Knowledge that Transforms

How much does your neighbor impact your test scores and career? In this paper, we examine how an observable characteristic of same-age neighbors—their gender—affects a variety of high school and university outcomes. We exploit randomness in the gender composition of local cohorts at birth from one year to the next. In a setting in which school assignment is based on proximity to residential address, we define as neighbors all same-cohort peers who attend neighboring schools. Using new administrative data for the universe of students in consecutive cohorts in Greece, we find that a higher share of female neighbors improves both male and female students’ high school and university outcomes. We also find that female students are more likely to enroll in STEM disciplines that promote innovation and pursue more financially rewarding career paths when they are exposed to a higher share of female neighbors. We collect rich qualitative geographic data on communal spaces (e.g., churches, libraries, parks, Scouts and sports fields) to understand whether access to spaces of social interaction drives neighbor effects. We find that communal facilities amplify neighbor effects among females.

Linking scientific articles in PubMed and corporate biomedical U.S. patents, we study the role of inventors who are frontier scientists, identified as authors of recent articles in top-general biomedical journals. We find that inventions by these “frontier authors” receive more patent citations, are more likely to become technology hits, and have broad technology impact. They are also more likely to be internally further developed by the firm, hold greater private value, and feature broader claims—not only compared to inventions by non-author inventors but also to those by non-frontier authors, including “star” authors. This impact premium is especially strong in scaled-up young biopharmaceutical firms and for frontier authors internally employed at the patenting firm. To better understand the mechanism behind the impact premium of frontier-author patents, we analyze their boundary spanning role. We find that frontier-author patents are more likely to use and to be first users of frontier science. However, while frontier-author patents achieve peak impact when referencing frontier science, this advantage is comparable to other patents that reference frontier science. And as frontier-author patents also enjoy an impact premium on patents referencing other than frontier science, our results, thus, suggest that closeness to frontier science in only part of the story of the superior impact of inventions by frontier scientists. • We study the contribution of frontier scientist as inventors in firm technology. • Patents of frontier authors generate superior technology impact and private value. • Frontier nature (top & recent) in the author-inventor link drives broader impact. • Frontier-author patents more likely use and lead in adopting frontier science. • Better use of frontier science partly explains frontier-author patents' impact.

Competitive industry-science collaboration programs encourage academic scientists to co-develop innovation projects with firms. These programs combine attributes of competitive research funding and science commercialization policies. Because they demand more time and effort than traditional science funding, and may push applicants toward projects with higher commercial potential, the question arises whether they come at the expense of scientific productivity or alter the direction of research. Using data from a large-scale, cross-country R&D policy, we find no evidence of negative impacts on science. On the contrary, our analysis shows an increase in joint scientific publications with industrial partners, while the overall direction of research remains unchanged. • We study if collaboration programs affect science output or direction. • We evaluate the EU flagship program Eurostars. • Participation increases joint publications with industrial partners. • Scientific productivity is not negatively affected. • Research direction remains unchanged despite firm involvement.

Creativity and innovation, while closely related, are concepts often studied within separate academic traditions. Creativity, rooted in psychology, focuses on micro-level processes, whereas innovation, grounded in economics, management science, and organization theory emphasizes macro-level dynamics. This separation has resulted in limited cross-disciplinary dialogue and a fragmented understanding of their interdependencies. In this paper, we advocate for building metaphorical bridges between creativity and innovation research to foster a more integrated understanding of the production of “the novel and useful” knowledge in organizations. We begin by providing a historical overview of both fields, highlighting their origins, key insights, and methodological approaches. Using a framework that maps four research domains in a two (creativity-innovation) by two (micro-macro) table, we identify existing connections and propose pathways for a more integrated theoretical perspective. We underscore the importance of sustaining these bridges, arguing that such integration is crucial for the continued evolution of both fields. By promoting the integration of separate research streams, we aim to enhance conceptual clarity and address complex challenges that require a holistic approach. This paper introduces the special issue “Connecting Creativity and Innovation Research”, outlining future research directions and showcasing contributions that exemplify and advance this integrative effort.

In this paper, we study whether and to what extent exposure to industrial robots leads to the regionalization of global value chains (GVC) for a group of seven European countries and ten manufacturing sectors. We use country-industry-year data on GVC participation for the period 1995-2018 from the OECD-ICIO database and we merge it with industrial robot data from the IFR. To assess the non-spurious long-run relationship between robots and GVC dynamics, we adopt a panel cointegration approach and dynamic OLS regressions, while we assess the direction of causality using a panel vector error correction approach. Our results suggest that, on average, higher exposure to robotization Granger causes a higher GVC regionalization, which is more pronounced when the source of foreign value-added moves from Asian economies to Eastern Europe. We also find that sectoral heterogeneity matters, since a stronger robot-induced regionalization of GVCs tends to occur in more upstream sectors and with high labour intensity.

