CITE

Permanent URI for this community

http://localhost:4000/handle/123456789/32
This service supports the remaining R&D centers in the technology transfer and business incubation component, through the creation, deepening and diffusion of knowledge practices.

Browse

Browsing CITE by Issue Date

Jump to a point in the index:
  • Item
    Strategic complementarities between innovation and human capital. The neglected role of human capital demand
    ( 2004) Aurora Teixeira
    This study examines the conditions under which the demand for human capital is as (or more) important than the simple availability of educated or skilled human resources. The perspective taken is that it is the conscious and intentional attitude of firms, dependent, to a large extent, on respective strategies, that determines the demand for human capital, thereby conditioning the role of the latter in their performance. The automatic and linear character that many studies within the mainstream human capital theory assume is rejected here. Results, based on an in-depth study of fourteen Portuguese textile firms, reveal the "congruence" between firms behaviour towards human capital accumulation, characteristics of productive process and markets, and the omnipresent "fission" risk. New hirings of top skilled and educated individuals are seen as small contributors to firms (current) innovation capabilities. In contrast, existing top skilled and educated individuals are regarded as critical in this context.
  • Item
    What type of firm forges closer innovation linkages with Portuguese Universities?
    ( 2006) Joana Costa ; Aurora Teixeira
    Using large-scale survey data for firms located in Portugal, we analyze which firm characteristics are conducive to establishing contacts with universities. Although almost half of the firms surveyed stated they had established some contacts with universities in the period 2001-2003, only a few (22%) consider universities an important source of knowledge and information for their innovation activities. Our analysis indicates that the firms? propensity to draw on each of the Portuguese universities is explained by the characteristics of the different firms and their regional and industrial patterns. An unambiguous and statistically robust finding is that proximity matters highly in firms universities linkages ? our estimations reveal that firms are more likely to contacts universities located nearby.
  • Item
    HUMAN CAPITAL, TRADE AND LONG-RUN PRODUCTIVITY. TESTING THE TECHNOLOGICAL
    ( 2007) Natércia Fortuna ; Aurora Teixeira
    An important characteristic of the role of foreign trade in the technological catch-up of countries is the complementary nature of technological change and human capital formation. Education is likely to have a crucial impact on total factor productivity because it determines the capacity of an economy to adopt and to implement efficiently technology from abroad. However, the role of human capital as a pre requisite for technology absorption although theoretically acknowledged has been empirically neglected. Empirical studies in this domain do not clearly test the mechanisms through which trade affects total factor productivity of a given country. Using cointegration techniques, we demonstrate that the interaction between human capital and machinery imports is the most critical determinant of Portuguese long-run total factor productivity.
  • Item
    Excesso de Incentivos à Inovação na Presença de Consumidores Sofisticados. Um Modelo de Progresso Tecnológico Endógeno com Capital Humano
    ( 2007) Aurora Teixeira
    Neste artigo é desenvolvido um modelo de crescimento baseado no progresso tecnológico endógeno, em que o crescimento econômico é induzido por melhorias contínuas na qualidade de cada produto diferenciado. A inovação, ?motor? do crescimento, tem como ?combustível? essencial o capital humano. Partindo dos modelos de base de Grossman e Helpman (1991a, 1991b), mas considerando, diferentemente, um índice de consumo constituído por bens diferenciados e um bem homogêneo, o modelo proposto destaca a influência determinante da procura no crescimento econômico, aspecto negligenciado pela literatura do crescimento endógeno. Do esforço de modelização decorre que consumidores pouco sofisticados, com reduzida preferência por produtos diferenciados em termos de qualidade, geram, seguramente, incentivos insuficientes para a investigação, enquanto que consumidores mais sofisticados podem gerar excesso de incentivos. Assim, se a quota dos produtos diferenciados na procura estiver positivamente correlacionada com o nível de desenvolvimento do país, então países menos desenvolvidos tendem a apresentar taxas de inovação relativamente reduzidas, ao contrário de países mais desenvolvidos, em que essas taxas podem até ser (socialmente) demasiado elevadas.
