Journal of the Knowledge Economy最新文献

This paper analyses the factors that determine the process of digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). To this end, digital transformation is conceptually approached as an innovation process in a company that affects its products and processes. The proposed theoretical framework integrates, from a holistic perspective, three dimensions in the digital transformation process in SMEs: (1) the technological dimension; (2) the human capital dimension; and (3) the organizational/relational dimension. Furthermore, these dimensions manifest themselves at three levels of analysis: (a) the entrepreneur/manager; (b) the firm; and (c) the environment external to the firm. The empirical research presented in this paper is based on a representative survey of SMEs in Spain. The results highlight that both internal skills and external sources of knowledge regarding information and communication technology (ICT) through consultants, suppliers, universities and technological centers constitute critical and complementary drivers for digital innovation in SMEs. The analysis also reveals the importance of an explicit digital transformation strategy in the company and the distribution of responsibilities regarding digitalization beyond the leadership of the entrepreneur/manager. Likewise, the complex use of the Internet by entrepreneurs/managers is observed to favor digital product innovation, whereas their growth ambition stimulates digital process innovation. The results also indicate that the relevance of the aforementioned determinants varies somewhat for microenterprises compared to other SMEs.

How the advancement of information and communications technologies (ICT) and digitalization affect labor productivity is subject of an ongoing debate. While parts of the literature find the expected positive effects, other studies have found no effect, resulting in the so-called productiviy paradox. As most of the studies have focused on economically advanced economies such as OECD countries, evidence for less developed economies has been sparse. We use a digitalization composite index from a balanced panel of 40 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) economies, using data from 2006 to 2021, to assess the effect of digitalization on aggregate labor productivity in SSA economies. We employ generalized least squares (GLS) and system generalized methods of moments (GMM) methods to capture the effects of digitalization on labor productivity levels in agriculture, manufacturing, and service sectors. Our results show a weak association between digitalization and overall labor productivity. However, when sectors are analyzed separately, digitalization has a positive effect on labor productivity in agriculture and manufacturing sectors, whereas we find evidence for the productivity paradox in the service sector, with even a negative effect of digitalization on labor productivity.

This research examines the relationship between daily Covid-19 cases and public mobility for six different places, where mobility can be high, in Brazil, the UK, and the USA. We tried to show how the spreading effect of infectious diseases occurs in places where human mobility is intense. The data consists of daily data covering the periods from 28/02/2020 to 08/02/2021, which includes the database of Our World in Data and Google Mobility Reports. Basically, there is a positive correlation between mobility and case numbers. Results in the paper differ from country to country. That is to say, mobility in grocery stores and pharmacies can be said to have an impact on the number of cases in all three countries. Brazil is the country where mobility in parks has the strongest impact. The country which has the lowest frequency in retail outlets is America.

This paper measures the public debt sustainability of twenty-eight Indian states during 2012–2013 and 2020–2021, including the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study uses Domar’s stability test and panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model in a generalized method of moments (GMM) approach by segregating the Indian states into three regions. The Domar’s stability conditions find that there is no violation throughout all the regions of India. The major findings from the PVAR result show that the response of public debt to the gross state-domestic production ratio and the gross primary deficit is negative due to the positive shock of the level of economic growth for the southeastern region. On the other hand, we observed a positive response to public debt for the northwest and northeast regions due to the shock of economic growth. Our findings suggest that while the public debt is sustainable in the southeast region, it is unsustainable in the northwest and northeast regions. The findings emphasize various steps and initiatives of state governments toward fiscal discipline for public sustainability in the long run.

Strategic business performance (SBP) is still an unclear but idealized destination for organizations; despite its antecedents embarked by different researchers, the efforts seem still myopic. In current digitalized knowledge-based economy, the importance of digital orientation and competence has emerged as most influential forces to determine SBP. Even though limited studies explored the function of IOT, E-WOM, e-marketing, and other digital factors, they rarely examined the most demanding factor such as team creativity and that how employees can shape basis for SBP through digital orientation. This study, therefore, investigated the linkages between digital orientation, team creativity, digital competence (DC), and SBP. The research investigates the linkage between digital orientation and SBP (H1). Furthermore, team creativity acts as a mediator, while digital competence serves as a moderator, between digital orientation and SBP (H2, H3). A quantitative method and random sampling technique were employed to acquire the data, and 453 samples from tourism businesses were obtained. The findings indicated that digital orientation predicts SBP. Research further demonstrates that the association between digital orientation and SBP is mediated by team creativity. The results also support the idea that digital competence strengthens the link between digital orientation and SBP. Additionally, this research finding hold significant implications together academically and practically. In theory, the research adds to the prevailing literature through underlining the key moderation role of the digital competency in the association among DO and team creativeness. Practically, this study offers valued understandings for businesses looking on the way to leverage latest digital abilities to boost its strategic performance. Through acknowledging the interaction among DO, digital competency, and team creativity, practitioners could make more operational approaches to direct the digital setting and attain sustainable economic benefits.