Non-hierarchical organizational structures have gained popularity as a means to leverage the crowd's innovative potential. However, balancing the generation of new ideas with the long-term sustainability of innovation efforts remains a significant challenge, especially in the context of open-source software (OSS) projects. In the absence of formal authority and contracts, OSS projects rely on governance systems wherein the rights to maintain the project's source code are restricted to a small group of contributors. We argue that restricting write access to the source code for a core group is essential for effectively managing innovation in OSS projects. Specifically, we propose that the proportion of contributors with write access to the source code influences two key outcomes: project novelty and survival. Additionally, given the widespread adoption of OSS development practices by organizations, we examine how organizational ownership influences the relationship between write access provisioning and project outcomes. Analyzing a matched sample of 5762 OSS projects hosted on GitHub, we find that a higher proportion of contributors with write access enhances the project's novelty but reduces the project's survival . This relationship is further influenced by whether or not the project is organization-owned. We attribute these findings to the distinct roles played by contributors: those with write access to the project drive innovation by selecting and integrating new ideas, while those without write access to the project are crucial for ensuring the project's reliability and long-term survival.

We examine how emerging market defence entities, as industry latecomers, have internationalised and gained market share, and affected industry dynamics. It investigates the role that sectoral innovation systems and industrial policies have played, and whether and how these defence entities have been able to develop their indigenous innovation capabilities. Four in-depth country cases are analysed longitudinally, from the inception of their domestic military industries into the present - namely Singapore, South Korea, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. We find that the policy landscape through industrial policy and government support, combined with shifts in technology and demand, created conditions for emerging market defence entities to engage in limited catch-up with incumbents. We highlight the challenges they have had in moving beyond linking and leveraging in developing their indigenous industrial capabilities. We contribute towards our understanding of the interplay between sectoral innovation systems, industry latecomers and the role that internationalisation can play in taking advantage of possible windows of opportunity. We show how the industry specificities of the defence sector have restrained some of these opportunities and similarly how domestic sectoral innovation systems can either facilitate or impede the exploitation of these opportunities.

This article aims at understanding the biographical dynamics of mobility—academic, institutional, geographic, and disciplinary—and its effect on scientific recognition. We draw on a comprehensive data collection on career progression, publications, and funding for all biology professors in Switzerland active between 2008 and 2020. Data sources combine CV information, data from the Web of Science and the Swiss National Science Foundation. Thanks to multiple-sequence analysis, we are able to consider six career types and their effect on scientific recognition. Our main finding is that different combinations of mobility have different effects on scientific recognition. Disciplinary mobility, however, has a very limited effect on shaping scientific careers, although we also observe a positive effect of disciplinary mobility in cases when it occurs early in the career. Professors who became interdisciplinary very early are also those who are the youngest at tenure and who benefit from the highest level of citations when considering their entire career. Because the effects of mobility on career success depend on specific combinations of academic, geographic, institutional, and disciplinary mobility, as well as ascriptive characteristics, we argue that biographical process should be considered in studies on scientific careers. • This article proposes a cross-fertilization of bibliometrics and scientific careers. • Focus on combinations of academic, institutional, geographic and disciplinary mobility • Effect on scientific recognition depends on different combinations of mobility. • Organizational and international mobility matter more than disciplinary mobility. • Early-career disciplinarity mobility has a positive effect on scientific recognition.

In many industries trainees often seek careers different from their mentors. For example, many PhD students seek non-academic careers. Anecdotally, mentors invest less in different-career trainees, but causal evidence is lacking. To fill this gap, we conducted an audit experiment in academia, where a fictitious prospective PhD student emailed immunology and microbiology principal investigators (PIs) about mentorship. The student's career intention was randomly described as “applied research in industry” ( n = 1000), “basic research in academia” ( n = 1000) or no description (control, n = 442). To mitigate concerns about skills and motivation, all emails highlighted the student's great academic record. Contrary to expectations, PIs responded at similar rates across all conditions. Treatment effects showed little heterogeneity based on the PIs' institution prestige, industry connections, and career length. These null findings challenge the widespread belief that mismatched career intentions cause less mentorship (although the two may still be associated) and the mechanisms assumed to drive that effect. Our results call for caution in deploying interventions to fix problems related to advisor-mentee misalignments before clearly establishing their source. • We causally test the connection between a trainee's career interests and mentorship availability • We focus on the academic life sciences in the U.S. • Mentors do not appear to discriminate against industry-leaning prospective PhD students