This article considers cognitive distance and combined competence as predictors of concrete outcomes in co-operative Research and Development projects. The operationalisation is based upon a dedicated survey, answered by matched pairs of projects managers in partnering organisations, addressing...

We estimate the determinants of various types of product innovation. Knowledge spillovers from rivals have a positive impact on incremental innovations. This impact is largely independent of the participation in R&D cooperations. Spillovers exert no such independent influence on drastic...

We investigate the effect of profit-sharing on product and process innovation. Profit-sharing is a credible commitment of the companies to let the employees participate in any efficiency gain. Resistance against technical progress becomes less plausible. Moreover, employees are stimulated to...

This contribution is concerned with the spread of new products in small and medium-sized enterprises in the manufacturing sector. Based on an empirical study it is analyzed according to which factors planned product launches are either genuine market novelties or products that are new from the...

Open standard-setting organizations (SSOs) have emerged as important coordination and diffusion mechanism for information and communication technologies. Open standards are developed non-discriminatorily and licensed to anybody at reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. Little is known about...

We analyze the effects of captive off-shoring of innovation activities on the firms' ability to adapt their organizational processes and structures. Starting from complexity theory, we use three consecutive waves of the German part of the Community Innovation Survey to test our hypotheses. We...

The literature on within-firm organizational change and productivity suggests that firms can make more efficient use of certain technologies if complementary forms of organization are adopted. This issue may be of even greater importance for the case of greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement...

The paper provides empirical evidence for the causal impact of broadband Internet on the economic performance of German firms. Performance is measured in terms of labour productivity and realised process and product innovations. The analysis refers to the early phase of DSL expansion in Germany...

The paper analyses the relationship between two major challenges firms are faced to: using the potentials of information technologies (IT) as an enabler of process innovations on the one hand and an ageing workforce that might interfere these potentials on the other hand. Econometric results...

Do firms sourcing out IT services redirect their resources to innovation activity? We attempt to answer this question by analysing a firm-level data set comprising 1453 firms from the German manufacturing and services sectors. Using different measures of IT outsourcing (ITO), the econometric...