This study links the highly distinctive national contexts of the pharmaceutical industry to the evolution of innovative capabilities for Japanese drug firms from 1975 to 1995. During these two decades, the Japanese domestic environment for pharmaceuticals changed radically, encouraging a “bubble” of trivial innovations. Experience by Japanese firms in their domestic market predominantly determi...

This paper investigates the constraints for companies to innovate in order to be competitive in the knowledge society. Using a large and original data set of Catalan firms, the authors have conducted a micro econometric analysis following Henry et al.’s (1999) investment model and von Kalckreuth (2004) methodology empirically contrasting the relationship between firms’ investment spread over ti...

This paper aims to learn about the determinants and impacts of innovative activities on manufacturing firms’ productivity performance during 1998-2001 in Argentina, a period characterized by a long stagnation that finally led to the worst crisis in the country’s history. The results show that even in a very hostile scenario, a large number of Argentine manufacturing firms maintained their in ho...

Although cultural industries can benefit from social networks in many ways, few Spanish studies examine the extent to which firms within this economic sector actually use such networks. This study’s bjective is to investigate the role of online social networks in Spanish cultural firms. The study begins with a literature review on cultural industries and social networks. Then the study proceeds...

Knowledge management (KM) has been studied extensively in recent years. Some consider knowledge to be the most strategically important resource for any company, but the fragmented, project-based and task-oriented nature of construction work makes it more difficult to implement KM in this sector. This paper presents a survey of perceptions of KM implementation in the Spanish construction sector ...

Information systems offshore outsourcing is motivated by such factors as globalisation, technological development and the possibility to explore new markets. However, both the geographical and the cultural distance create more risks than in onshore outsourcing. The aim of this paper is to develop a typology of firms based on the specific motivations and risks associated with offshore outsourcin...

This paper examines co-operative innovation and research and development (R&D) behaviour between Argentine and Spanish firms. Based on theoretical perspectives from the literature, we surveyed a sample of 540 Argentine and Spanish firms believed to have cooperated for technological innovation. We present empirical evidence based on 104 firms of patterns of cooperation in several processes and o...