IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/boc/bocoec/988.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Innovation by start-up firms: The influence of the board of directors for knowledge spillovers

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher F. Baum

    (Boston College
    DIW Berlin
    CESIS, KTH Royal Institute of Technology)

  • Hans Lööf

    (CESIS, KTH Royal Institute of Technology)

  • Andreas Stephan

    (Jönköping International Business School
    DIW Berlin)

  • Ingrid Viklund-Ros

    (CESIS, KTH Royal Institute of Technology)

Abstract

The paper examines whether the innovation potential of start-ups is influenced by existing innovative firms via the board of directors. This channel of spillover is largely unexplored. Our analysis of over 370,000 firm-year observations on more than 60,000 Swedish start-up firms which entered the market between 2002 and 2013 shows a positive effect of the boards' innovation experience on the propensity to apply for patents, while no impact on trademark registration is found. The results are robust to controlling for unobserved heterogeneity as well as worker and managerial mobility, human capital, board diversity, venture capital, patent citations, firm size, region and industry.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher F. Baum & Hans Lööf & Andreas Stephan & Ingrid Viklund-Ros, 2019. "Innovation by start-up firms: The influence of the board of directors for knowledge spillovers," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 988, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 31 Aug 2021.
    • Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:988
    Note: previously circulated as "The impact of board directors on the innovation of new ventures"
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC-P/wp988.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-1037, October.
    2. Anastasia Semykina, 2018. "Self‐employment among women: Do children matter more than we previously thought?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(3), pages 416-434, April.
    3. Andersson, Martin & Baltzopoulos, Apostolos & Lööf, Hans, 2012. "R&D strategies and entrepreneurial spawning," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 54-68.
    4. Renee B. Adams & Benjamin E. Hermalin & Michael S. Weisbach, 2010. "The Role of Boards of Directors in Corporate Governance: A Conceptual Framework and Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 58-107, March.
    5. Block, Jörn H. & Fisch, Christian O. & Hahn, Alexander & Sandner, Philipp G., 2015. "Why do SMEs file trademarks? Insights from firms in innovative industries," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 1915-1930.
    6. Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2005. "Simple solutions to the initial conditions problem in dynamic, nonlinear panel data models with unobserved heterogeneity," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(1), pages 39-54, January.
    7. Criscuolo, Paola & Verspagen, Bart, 2008. "Does it matter where patent citations come from? Inventor vs. examiner citations in European patents," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 1892-1908, December.
    8. Balsmeier, Benjamin & Fleming, Lee & Manso, Gustavo, 2017. "Independent boards and innovation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(3), pages 536-557.
    9. Nicholas Bloom & Mark Schankerman & John Van Reenen, 2013. "Identifying Technology Spillovers and Product Market Rivalry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(4), pages 1347-1393, July.
    10. Mion, Giordano & Opromolla, Luca David, 2014. "Managers' mobility, trade performance, and wages," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 85-101.
    11. Eriksson, Tor & Moritz Kuhn, Johan, 2006. "Firm spin-offs in Denmark 1981-2000 -- patterns of entry and exit," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 1021-1040, September.
    12. Daily, Catherine M. & Dalton, Dan R., 1992. "The relationship between governance structure and corporate performance in entrepreneurial firms," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 7(5), pages 375-386, September.
    13. Luc Anselin & Attila Varga & Zoltan Acs, 2008. "Local Geographic Spillovers Between University Research and High Technology Innovations," Chapters, in: Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy, chapter 9, pages 95-121, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Krugman, Paul, 1991. "Increasing Returns and Economic Geography," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 483-499, June.
    15. Shaker A. Zahra & Igor Filatotchev, 2004. "Governance of the Entrepreneurial Threshold Firm: A Knowledge‐based Perspective," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 885-897, July.
    16. Eliezer M. Fich, 2005. "Are Some Outside Directors Better than Others? Evidence from Director Appointments by Fortune 1000 Firms," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(5), pages 1943-1972, September.
    17. Cohen, Wesley M & Klepper, Steven, 1992. "The Anatomy of Industry R&D Intensity Distributions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 773-799, September.
    18. David Popp, 2019. "Environmental Policy and Innovation: A Decade of Research," NBER Working Papers 25631, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Mark L. Defond & Rebecca N. Hann & Xuesong Hu, 2005. "Does the Market Value Financial Expertise on Audit Committees of Boards of Directors?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(2), pages 153-193, May.
