Browsing Danish Research Unit for Industrial Dynamics (DRUID) by Title
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On Some Problems in Recent ResearchOn Inter-firm RelationsFoss, Nicolai J. (Frederiksberg, 1999)[More information][Less information]
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Maskell, Peter; Lorenzen, Mark (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The many competing schools of thought concerning themselves with industrial clusters have at least one thing in common: they all agree that clusters are real life phenomena characterized by the co-localization of separate economic entities, which are in some sense related, but not joined together by any common ownership or management. So hierarchies they are certainly not. Yet, it is usually taken for granted that clusters, almost regardless of how they are defined, all expatriate the 'swollen middle' of various hybrid 'forms of long-term contracting, reciprocal trading, regulation, franchising and the like' residing somewhere between hierarchies and markets. This fundamental (but usually implicit) assumption would, perhaps, be justified if markets could be reduced to events of exchange of property rights, between large numbers of price-taking anonymous buyers and sellers supplied with perfect information as they are commonly conceived in mainstream economics. One of the original attractions of Neoclassical price theory was precisely that it promised a way of analysing the economy in general and market exchange in particular independently of specific institutional settings. However, introducing transaction costs as more than fees paid to intermediaries leads inevitably to comparative institutional analysis and, not to be forgotten, to the perception of markets as institutions with specific characteristics of their own. Some sets of characteristics are so common that they represent a specific market organization or market form. The cluster is one such specific market organization that is structured along territorial lines because this enables the building of a set of institutions that are helpful in conducting certain kinds of economic activities. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7265 Files in this item: 1
03-14.pdf (290.9Kb) -
local buzz, global pipelines and the process of knowledge creationBathelt, Harald; Malmberg, Anders; Maskell, Peter (København, 2002)[More information][Less information]
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The Case of the digital AmplifierFrøslev Christensen, Jens; Holm Olesen, Michael; Kjær, Jonas (København, 2004)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper addresses an issue of great importance for the future organization of the consumer electronics industry: the "battle" of control over component-based digitization. We are now witnessing the dismantling of the Japanese Model that has prevailed in consumer electronics over the past 30 years. Specialized and large-scale component suppliers have taken the lead in most component-based innovations and have obtained increasingly powerful positions in the value chain of consumer electronics. This paper provides an in-depth study of the strategic and structural ramifications of one such component-based innovation, the current transformation of sound amplification from conventional to digital amplifiers. We study the early formation of this new technology as especially reflected in the particularly dynamic cluster of innovation in Denmark and extend the analysis to the global strategizing around this new technology. A framework is developed to explain the reluctance of most of the large consumer electronics giants in developing/adopting this new technology. Key words: Consumer electronics, Industrial dynamics, Open Innovation JEL Codes: L6, L68, O32 URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7201 Files in this item: 1
04-11.pdf (359.9Kb) -
The Impact of Human Capital Diversity, Experience and Compensation on Firm Performance in Engineering ConsultingLaursen, Keld; Mahnke, Volker; Vejrup-Hansen, Per (Frederiksberg, 2005)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The paper investigates the relationship between human capital characteristics and firm performance in engineering consulting. Because general experience, firm-specific human capital and diversity carry specific costs and benefits we hypothesize curvilinear (taking inverted U-shapes) relations to firm performance. We find little effect of general experience and firm-specific human capital, but the findings give some support for the curvilinear relation between performance and human capital diversity. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7889 Files in this item: 1
DRUID_05_04.pdf (352.0Kb) -
Do Export and Technological Specialisation Patterns Co-evolve in Terms of Convergence or Divergence?Laursen, Keld (Frederiksberg, 1998)[More information][Less information]
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Drejer, Ina; Laursen, Keld (Frederiksberg, 1997)[More information][Less information]
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Frøslev Christensen, Jens (Frederiksberg, 1998)[More information][Less information]
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Some Cross-Country EvidenceBjørnskov, Christian; Foss, Nicolai J. (Frederiksberg, 2006)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: While much attention has been devoted to analyzing how the institutional framework and entrepreneurship impact growth, how economic policy and institutional design affect entrepreneurship appears to be much less analyzed. We try to explain cross-country differences in the level of entrepreneurship by differences in economic policy and institutional design. Specifically, we use measures of economic freedom from the Economic Freedom of the World database to examine which elements of economic policy making and the institutional framework are responsible for the supply of entrepreneurship Our data on entrepreneurship are derived from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. The combination of these two datasets is unique in the literature. We find that the size of government is negatively correlated with entrepreneurial activity but that sound money is positively correlated with entrepreneurial activity. Other measures of economic freedom are not significantly correlated with entrepreneurship. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7876 Files in this item: 1
DRUID_06_18.pdf (261.1Kb) -
Some Austrian InsightsFoss, Nicolai J. (Frederiksberg, 2001)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: I critically discuss recent claims about economic organization in the emerging “knowledge economy,” specifically that authority relations will tend to disappear (or at least become radically transformed), the boundaries of the firm will blur, and coordination mechanisms will be much more malleable than assumed in organizational economics, resulting in various “new organizational forms.” In particular, the price mechanism will be used inside hierarchies to a much greater extent. In order to obtain an analytical focus on the knowledge economy, I assume that it may be approximated by “Hayekian settings” (after Hayek 1945), that is, settings in which knowledge is distributed and where knowledge inputs are relatively more important in production than physical capital inputs. I then argue, drawing on organizational economics as well as Mises’ insights in property rights and comparative systems, that the presence of Hayekian settings does not mean that authority will disappear, etc., although economic organization will in fact be affected by the emergence of the knowledge economy. This suggests that Austrian economics has an important contribution to make to the study of economic organization. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7899 Files in this item: 1
