Product and Process Flexibility in an Innovative Environment

Susan Athey () and Armin Schmutzler ()

RAND Journal of Economics, 1995, vol. 26, issue 4, pages 557-574

Abstract: This article studies several attributes of a firm's long-run decisions about organizational structure, attributes that affect the firm's short-run innovative activity. We focus on flexibility, which lowers the future costs of implementing innovations, and research capabilities, which improve the future opportunities for innovation. We consider two dimentsions of innovation: demand-enhancing (product) and cost-reducing (process). These two types of innovation are complementary in terms of increasing the firm's net revenue in the short run. The complementarities between the firm's short-run decision variables then lead to complementarities between its long-run decisions about product and process flexibility and research capabilities.

Date: 1995
View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0741-6261%2819952 ... O%3B2-D&origin=repec full text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rje:randje:v:26:y:1995:i:winter:p:557-574

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://gemini.econ.umd.edu/cgi-bin/rje_online.cgi

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in RAND Journal of Economics from The RAND Corporation
Series data maintained by ().