The paper investigates the determinants and stability of the income velocity of money while accounting for structural breaks in its approach from the period Q1 1981 to Q4 2023 in Nigeria. The paper extends previous works by accounting for four velocities of money functions having accounted for structural breaks in its approach. The study adopted the Bai and Perron breakpoint test, the Zivot and Andrews, and Perron and Vogelsang structural break unit root tests to determine the break dates and the variables’ stationary properties. In analyzing the main results, the study used the quantile ARDL method to establish the determinants of income velocity of money in Nigeria, while it used the CUSUM tests to establish the stability of money velocity in Nigeria. The study found that the determinants of the velocity of money are per capita income, the exchange rate, financial development, inflation, and the interest rate across the four models. Furthermore, the four velocities of money functions were unstable for Nigeria using the cumulative sum and cumulative sum of squares tests. Consequently, the study recommends effective monitoring and the provision of sound monetary policies to ensure a stable and predictable velocity of money. This can be achieved by understanding and focusing on these key determinants and crafting informed strategies to manage economic growth and stability. This holistic approach ensures that the benefits of economic policies are felt broadly across the economy, ultimately bolstering overall financial health and enhancing the velocity of money, which is crucial for sustained economic progress.

During emergency production systems, supply chain stakeholders’ interactions, media activities, government actions, community behaviors are stressed bringing, all, to a high-risk perception about safety. For agri-food products, it became in a variation of consumers’ purchasing behaviors, guided by uncertainty and influenced by trust. The extant knowledge about consumers’ willingness to buy for agri-food products in emergency condition does not provide evidences during a phytosanitary warning. The proposed study, considering the Xylella fastidiosa phytosanitary emergency as case study, aims to fulfill this gap analyzing the possible variations of consumers’ perception and willingness to buy of Apulian olive oil in the era of Xylella emergence by adopting a multi-perspective and systemic approach. For achieving this scope, the study follows a Process-Person-Context-Time perspective for conceiving a systemic psychological model based on the Bronfenbrenner ecological model. Seven hypotheses were tested through Structural Equation Modeling thanks to a survey in a representative sample of 779 Italian consumers. Results showed that Italian consumer’s willingness to buy the post-Xylella olive oil can fluctuate due to the hypothesized system vulnerability: family, friends, and colleague such as trust in farmers and the credibility of Italian food market are impactful; trust in processors, transporters, and government and media is not. The findings, from theoretical and sectorial perspectives, provide new knowledge on the topic, empirical evidences, and a multi-systemic model able to analyze consumers’ behaviors, understand and stimulate the search for new (or more appropriate) marketing and communication strategies to face Xylella serious economic shortages, and to act a requalification of territory at all.

This paper examines the effects of social transfers on inequality and poverty in Türkiye. We use Income and Living Conditions Survey that is conducted by TurkStat each year from 2006 to 2018. The social transfers include in cash and in-kind transfers from government to households. The standard budget incidence approach is used in the analysis. The redistribution impact of social transfers is measured using Gini coefficient and Suits coefficient and relative poverty rate. The equivalence scale adjustments are used for inequality and poverty estimations, and it is accepted as relative poverty approach. Pension income is the main factor that influences on reducing inequality and poverty. The inequality-reducing effect of pension income increased over time from 2005 to 2017. We also apply logistic regression analysis for 2018 SILC Survey. According to the logistic regression analysis, social transfers have the effect of reducing the probability of being poor in Türkiye.

This article is aimed at estimating the impact of R&D subsidies on the demand for researchers, using information provided by a panel of Spanish firms belonging to the industrial and services sectors followed up during the 2004–2016 period. Estimates include corrections for the endogeneity bias generated by wages and by a set of variables measuring R&D public financing, as well as for the sample selection bias coming from the fact that the only wage data available are those from firms that are internal R&D performers and hire researchers. Estimate results show that public R&D financing has a positive and relevant impact on the demand for researchers. This result allows supporting the implementation of policies to promote public research funding in Spain, regardless of the origin of the funds received.

Social processes behind the success or failure of collaborative implementation frameworks in African public administration contexts are under-researched. This paper addresses this gap by paying particular attention to trust attributes in collaborative implementation arrangements in Kenya. It shows how implementation challenges of policy programs and interventions may be linked to these interventions’ social characteristics in the public sector. The paper draws on a threefold approach of mutual trust and administrative data on public sector collaborative implementation arrangements for Kenyan anti-corruption policy like the Kenya Leadership Integrity Forum. Findings show that despite increased efforts to realise joint actions in public sector collaborative arrangements, they remain primarily symbolic and hierarchical and feature loose social cohesion among actors, producing challenges bordering on deficiencies in social processes of implementation. These include politicised aloofness or lack of commitment, unclear governance structures, coordination deficiencies, inter-agency conflicts, layered fragmentations, and overlapping competencies among different agencies. The paper recommends identifying and nurturing socially sensitive strategies embedded in mutual trust, like informal knowledge-sharing channels, to address primarily mandated public sector collaboration challenges in Kenya. Such efforts should consider systematic training and incentivising public managers to think outside inward-looking organisational cultures, allowing them to devise sustainable collaborative implementation approaches (promote open innovation) for policy programs, particularly anti-corruption policy.