  • Item
  • Item
    International R&D cooperation between low-tech SMEs: the role of cultural and geographical proximity
    ( 2008) Aurora Teixeira ; Paulo Santos ; Ana Oliveira Brochado
    Although there is a considerable amount of empirical evidence on inter-firm collaborations within technology-based industries, there are only a few works focussing on R&D cooperation by low-tech firms, especially SMEs. Providing further and new evidence based on a recently built database of CRAFT projects, this study analyzes the relationship between technology and proximity in international R&D networks using HOMALS and statistical cluster techniques. The resulting typology of international cooperative R&D projects highlights that successful international cooperative R&D projects are both culturally/geographically closer and distant. Moreover, and quite interestingly, geographically distant projects are technologically more advanced whereas those located near each other are essentially low-tech. Such evidence is likely to reflect the tacit-codified knowledge debate boosted recently by the ICT ?revolution? emphasized by the prophets of the ?Death of Distance? and the ?End of Geography?.
  • Item
    Surveying structural change: Seminal contributions and a bibliometric account
    ( 2008) Aurora Teixeira ; Ester Silva
    Structural change analysis has an important tradition in economic theory. However, up to the present date, no attempt had been made to provide an overall survey on the matter. This paper aims to fill this gap. To this end, bibliometric methods were applied, combining 9703 citations from the area's 'seed journal' with a review of 910 abstracts of all theoretical and empirical articles on structural change that were published over the past 40 years in the journals indexed in the Econlit. We testify the recent rise of interest in structural change where technological issues gained increasing relevance. The 1990s witnessed a spurt in formal work, but more recently such trend was not confirmed; on the contrary, there has been a strong impetus towards empirically led work. Our analysis further reveals that most contributions put great emphasis on technology-driven growth and lack an appropriate treatment of the demand side.
  • Item
    International regional patterns of R&D networks involving low tech SMEs
    ( 2008) Paulo Santos ; Ana Paula Delgado ; Aurora Teixeira
    A large number of studies have emphasized the spatial proximity of economic activity and its relation to the spatiality of knowledge creation in various types of connections. Far less attention has been paid to the understanding of the determinants of ?cultural? and geographical proximity in international R&D cooperation projects involving SMEs and the role of the quality of the regional innovation system (RIS). Using a database of completed Cooperative Research projects, we conclude that: 1) technologically more complex projects are more likely to involve ?culturally? and geographically distant partners; 2) RIS related variables determine ?cultural? proximity but not geographical proximity; 3) at first sight surprisingly, international cooperation projects involving the 1st promoters of innovation-led regions (high patent propensity and high human capital levels) are culturally more distant.
  • Item
    ENTREPRENEURIAL POTENTIAL IN ENGINEERING AND BUSINESS COURSES - WHY WORRY NOW?
    ( 2008) Aurora Teixeira
    In this paper we analyze the magnitude of this propensity in engineering and economics/business courses. The reason for such focus is that traditionally these courses are viewed as the ones concentrating individuals that are more likely to create new ventures. The empirical results, based on a large-scale survey of 2430 final-year students, reveal that no statistical difference exists in entrepreneurial potential of economics/business and engineering students, and that these two latter groups have lower entrepreneurial potential than students from other courses. This result proves to be quite unfortunate given the focus that previous studies have placed on these two majors, and the fact that a substantial part of entrepreneurial education is undertaken in business and engineering schools.
  • Item
  • Item
  • Item
    Academic Misconduct in Portugal: Results from a Large Scale Survey to University Economics/Business Students
    ( 2010) Aurora Teixeira ; Maria de Fátima Rocha
    The phenomenon of cheating in higher education is of overwhelming importance in that the students engaging in these acts are unlikely to have the skills necessary for their future professional life. Despite its relevance, the empirical evaluation of cheating in universities has been almost exclusively focused on the US context. Little is known about cheating at the European level, let alone in Portugal. Even less is explored at the regional level. In this paper we present evidence on the perception of cheating by Portuguese undergraduate students of economics/business degrees. We undertake a large-scale survey, involving 2675 students from all Portuguese mainland public universities (10). We found that copying-favourable environments are associated with a higher propensity to cheat. Moreover, in universities where 'codes of honour' exist, this propensity tends to be lower. Finally, the propensity to copy seems to be highly influenced by the cultural systems and socially-related factors of different regions.
