Hidden Champions (HCs) are firms unknown to the wider public, but global leaders in the niche markets they serve. This paper looks at distinctive features of these firms, focusing on their dynamic capabilities. Employing a unique data base on German firms, we identify a representative sample of...

The Circular Economy concept has emerged to face current unsustainable economic trends. Circularity requires to go beyond mainstream linear business models in favour of new design strategies and production processes able to support an efficient use and a continuous flow of resources. Clarifying...

This paper investigates the impact of in-house R&D and innovation management practices on innovation success in small and medium-sized firms (SMEs). While there is little doubt about the significance of technology competence for generating successful innovations, inhouse R&D activities may be a...

This study tests for financial constraints on Ramp;D investment and how they differ from capital investment. To identify constraints in the access to external capital, we employ a credit rating index. Our models show that internal constraints, measured by mark-ups, are more decisive for Ramp;D...

This paper investigates the drivers and the effects of the internationalisation of innovation activities in SMEs based on a large data set of German firms covering the period 2002-2007. We look at different stages of the innovation process (R&D, design, production and sales of new products, and...

It is known that small firms rely mainly on the CEO's individual knowledge for developing innovations. Recent work suggests that this approach is inefficient since it underutilizes other employees' knowledge. We study to which extent using CEOs, managers and non-managerial employees' ideas...

We develop an endogenous growth model to study the long run consequences of offshoring with firm heterogeneity and incomplete contracts. In so doing, we model offshoring as the geographical fragmentation of a firm's production chain between a home upstream division and a foreign downstream one....

This study examines whether staged project management is beneficial or harmful for making product innovations. Using a unique firm survey for Japan, we find that firms that employed staged project management had a higher likelihood of introducing new products to the market. Additional...

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...