    20. Thomas Dalziel & Richard J. Gentry & Michael Bowerman, 2011. "An Integrated Agency–Resource Dependence View of the Influence of Directors' Human and Relational Capital on Firms' R&D Spending," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48, pages 1217-1242, September.
    21. Dosi, Giovanni & Nelson, Richard R., 2010. "Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 51-127, Elsevier.
    22. Arzubiaga, Unai & Kotlar, Josip & De Massis, Alfredo & Maseda, Amaia & Iturralde, Txomin, 2018. "Entrepreneurial orientation and innovation in family SMEs: Unveiling the (actual) impact of the Board of Directors," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 455-469.
    23. David Yermack, 2006. "Board Members and Company Value," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 20(1), pages 33-47, April.
    24. Jones, Marian V. & Coviello, Nicole & Tang, Yee Kwan, 2011. "International Entrepreneurship research (1989–2009): A domain ontology and thematic analysis," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 632-659.
    25. David Popp, 2019. "Environmental policy and innovation: a decade of research," CESifo Working Paper Series 7544, CESifo.
    26. Duchin, Ran & Matsusaka, John G. & Ozbas, Oguzhan, 2010. "When are outside directors effective?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 195-214, May.
    27. Benjamin E. Hermalin & Michael S. Weisbach, 2003. "Boards of directors as an endogenously determined institution: a survey of the economic literature," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 9(Apr), pages 7-26.
    28. Tor Jakob Klette & Samuel Kortum, 2004. "Innovating Firms and Aggregate Innovation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(5), pages 986-1018, October.
    29. Zvi Griliches, 1998. "The Search for R&D Spillovers," NBER Chapters, in: R&D and Productivity: The Econometric Evidence, pages 251-268, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    30. Richard C. Levin & Alvin K. Klevorick & Richard R. Nelson & Sidney G. Winter, 1987. "Appropriating the Returns from Industrial Research and Development," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 18(3, Specia), pages 783-832.
    31. Zoltán J. Ács & Catherine Armington & Ting Zhang, 2015. "The determinants of new-firm survival across regional economies: The role of human capital stock and knowledge spillover," Chapters, in: Global Entrepreneurship, Institutions and Incentives, chapter 18, pages 344-368, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    32. HansK. Hvide, 2009. "The Quality of Entrepreneurs," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(539), pages 1010-1035, July.
    33. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 2019. "Correlated random effects models with unbalanced panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 211(1), pages 137-150.
    34. Popp, David, 2019. "Environmental Policy and Innovation: A Decade of Research," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 13(3-4), pages 265-337, September.
    35. Papke, Leslie E. & Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 2008. "Panel data methods for fractional response variables with an application to test pass rates," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 145(1-2), pages 121-133, July.
    36. Wancong Fu & Chong Li & Jan Ondrich & David Popp, 2018. "Technological Spillover Effects of State Renewable Energy Policy: Evidence from Patent Counts," NBER Working Papers 25390, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    37. Jeroen Van Den Heuvel & Anita Van Gils & Wim Voordeckers, 2006. "Board Roles in Small and Medium‐Sized Family Businesses: performance and importance," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(5), pages 467-485, September.
    38. Stefano Breschi & Francesco Lissoni, 2006. "Mobility of inventors and the geography of knowledge spillovers. New evidence on US data," KITeS Working Papers 184, KITeS, Centre for Knowledge, Internationalization and Technology Studies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy, revised Oct 2006.
    39. Muendler, Marc-Andreas & Rauch, James E. & Tocoian, Oana, 2012. "Employee spinoffs and other entrants: Stylized facts from Brazil," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 447-458.
    40. Arundel, Anthony, 2001. "The relative effectiveness of patents and secrecy for appropriation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 611-624, April.
    41. Edwin Mansfield, 1986. "Patents and Innovation: An Empirical Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(2), pages 173-181, February.
    42. M. Andrew Fields & Phyllis Y. Keys, 2003. "The Emergence of Corporate Governance from Wall St. to Main St.: Outside Directors, Board Diversity, Earnings Management, and Managerial Incentives to Bear Risk," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 38(1), pages 1-24, February.
    43. Nelson, Andrew J., 2009. "Measuring knowledge spillovers: What patents, licenses and publications reveal about innovation diffusion," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 994-1005, July.
    44. Giovanni Peri, 2005. "Determinants of Knowledge Flows and Their Effect on Innovation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(2), pages 308-322, May.
    45. John Bizjak & Michael Lemmon & Ryan Whitby, 2009. "Option Backdating and Board Interlocks," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(11), pages 4821-4847, November.