  • Item
    Opening the Fuzzy Front End: A Synthesis of Two Theories
    ( 2010) Antero Kutvonen ; Marko Torkkeli
    Product development processes have been studied since the 80s and nearing 90s, academic attention turned to early phases of development, i.e., fuzzy front-end (FFE). Activities at the FFE are often chaotic and experimental with rather unpredictable or uncertain commercialisation future. Opportunities are raising, but a firm still cannot do all needed development and commercialisation actions for all potential technologies in-house. The theory of open innovation (OI) has tackled some of the emerged dilemmas by opening the borders of the company for knowledge and technology exchange. One of the fundamental notions therein is that technologies of little apparent value to your business may be highly valued outside your company. In our paper, OI and FFE theories are merged to introduce an open new concept development framework, leading to new discoveries in the relation between FFE and external technology exploitation. The framework helps organisations to improve their product development profitability by coping with in- and out-flows of technology.
  • Item
    The determinants of technology transfer efficiency and the role of innovation policies: a survey
    ( 2010) Maria D. M. Oliveira ; Aurora Teixeira
    The diversity found in the various Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs), besides being a consequence of the capacities and motives of the different stakeholders involved (public research organisations, industry, consulting firms and public authorities) also reflects the specificities of public incentives or policies and their differing degrees of commitment to technology transfer. Notwithstanding the fact that the literature on technology transfer is voluminous, few studies (up to the present date) have investigated the role of innovation policy on TTOs efficiency and the instruments available for governments to improve technology transfer from publicly funded research. The present paper surveys the literature on the determinants of TTOs efficiency, highlighting in particular the role of innovation policy. Additionally, evidence within the context of the European Union on innovation policies for technology transfer improvement is detailed.
  • Item
    Recent trends in the economics of innovation literature through the lens of Industrial and Corporate Change
    ( 2010) Aurora Teixeira ; David P. Nascimento
    Literature on the economics of innovation has been in constant change. We quantitatively assess recent trends in this literature in terms of research topics and types of research. Departing from a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative survey of influential innovation handbooks, this paper draws on the review and analysis of all articles published in Industrial and Corporate Change, since its foundation to 2009. Our results reveal that 'Conceptual/Economic Thought', 'Intellectual Property Rights', and 'Measurement of Innovation' topics have shown striking trends over the period in analysis. Moreover, although both 'Appreciative plus Empirical' and 'Formal plus Empirical' types of research have grown, suggesting a 'virtuous' trend towards the analytical and predictive efficacy of theory, purely 'Empirical' studies have markedly increased, which may indicate that a connection between theory and empirics is (increasingly) lacking in the field of the economics of innovation
  • Item
    Who Rules the Ruler? On the Misconduct of Journal Editors
    ( 2010) Aurora Teixeira ; Mariana Costa
    There are very few (published) accounts of editorial misconduct, and those that do exist are almost exclusively focused on medicine-related areas. In the present article we detail a case of editorial misconduct in a rather underexplored domain, the social sciences. This case demonstrates that although legal systems provide different instruments of protection to avoid, compensate for, and punish misconduct on the part of journal editors, the social and economic power unbalance between authors and publishers suggests the importance of alternative solutions before or instead of bringing a lawsuit to court. It puts forward strong arguments in favour of the need for effective regulatory bodies so as to achieve and maintain a culture of research integrity by all involved in the process.
  • Item
    Cheating by Economics and Business Undergraduate Students. An Exploratory International Assessment
    ( 2010) Aurora Teixeira ; Maria de Fátima Rocha
    Today's economics and business students are expected to be our future business people and potentially the economic leaders and politicians of tomorrow. Thus, their beliefs and practices are liable to affect the definition of acceptable economics and business ethics. The empirical evaluation of the phenomenon of cheating in academia has almost exclusively focused on the US context, and non-US studies usually only cover a narrow range of countries. This paper presents a comprehensive, cross-country study on the magnitude and determinants of cheating among economics and business undergraduates, involving 7,213 students enrolled in 42 universities located in 21 countries from the American (4), European (14), Africa (2) and Oceania (1) Continents. We found that the average magnitude of copying among economics and business undergraduates is quite high (62%) but there was significant cross-country heterogeneity. The probability of cheating is significantly lower in students enrolled in schools located in the Scandinavian, and the US and British Isles blocks when compared with their Southern European counterparts; quite surprisingly this probability is also lower for the African block. On a distinctly different level, however, students enrolled in schools in Western and especially Eastern European countries reveal statistically significant higher propensities towards committing academic fraud.
