impossible to establish the exact terms of new products manufacturing and because of creative nature of scientific work with its inherent uncertainty effect. The article describes the role of labor rationing in enterprise’s activity under modern conditions, discusses advantages and disadvantages of modern approaches to the management. It emphasized the necessity to regard the labor assessment as a tool to regulate the production process at a plant. The approach to consider the labor rationing as a separate business process allows to manage it, to design, regulate, optimize, plan, and monitor the performance. This approach facilitates the development of relevant standards in accordance with modern features, the impact of external and internal production factors , as well as to the develop and to improve the labor regulation system.

EUROPEAN CHEMICAL INDUSTRY COMPETITIVENESS: HISTORICAL TRENDS AND DEVELOPMENT PROSPECTS

The purpose of the paper is to analyze historical trends and development prospects of the European chemical industry competitiveness. It is concluded that the chemical industry is one of the EU’s most successful spheres, boasting €527 billion in sales in 2013, making it the second-largest global manufacture. Methodology . To explain the competitiveness of the EU chemical branch in the global market, it is proposed the constant-market share methodology to chemical exports coupled with econometric analysis. Results . The constant market share (CMS) approach to assessing competitiveness, developed in the 1970 s for analysis of trade, is based on the principle that changes in the geographic and product structures of exports will affect a country’s export growth relative to that of the world, and that is way its global export market share. There were analyzed the EU biggest exporters (Germany, France, Italy, UK, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Poland), the USA, Japan; China, India, Saudi Arabia, Brazil. Practical implication . The analysis presents the results of competitiveness assessment in a different way, showing the average annual growth rate of EU and world chemical exports in the top section and then decomposing the gap between the two into that thanks to growth dynamics (structure effect) and competitive effect. It is defined a lot of factors that are important to industrial competitiveness. On the cost side, in many industries labor is a large enough share of overall production costs that international differences in salaries can have a large bearing on competitiveness. Costs are also affected by a variety of government policies. It is also defined that innovation is one of the most important factors, which opens up new opportunities both in terms of new products and more efficient processes for manufacturing existing products. Value/originality . Given analysis helps to understand the causes and factors that have an impact on the European chemicals competitiveness what gives an opportunity to make forecasts and prospects of the future development of this sector.

When publications lead to products: The open science conundrum in new product development

This paper examines interdependencies between firms’ activities in the realms of open science and commercial product development. We present a theoretical framework that outlines when a firm’s involvement in academic communities enhances its innovative performance in terms of new products in development. We argue that the disclosure of more, valuable R&D work in quality scholarly publications and collaborations with academic partners positively affect firm innovation. We further hypothesize a differential effect of adopting open science strategies on the innovation type, being more pronounced for radical innovations than for incremental innovations. We empirically analyze a unique panel dataset containing information on the product innovation performance and R&D activities of 160 UK therapeutic biotechnology firms over the period 1998- 2009. Our results from count data models on the number of new products in development provide empirical support for our hypotheses.

Dark innovation

As computing technologists, we tend to think of innovations in terms of new products or services supported by, or made of, computing technologies. But there are other types of innovation besides products. There are process innovations, such as McDonald's method of making hamburgers fast; social innovations, such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving; and business model innovations, such as Starbucks replacing a coffee shop with an Internet cafe. In all these categories, we tend to think of innovations as new ways of doing things that positively impact many people.

MicroLink strategy drives innovation

PurposeThe aim is to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.Design/methodology/approachThis briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the article in context.FindingsWhen people think of innovation it is generally in terms of new products or services. This may be especially so in the context of IT where recent decades have seen a constant stream of new offerings, usually marketed with the prefix “innovative”.Practical implicationsThe piece provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.Originality/valueThe briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to digest format.

