Phys.org August 21, 2024 We know little about how academic freedom relates to indicators of societal progress, such as innovation. An international team of researchers (USA – Indiana University, Luxembourg Italy, Germany) addressed this research gap by empirically assessing the impact of academic freedom on the quantity (patent applications) and quality (patent citations) of innovation output using a comprehensive sample of 157 countries over the 1900–2015 period. They found that improving academic freedom by one standard deviation increases patent applications by 41% and forward citations by 29%. The results were robust across a range of different specifications. Their findings constituted […]
Tag Archives: Innovation
Study finds working from home stifles innovation
Phys.org July 30, 2024 After the Covid-19 pandemic firms are now struggling to implement a return to working from the office (WFO), as employees enjoy the significant benefits of working from home (WFH) for their work-life balance. An international team of researchers (USA -University of Chicago, Germany, UK) used unique and detailed data from an Indian IT services firm which contains a precise measure of innovation activity of over 48,000 employees in these three work environments. The key outcomes were the quantity and quality of ideas submitted by employees. Based on an event study design, the quantity of ideas did […]
Study: ‘Exploring’ inventors thrive in workplaces with open communications
Phys.org October 12, 2022 Drawing upon the notion of boundaryless organizations and upon the information processing perspective of organizational design a team of researchers in the US (University of South Florida, University of Nebraska, University of Missouri) investigated the decompartmentalization of internal communication as a unique organizational context that moderates the relationship between R&D employees’ exploration behaviors and their individual inventive performance. They tested their hypotheses using a novel combination of survey and archival data. They found that R&D employees who explored more generated inventions that were more valuable only when in workplaces characterized by high communication decompartmentalization. Such workplaces […]