Academics in manufacturing companies: Empirical analysis of publication activity and export quality

This paper shows, for the first time in empirical literature, that the presence-of employees from academia in the firm, regardless of their participation in the firm's research activities, reflects the skills of the firm to learn and acquire new knowledge or, put differently, its absorptive capacity. It is assumed that the higher absorptive capacity act as a mechanism that determines the impact of scientists on the productivity of the firm. The hypothesis that there is an inter-firm diffusion of knowledge in the commodity space is also being tested: firms with similar commodity structures are more likely to hire scientists. Hypotheses are tested on the example of a sample of small and medium-sized Russian firms-exporters, for which absorptive capacity is particularly important.