Knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) have been posited to play a critical role as innovation agent and knowledge broker in the new economy. While a substantial part of the literature on KIBS stresses their function as an innovation agent to their clients’ innovation process and their contributions to knowledge transfer and diffusion in innovation systems, little attention has been paid ...

We use an innovative survey tool to collect management practice data from over 4,000 medium sized manufacturing firms across Asia, Europe and the US. These measures of managerial practice are strongly associated with firm-level performance (e.g. productivity, profitability and stock market value). Private Equityowned firms are significantly better managed than government, family and privately o...

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. SUMMARY • The most important driver behind e-commerce in Taiwan appears to be international competitive pressure; this is especially evident in the manufacturing sector. • E-commerce is more widely diffused ...

Human capital attainment among workers plays an important role in determining firm’s output and labor productivity, hence enhances firm’s competitiveness. More educated workers are believed to be more efficient and productive, reduce cost of production and raise the capability of firms to compete especially in the global market.. The intention of the Malaysian government to create the Bumiputer...

This study aims to examine the multi-dimensional relationship of total quality management (TQM) and knowledge management (KM) in both service and manufacturing firms in Malaysia. Six key practices of TQM originated from the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) were chosen; whereas the KM elements were made up of knowledge acquisition, distribution and application. Data were gathered ...

In this paper we reconstruct and discuss the network of Italian firms investing abroad, exploiting information from complex network analysis. This method, detecting the key nodes of the system (both in terms of firms and countries of destination), allows us to single out the linkages among firms without ex-ante priors. Moreover, through the examination of affiliates' economic activity, it allow...

We use an innovative survey tool to collect management practice data from over 4,000 medium sized manufacturing firms across Asia, Europe and the US. These measures of managerial practice are strongly associated with firm-level performance (e.g. productivity, profitability and stock market value). Private equity firms are significantly better managed than government, family and privately owned ...

This paper uses data on individual earnings in manufacturing industry for five African countries in the early 1990s to test whether firms located in the capital city pay higher earnings than do firms located elsewhere, and whether such benefits accrue to all or only certain types of workers. Earnings equations are estimated that take into account worker characteristics (education and tenure) an...

The goal of this research was to assess the performance of the environmental, health an d safety system (EH&S) in Poland with respect to privatized manufacturing firms . Specifically, we sought to determine through a cross-sectional questionnaire survey whether the EH&S system was being implemented in practice, and whether it was achieving the objectives of improved EH& S performance. Following...

By analyzing survey data from 1,211 firms across 14 industries in Shanghai, this study examines factors that influence information technology usage in Chinese firms applying a technology–organization–environment framework and institutional theory. This study provides an in-depth examination of governmental impact on Chinese firms’ IT adoption. Although government cannot directly influence firms...