Scale Reduction and Dispersion of Production Systems (Value Chain): A New Opportunity for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Managers of established firms as well as emerging firms continually search for unique strategies that ensure better returns with minimal risk, and that enable their businesses to effectively outsmart the competitive challenges by attaining the advantages in terms of innovation, cost efficiency and market responsiveness. While large firms struggle to sustain the innovativeness and market responsiveness as they experience inertia due to size, Whereas the small firms on the growth trajectory search for strategic means to overcome the competitive challenges and explore ways to break the industry barriers. Managers and organizational design experts have been proposing a variety of strategic and organizational solutions to sustain the dynamism and enable the firms to match the competition in terms of new products, lower cost, quality, and customer service. We propose in this paper, how a shoaling (school of fish design) approach will serve as distinctive corporate and business strategy and will benefit the firms to operate in a most nimble and effective way. This unique strategy will enable a large firm operate like a smaller firm as well as offer the small firm(s) many ways to cope with rivalry from larger players. On the one hand, this strategy reduces the opportunity cost of not exploiting the fleeting opportunities, and on the other hand reduces the sunk cost and investment risk by operating as dispersed but in a synchronized manner like the school of fish. We contemplate the economic and managerial rationale of the ‘shoaling strategy or disaggregated and dispersed organization’, and its significance in the context of knowledge economy and turbulence experienced in several markets and industries.

MANAGING AND OPTIMIZING INNOVATION PROCESSES IN COLLABORATIVE AND VALUE CREATING NETWORKS

Management and optimization of innovation processes are highly important for every company that depends on keeping up with market and technological evolution. Methods for the managing and optimizing of innovation processes in networks are just beginning to arise. Among different ways of creating value, successfully managed innovation processes bear the highest overall potential: On the operational level, it creates immediate value in terms of new products while on the strategic level, survival and competitiveness of the company can be assured by creating long-range, intangible values like technology leadership and a secured position in an ever-changing market environment. Therefore, innovation in networks has entered the spotlight of scientific research and industrial application. It requires new managing concepts and sophisticated information-technology-based tools. In this article, we present a model that allows to manage structural relationships within innovation networks and additionally to introduce a conceptual optimization approach.

Microfibrillated cellulose and new nanocomposite materials: a review

Due to their abundance, high strength and stiffness, low weight and biodegradability, nano-scale cellulose fiber materials (e.g., microfibrillated cellulose and bacterial cellulose) serve as promising candidates for bio-nanocomposite production. Such new high-value materials are the subject of continuing research and are commercially interesting in terms of new products from the pulp and paper industry and the agricultural sector. Cellulose nanofibers can be extracted from various plant sources and, although the mechanical separation of plant fibers into smaller elementary constituents has typically required high energy input, chemical and/or enzymatic fiber pre-treatments have been developed to overcome this problem. A challenge associated with using nanocellulose in composites is the lack of compatibility with hydrophobic polymers and various chemical modification methods have been explored in order to address this hurdle. This review summarizes progress in nanocellulose preparation with a particular focus on microfibrillated cellulose and also discusses recent developments in bio-nanocomposite fabrication based on nanocellulose.

Aligning supply chain management and new product development: a theoretical framework

Product features are defined by new product development (NPD) process so to fulfil clients' requirements. Supply chain performances are affected by product features. The magnitude of this effect is determined by supply chain decisions. In order to satisfy client's needs, in terms of new products, service level and costs, supply chain management (SCM) decisions should be aligned to product features, i.e., to the output of NPD process. Literature analysis shows that external and internal product variety and product novelty are the main product features to be considered to align SCM decisions to NPD. We developed a framework for NPD-SCM alignment assessment that takes into account all these relevant variables. NPD-SCM alignment is reached when the level of variety/innovation that is created during NPD and the variety/innovation that is/can be transported by the supply chain is equal to clients needs. A case study is presented to support the framework.

O mundo envelhece: é imperativo criar um pacto de solidariedade social

Abstract This text presents the key topics, which guided the discussions about demographic change and the resultant public health implications. With the ageing of the societies, the health problems of the elderly put pressure on health and social security systems. With regard to work and social wellbeing, there are three important sub-topics: the labor market and the elderly; social security and questions related to shelter for the aged population. The ageing process normally occurs in good health conditions unless there is disease. In addition, the scientific and technological achievements in the health area allow for a better quality of life for the elderly. This is why preventive strategies over the lifespan turned more important for meeting today's challenges and increasingly those of tomorrow. As refers to innovation and markets, longevity creates numberless opportunities especially in terms of new products and markets. On the other hand, the term "productive ageing" has been widely used for defining the increasing trend towards a life style in an ageing society. Finally we will approach the topic ageing and development showing that the demographic shift is already one of the most urgent global problems, being addressed by public policies both in the developed and developing countries.

Reaching for the Stars: Who Pays for Talent in Innovative Industries?