    46. Janet Bercovitz & Maryann Feldman, 2006. "Entpreprenerial Universities and Technology Transfer: A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Knowledge-Based Economic Development," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 175-188, January.
    47. Riju Joshi & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2019. "Correlated Random Effects Models with Endogenous Explanatory Variables and Unbalanced Panels," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 134, pages 243-268.
    48. Block, Joern H. & De Vries, Geertjan & Schumann, Jan H. & Sandner, Philipp, 2014. "Trademarks and venture capital valuation," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 525-542.
    49. Claudio Labanca & Danielken Molina & Marc-Andreas Muendler, 2013. "Preparing to Export," NBER Working Papers 18962, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. F Baum, Christopher & Lööf, Hans & Stephan, Andreas & Viklund-Ros, Ingrid, 2019. "Innovation by start-up firms: The influence of the board of directors," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 483, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies, revised 16 Aug 2020.
    2. Baum, Christopher F. & Lööf, Hans & Stephan, Andreas & Viklund-Ros, Ingrid, 2022. "Innovation by start-up firms: The role of the board of directors for knowledge spillovers," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(1).
    3. Hans Lööf & Ingrid Viklund‐Ros, 2020. "Board of directors and export spillovers: What is the impact on extensive margins of trade?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(5), pages 1188-1215, May.
    4. Baum, Christopher F & Lööf, Hans & Stephan, Andreas & Viklund-Ros, Ingrid, 2018. "Outside Board Directors and Start-Up Firms’ Innovation," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 468, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    5. Lauren Cohen & Andrea Frazzini & Christopher J. Malloy, 2012. "Hiring Cheerleaders: Board Appointments of "Independent" Directors," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(6), pages 1039-1058, June.
    6. Lööf, Hans, 2022. "What prevents spillovers from the pool of knowledge?," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 489, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    7. Renee B. Adams & Benjamin E. Hermalin & Michael S. Weisbach, 2010. "The Role of Boards of Directors in Corporate Governance: A Conceptual Framework and Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 58-107, March.
    8. Stephen Gray & John Nowland, 2013. "Is prior director experience valuable?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 53(3), pages 643-666, September.
    9. Ufuk Akcigit & William R. Kerr, 2018. "Growth through Heterogeneous Innovations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(4), pages 1374-1443.
    10. Muendler, Marc-Andreas & Rauch, James E., 2018. "Do employee spinoffs learn markets from their parents? Evidence from international trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 159-173.
    11. Kim, Kyonghee & Mauldin, Elaine & Patro, Sukesh, 2014. "Outside directors and board advising and monitoring performance," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 110-131.
    12. Duchin, Ran & Matsusaka, John G. & Ozbas, Oguzhan, 2010. "When are outside directors effective?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 195-214, May.
    13. Cohen, Wesley M., 2010. "Fifty Years of Empirical Studies of Innovative Activity and Performance," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 129-213, Elsevier.
    14. Sandra Cavaco & Patricia Crifo & Antoine Rebérioux & Gwenael Roudaut, 2014. "Independent directors: less informed, but better selected? New evidence from a two-way director-firm fixed effect model," Working Papers hal-04141284, HAL.
    15. Silvia Dalla Fontana & Ramana Nanda, 2023. "Innovating to Net Zero: Can Venture Capital and Start-Ups Play a Meaningful Role?," Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(1), pages 79-105.
    16. Grafström, Jonas & Poudineh, Rahmat, 2023. "No evidence of counteracting policy effects on European solar power invention and diffusion," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    17. Rosina Moreno & Ernest Miguélez, 2012. "A Relational Approach To The Geography Of Innovation: A Typology Of Regions," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 492-516, July.
    18. Bernhard Ganglmair & Imke Reimers, 2019. "Visibility of Technology and Cumulative Innovation: Evidence from Trade Secrets Laws," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2019_119v1, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    19. Volonté, Christophe, 2015. "Boards: Independent and committed directors?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 25-37.
    20. Tao, Qizhi & Li, Haoyu & Wu, Qun & Zhang, Ting & Zhu, Yingjun, 2019. "The dark side of board network centrality: Evidence from merger performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 215-232.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    start-ups; board of directors; knowledge spillovers; innovation; instrumental variable estimation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C36 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups
    • L21 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Business Objectives of the Firm
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:988. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/debocus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.