This study investigates the factors that determine the inter-firm and intra-firm adoption rates of energy-saving technologies. These factors can be on theoretical terms firm-specific rank effects, inducement effects, adoption barriers as well as order, stock and epidemic effects that are related...

Human resource management (HRM) practices are generally expected to stimulate a firm's innovation performance. However, which of these practices do really pay off? Based on a unique dataset that includes detailed information for both a firm's innovation activities and different types of HRM...

The main objective of this empirical paper is to identify characteristics of imitation and innovation and shed light on possible differences between these two kinds of innovative activity. Thus, it tries to answer the following questions: (a) what are the determinants of imitative performance...

Starting point of our analysis is the empirical fact that firms pursue different goals when getting engaged in R&D collaborations, often more than one goal at the same time. Given that firms are driven by different motives for R&D cooperation, the aim of this article is to investigate the...

In this study we investigated the determinants of the propensity of Swiss firms to train apprentices. Innovation, firm age and competition conditions on the product market are determining factors that were especially emphasized in this investigation. We found that the skill composition of the...

The innovation value chain (IVC) divides the innovation process into three separate links or activities: knowledge gathering, knowledge transformation and knowledge exploitation. Here, we report a comparative panel data analysis of the IVC in Ireland and Switzerland. Both economies are small,...