IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

Managerial incentive and the firms’ propensity to invest in product and process innovation

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Cellini, Roberto
  • Lambertini, Luca
  • Sterlacchini, Alessandro

Abstract

We study the product and process innovation choice of firms in which a managerial incentive à la Vickers (1985) is present. Taking a two-stage dynamic game approach, we show that managerial firms are led to over-invest in process innovation, as compared to standard profit-maximising firms, while they under-invest in product innovation. The reason is that process innovation allows to decrease cost, and this is consistent with a convenient increase in the production level. On the opposite, product innovation allows increasing price, which is in contrast with the taste for output expansion embodied in the objective function of firms run by managers. Preliminary empirical evidence on Italian companies suggests that in fact the managerial nature of firm associates with significantly smaller efforts in product innovation while the effect on process innovation is positive but non-significant.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/12935/1/MPRA_paper_12935.pdf
File Function: original version
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 12935.

as
in new window

Length:
Date of creation: Jan 2009
Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:12935
Contact details of provider: Postal:
Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany

Phone: +49-(0)89-2180-2459
Fax: +49-(0)89-2180-992459
Web page: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de

More information through EDIRC

Keywords: Process innovation; Product innovation; R&D; Managerial incentive;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
  • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
  • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
  • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. Yin, Xiangkang & Zuscovitch, Ehud, 1998. "Is firm size conducive to R&D choice? A strategic analysis of product and process innovations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 243-262, April.
  2. d'Aspremont, Claude & Jacquemin, Alexis, 1988. "Cooperative and Noncooperative R&D in Duopoly with Spillovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 1133-1137, December.
  3. Majerus, David W., 1988. "Price vs. quantity competition in oligopoly supergames," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 293-297.
  4. Pierre Mohnen & Jacques Mairesse & Marcel Dagenais, 2006. "Innovativity: A comparison across seven European countries," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4-5), pages 391-413.
  5. Jacques Mairesse, 2008. "Employment, innovation, and productivity: evidence from Italian microdata," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(4), pages 813-839, August.
  6. Michael Fritsch & Monika Meschede, 2001. "Product Innovation, Process Innovation, and Size," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 19(3), pages 335-350, November.
  7. Winter, Sidney G., 1984. "Schumpeterian competition in alternative technological regimes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 5(3-4), pages 287-320.
  8. Rosenkranz, Stephanie, 2003. "Simultaneous choice of process and product innovation when consumers have a preference for product variety," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 183-201, February.
  9. Pia Weiss, 2003. "Adoption of Product and Process Innovations in Differentiated Markets: The Impact of Competition," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 23(3), pages 301-314, December.
  10. Dutta, Prajit K & Lach, Saul & Rustichini, Aldo, 1995. "Better Late Than Early: Vertical Differentiation in the Adoption of a New Technology," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(4), pages 563-589, Winter.
  11. Kenneth Arrow, 1962. "Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for Invention," NBER Chapters,in: The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity: Economic and Social Factors, pages 609-626 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  12. Pavitt, Keith, 1984. "Sectoral patterns of technical change: Towards a taxonomy and a theory," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 13(6), pages 343-373, December.
  13. Henriques, Irene, 1990. "Cooperative and Noncooperative R&D in Duopoly with Spillovers: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 638-640, June.
  14. Avner Shaked & John Sutton, 1982. "Relaxing Price Competition Through Product Differentiation," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(1), pages 3-13.
  15. Vickers, John, 1985. "Delegation and the Theory of the Firm," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 95(380a), pages 138-147, Supplemen.
  16. Cohen, Wesley M & Klepper, Steven, 1996. "Firm Size and the Nature of Innovation within Industries: The Case of Process and Product R&D," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(2), pages 232-243, May.
  17. Yeats, Alexander J., 1998. "Just how big is global production sharing?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1871, The World Bank.
  18. Fershtman, Chaim & Judd, Kenneth L, 1987. "Equilibrium Incentives in Oligopoly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 927-940, December.
  19. Jaskold Gabszewicz, J. & Thisse, J. -F., 1980. "Entry (and exit) in a differentiated industry," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 327-338, April.
  20. Jaskold Gabszewicz, J. & Thisse, J. -F., 1979. "Price competition, quality and income disparities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 340-359, June.
  21. Matthias Kräkel, 2004. "R&D spillovers and strategic delegation in oligopolistic contests," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(3), pages 147-156.
  22. Michael Kopel & Christian Riegler, 2006. "R&D in a strategic delegation game revisited: a note," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(7), pages 605-612.
  23. Lambertini, Luca & Poddar, Sougata & Sasaki, Dan, 2002. "Research joint ventures, product differentiation, and price collusion," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 829-854, June.
  24. Malerba, Franco & Orsenigo, Luigi, 1997. "Technological Regimes and Sectoral Patterns of Innovative Activities," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 83-117.
  25. Choi, Chong Ju & Shin, Hyun Song, 1992. "A Comment on a Model of Vertical Product Differentiation," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 229-231, June.
  26. Williamson, Oliver E, 1971. "The Vertical Integration of Production: Market Failure Considerations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(2), pages 112-123, May.
  27. Harrington Jr. , Joseph E., 1995. "Experimentation and Learning in a Differentiated-Products Duopoly," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 275-288, June.
  28. Kotaro Suzumura, 1990. "Cooperative and Non-cooperative R&D in Oligopoly with Spillovers," Discussion Paper Series a218, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
  29. Shaked, Avner & Sutton, John, 1983. "Natural Oligopolies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(5), pages 1469-1483, September.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

The CitEc project has not yet found citations to this item.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:12935. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Joachim Winter)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.