DRUID_01_07.pdf (99.18Kb) -
Comparing inter-firm labor mobility in the music industry and manufacturing industriesFrederiksen, Lars; Sedita, Silvia Rita (Frederiksberg, 2005)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper adds new knowledge to the phenomenon of transferring embodied knowledge through labor mobility by means of a comparative study of the entertainment and manufacturing industries. Explorative in nature, the paper takes advantage of unique data on the Danish labor market (i.e. IDA) to investigate labor mobility patterns for the two selected industries and to detect internal differences within industry segments and regarding creative intensive and invention activities in particular. We use the music industry as a proxy for the entertainment industries. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7887 Files in this item: 1
DRUID_05_14.pdf (1.449Mb) -
Challenges and CharacteristicsFoss, Nicolai J. (Frederiksberg, 2006)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The “knowledge governance approach” is characterized as a distinctive, emerging approach that cuts across the fields of knowledge management, organisation studies, strategy, and human resource management. Knowledge governance is taken up with how the deployment of governance mechanisms influences knowledge processes, such as sharing, retaining and creating knowledge. It insists on clear micro (behavioural) foundations, adopts an economizing perspective, and examines the links between knowledge-based units of analysis with diverse characteristics and governance mechanisms with diverse capabilities of handling these transactions. Research issues that the knowledge governance approach illuminates are sketched. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7880 Files in this item: 1
DRUID_06_10.pdf (170.2Kb) -
Any Gains from TradeFoss, Nicolai J.; Klein, Peter G. (København, 2004)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Although they have developed very much in isolation from each other, we argue the theory of entrepreneurship and the economic theory of the firm are closely related, and each has much to learn from the other. In particular, the notion of entrepreneurship as judgment associated with Frank Knight and some Austrian school economists aligns naturally with the theory of the firm. In this perspective, the entrepreneur needs a firm, that is, a set of alienable assets he controls, to carry out his function. We further show how this notion of judgment adds to the key themes in the modern theory of the firm (i.e., the existence, boundaries, and internal organization). In our approach, resource uses are not data, but are created as entrepreneurs envision new ways of using assets to produce goods. The entrepreneur’s decision problem is aggravated by the fact that capital assets are heterogeneous. Asset ownership facilitates experimenting entrepreneurship: Acquiring a bundle of property rights is a low cost means of carrying out commercial experimentation. In this approach, the existence of the firm may be understood in terms of limits to the market for judgment relating to novel uses of heterogeneous assets; and the boundaries of the firm, as well as aspects of internal organization, may be understood as being responsive to entrepreneurial processes of experimentation. Key words: Entrepreneurship, heterogeneous assets, judgment, ownership, firm boundaries, internal organization. JEL Codes: B53, D23, L2 URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6429 Files in this item: 1
04-12.pdf (343.6Kb) -
The Conflicting Legacies of Demsetz and PenroseFoss, Nicolai J. (Frederiksberg, 1997)[More information][Less information]
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Laursen, Keld; Vejrup-Hansen, Per (Frederiksberg, 1999)[More information][Less information]
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Some Austrian InsightsFoss, Nicolai J. (Frederiksberg, 1998)[More information][Less information]
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Foss, Nicolai J. (Frederiksberg, 1996)[More information][Less information]
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economic and scientific specialisation among OECD countriesLaursen, Keld; Salter, Ammon (København, 2002)[More information][Less information]
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A Rank-Size AnalysisLorenzen, Mark; Vaarst Andersen, Kristina (Frederiksberg, 2007)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Using novel statistical data, the paper analyzes the geographical distribution of Richard Florida’s creative class among 445 European cities. The paper demonstrates that size matters, i.e. cities with a high proportion of creative class tend to get more creative through attraction of still more creative labor. More specifically, the distribution of the European creative class falls into three phases, each approximating a rank-size rule, with different exponents (i.e., inequality). The exponent for the smallest cities is profoundly more negative than for the middle-sized cities, and this tendency is stronger for the creative class than for the general population. Furthermore, the exponent of the largest cities is slightly less negative than the middle-sized cities, and this tendency is also stronger for the creative class. In order to explain this, the paper presents four propositions about how effects of large and small population sizes of cities may be more detrimental to attracting the creative class than attracting the population in general. Below a population size of approximately 70,000 inhabitants, there is a rapid drop of attractiveness to the creative class with decreasing city size. We propose that this may be because below this size, cities begin to drop below minimum efficient market sizes for particular creative services, below minimum labor market sizes for particular creative job types, and below minimum levels of political representation by the creative class. Above a European city population size of approximately 1,2 million inhabitants, the attractiveness of increasing city size for the creative class drops, and we propose that the creative class may respond particularly adversely to urban congestion. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7871 Files in this item: 1
DRUID_07_17.pdf (317.3Kb) -
The Role of Multinational EnterprisesNarula, Rajneesh; Zanfei, Antonello (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper undertakes a brief evaluation of the trends in the internationalization of innovative activities. We provide a taxonomy of R&D internationalization strategies, and discuss the main relevant theoretical and empirical issues, before discussing the centripetal and centrifugal forces underlying the nature and evolution of cross border innovation. We address the issue of international technology partnering as a key strategy that is complementary to the internationalisation of innovative activities through internal means, before raising important policy dimensions and directions for future research that derive from these debates. Key words: R&D internationalization, globalisation, multinationals, alliances, technology policy JEL Codes: F23, O32 URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6628 Files in this item: 1
03-15.pdf (361.2Kb)