Firms that want to innovate successfully need to hire and motivate highly talented workers. This paper makes a key connection between the potential returns to innovation in terms of new products and the structure of compensation to skilled employees. We use linked employer-employee data to show that software firms that operate in software sectors with high potential upside gains to innovation (as in video games or Internet firms) pay more to 'star' workers than do other firms that operate in stable markets (like mainframe software). Firms operating in product domains with highly skewed positive returns are shown to pay employees more in up-front starting salaries and to offer much higher compensation growth. Thus, these firms appear to pay for initial skills and also to pay much more for effort and experience: star workers who stay with these firms are paid more than in other firms. The large effects on earnings are robust to the inclusion of a wide range of controls for both worker and firm characteristics. We also show that firms that have actually developed products with high revenues or that have hit home runs pays compensation that is even higher.

On Governance and Agency Issues in Small Firms

The study of small businesses has received limited attention by financial economists. This volume makes important strides in redressing this oversight. I believe that small businesses offer important research opportunities but also present substantial challenges. In this note, I discuss aspects of each. Small businesses are intrinsically interesting and important. They account for almost half the overall employment in the United States; moreover, over the last decade this sector has been responsible for two-thirds of new jobs. The juxtaposition of these two statistics highlights the important role that these firms play in terms of the dynamics of the larger economy. They are responsible for a disproportionate number of innovations--both in terms of new products and new processes. Someone with an innovative idea can capitalize on it by starting a small business to exploit the idea. And the more robust this sector, the larger the pool of experiments being undertaken and the more rapid the overall rate of innovation within the economy. Small businesses provide an important set of research opportunities for financial economists. It is useful to think of identifying those factors that are important determinants of corporate policy decisions as running a regression. The precision of economists' estimate of the impact of a factor such as operating risk on a decision like target leverage depends on the observed variation in the right-hand-side variable. This sector includes extreme examples of factors that are common to a broad range of companies. An obvious example is firm size. Although at some level, size is endogenous, researchers regularly treat it as predetermined; it frequently is important in explaining leverage, risk management, payout, board structure, and compensation policy decisions. This sector also includes firms that have high operating risk, that own assets that are quite firm specific, and that have low transparency. Small businesses frequently are closely held. By eschewing public capital markets, entrepreneurs maintain control and avoid regulatory burdens. These firms thus offer extreme observations on ownership concentration, and on the overlap between ownership and management. As a result, these firms tend to exploit leasing and risk-management opportunities more extensively than otherwise similar public firms. Finally, this sector includes richer variation in the choice of organizational form--corporation, limited liability corporations, partnerships--than is reflected in the firm populations that are more regularly studied. This variation provides potentially useful texture in our understanding of important firm policy choices. For all these reasons, data from small businesses substantially expand our range of observations and thus the power of our tests. Voordeckers, Van Gils, and Van den Heuvel (2007) offer a good example; they examine data that differs materially from that typically reported. They analyze 211 small and medium-sized Belgian firms. They examine the effects of firm size, firm age, life-cycle stage, and various characteristics of the CEOs and their families, in explaining the firms' board composition. Because this analysis employs Belgian data, it has the potential to make substantial contributions to our understanding of the role that the business environment plays in governance systems. To identify the impact of the legal system or the tax code, one must be able to observe decisions across legal and tax environments. The U.S. legal system evolved from the British common law; the Belgian legal system evolved from the Napoleonic Code. Tax law also plays a potentially important role in explaining observed board composition. For instance, in a U.S. family-owned corporation, family members would receive two checks--compensation as a return to labor services plus dividends as a return to capital ownership. Before the recent change in the taxation of dividends, both checks would be treated as ordinary income to the individuals but only compensation would be deductible to the corporation. …

Managing diversity and innovation in a complex organisation

In this paper, the triangle of diversity, innovation and complexity is discussed and the proposition examined that it is the complexity of the first two, which creates the challenge for management. Diversity is defined not only in terms of products, markets, technology, but also in the different kinds of people who are found in different activities. The paper considers the balance of centralised and decentralised systems, which is appropriate to the management of diversified enterprises and the criteria by which constituent businesses within a group may be judged - and retained or disposed of. Innovation also is not defined only in terms of new products; it embraces new ways of thinking and, essentially of generating and coping with change. In a changing world, this imputes high priority to the management of innovation. In large, complex organisations, benefits can accrue to innovation because of their ability to handle the investment, skills and time-scales involved. This depends, substantially, on a culture in which the entrepreneurial flair that does exist in such organisations can flourish.