  • Item
    Determinants of higher education students' willingness to pay for violent crime reduction: a contingent valuation study
    ( 2010) Mafalda Soeiro ; Aurora Teixeira
    By eliciting an individual's Willingness to Pay (WTP) for a reduction in crime risks, the contingent valuation method is one of the most solid methodologies in use to estimate the intangible costs of crime. However, very few studies have applied contingent valuation methods to random samples of the population located in high crime rate areas. This study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first attempt to apply the contingent valuation method to estimate how much a specific group of society, which is relatively prone to falling victim to (violent) crime, i.e., students, is willing to pay to reduce the likelihood of being the victim of violent crime. In contrast to the existing literature, our study focuses on a rather unexplored context, Portugal, where criminality and violent crime rates are relatively low by international standards, even though they have been on the rise. Based on responses from 1122 higher education students in a broad range of degrees (from Economics to Psychology and the Humanities), we found that 33% of our respondents have been victims of crime in the past, although in general they did not result in physical or psychological injuries. A reasonable percentage of the students (almost 40%) is very worried about falling victim to a crime and 52.8% worries moderately. Over 40% of our respondents were willing to pay a certain amount but less than 50€, whereas 20.8% were willing to pay between 50€ and 250€. On average, all other determinants
  • Item
    The establishment, evolution, and sustainability of University-Firm relations
    ( 2010) Luís Pinheiro ; Aurora Teixeira
    Existing studies on University-Firm (U-F) relations are still excessively centred on the advantages which firms are able to obtain from relations with Universities, failing to take into account the benefits that potentially go to Universities from such links. This paper intends to fill this gap by empirically studying the process of the establishment, evolution, and sustainability of the U-F relations in an open innovation context. Using the case study methodology, we empirically demonstrate how relations between a firm (Brisa) and Higher Education institutions (namely, ISEL - Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa) were established, how they evolved and have been sustained over time, placing special emphasis on the issue of the mutual benefits derived from these links. Face-to-face interviews with the keyplayers at Brisa and ISEL, complemented with an extensive analysis of secondary sources, allowed us to conclude that establishing connections between the two entities is a more complex and time-consuming process (requiring large relational and resource investment on both parts) than that which existing literature conveys. Besides the recognized gains for firms when they adopt a more open-led perspective of innovation, our study (also) highlights the benefit deriving to the Universities from links to companies. It is mainly due to the existence of mutual benefits that U-F relations are preserved in the long-term or, in other words, are sustainable.
  • Item
    Emergent and declining themes in the Economics and Management of Innovation scientific area over the past three decades
    ( 2010) Aurora Teixeira ; José Miguel Silva
    A literature survey covers the state-of-the-art of a certain investigation field and is a critical evaluation that can help define new research and facilitate the understanding of the area by new researchers of that scientific field. Although there are already some excellent attempts to provide a survey in the Economics and Management of Innovation area, these are in general qualitative. Using bibliometric tools, which help to explore, organize and analyze large amounts of information, we characterize, in a quantitative way, the published literature in innovation area. Based on the 1047 abstracts of the articles published between 1974 and 2007 in the innovation area's 'seed journal' we observed that the themes that have grown the most in recent years were 'Open innovation, Copyrights, Intellectual Property Rights, Open Software', 'University-Industry Relations and Transfer of Technology and Knowledge', and 'Entrepreneurship, Incubation, Spin-offs and Entrepreneurial Universities'. In contrast, themes such as 'Learning and Experimentation, Troubleshooting', 'Development of new Products, Processes, Markets, Organizational', 'Cooperation in R&D+I', 'Multinational/International trade in the process of innovation', and 'Management Policy of Science and Technology ', noted a marked decline.