اندازه بازار و استخدام استراتژیک نیروی کار تحقیق وتوسعه به عنوان مانع ورود رقیب خارجی (مقاله علمی وزارت علوم)
درجه علمی: نشریه علمی (وزارت علوم)
آرشیو
چکیده
در این پژوهش به بررسی عوامل مؤثر بر کنش ممانعت از ورود بنگاه های خارجی با استفاده از سرمایه گذاری راهبردی بنگاه خانگی در تحقیق وتوسعه پرداختیم. بررسی این موضوع به عنوان یک مانع درون زای مخرب تجارت آزاد، تحت چارچوب جاری افزایش تمرکز بازار در سطح بازارهای جهانی، برای طراحی سیاست های تجاری بهینه ضرورت دارد. به این منظور و در راستای گسترش ادبیات موضوع که در آن تحقیق وتوسعه در امتداد نوآوری محصول یا فرآیند پدیدار می شود، یک چارچوب نظری از طریق تلفیق تئوری های تجارت بین الملل و سازمانِ صنعتی مطرح کرده و در قالب یک بازی استکلبرگِ «ممانعت از ورود» نشان دادیم که حتی در شرایطی که بنگاه ها انگیزه مستقیمی برای مشارکت در فعالیت های نوآورانه ندارند، سرمایه گذاری در تحقیق وتوسعه می تواند منطق راهبردی داشته باشد. کارکرد این رفتار که نیازمند حدی از قدرت قیمت گذاری است، از طریق ایجاد انحراف در دستمزد نیروی کار تحقیق وتوسعه و به دنبال آن افزایش هزینه ورود رقیب خارجی و کاهش سود مورد انتظار آن ، آشکار می شود. همچنین ما نشان دادیم دامنه ای از اندازه بازار وجود دارد که در تقویت رفتار ممانعت از ورود عمل می کند؛ بنابراین در این محیط آزادسازی تجاری نمی تواند نقشی در زمینه کنترل تمرکز بازار داشته باشد. این یافته ها اهمیت لحاظ تأثیر و تأثرات سیاست تجاری و صنعتی را برجسته و همچنین مبنای نظری جدیدی برای تحلیل تجربی ارتباط بین اندازه بازار و تحقیق وتوسعه در سطح بنگاه را فراهم می سازد.Market Size and Strategic R&D Personnel Recruitment as a Barrier to Foreign Entry
The current study examined how strategic R&D investments by incumbent domestic firms influence entry deterrence against foreign competitors in an era of rising global market concentration. The objective was to analyze whether, and through what mechanisms, such investments operate as an endogenous barrier to free trade. In this line, the study developed a theoretical framework integrating insights from international trade and industrial organization. The interaction between incumbent firms and potential foreign entrants was modeled as a Stackelberg entry-deterrence game, from which the corresponding equilibrium conditions were drawn. The analysis showed that even in the absence of direct innovation incentives, incumbents may find strategic R&D investment optimal. This occurs through a distortionary increase in wages for R&D personnel, which raises foreign competitors’ entry costs and reduces their expected profits. The analysis also identified a range of market sizes in which entry-deterring behavior is most pronounced. Specifically, moderate-sized markets are the sites where strategic R&D is most effectively used to deter entry, whereas in very small or very large markets the incentives for such behavior weaken. These results indicates that trade liberalization alone is insufficient to curb rising market concentration. The study underscored the importance of integrating trade and industrial policy when analyzing competitive dynamics and provided a theoretical foundation for future empirical research on the relationship between market size and firm-level R&D. Introduction While canonical trade theory predicts that liberalization promotes competition, empirical evidence since the late 1970s shows a persistent rise in market concentration. In this context, it is essential to analyze how strategic recruitment of R&D personnel can serve as an endogenous barrier to entry in international markets. The current study aimed to examine whether incumbent domestic firms can use R&D hiring strategically to deter foreign entry, even in the absence of direct productivity gains. It also went on to identify the market conditions under which such behavior is profit-maximizing, and evaluate policy mechanisms capable of mitigating its anti-competitive effects. An attempt was made to infer policy implications from the results. The analysis employed a Stackelberg entry-deterrence framework that integrates insights from international trade and industrial organization. In this setting, incumbents first decide on production levels and the scale of R&D hiring, while potential entrants subsequently determine whether to enter the market after observing these choices. The model treats R&D labor as a scarce, wage-sensitive input and incorporates fixed entry costs to capture market-access frictions. Analytical solutions and comparative statics delineate the conditions under which deterrence is rational. Materials and Methods The study developed a compact, theory-driven approach characteristic of industrial-organization research. It constructed a three-stage Stackelberg game in which an incumbent domestic firm moved first, followed by a potential foreign entrant. The model explicitly distinguished between final-goods production and R&D activities, treating the domestic supply of R&D labor as both scarce and endogenous to wage setting. Instead of estimating structural parameters, the analysis proceeded analytically: equilibrium strategies were derived, comparative-static conditions were characterized, and the parameter regions in which deterrence was feasible were identified. To make the theoretical insights practically interpretable, the research provided illustrative numerical examples and mapped the feasible parameter domains. Finally, it examined cross-country indicators (e.g., market-size proxies and measures related to fixed trade costs and access to R&D talent from OECD and other international sources), demonstrating that the non-linear patterns predicted by the model were observable in available data, while emphasizing that these checks were illustrative rather than causal tests. Results and Discussion The analysis yielded four principal findings. First, incumbents can indeed profit from strategically recruiting R&D personnel to raise rivals’ entry costs. This mechanism operates not through direct productivity gains but via a labor-market distortion: by increasing demand for scarce R&D talent, incumbents drive up wages, thereby raising the resource costs a foreign entrant would face when attempting to replicate or adapt products for the domestic market. Second, the feasibility of this strategic hiring is strongly non-linear in market size. In very small markets, profitable entry deterrence is infeasible because limited demand makes the cost of such a strategy economically unjustified. In very large markets, incumbents have little incentive to deter entry, as they already extract substantial rents without engaging in costly wage escalation. It was found that strategic R&D recruitment is most viable in medium-sized markets, where incumbents possess both sufficient market power and exposure to potential entrants. Third, the prevalence of deterrence critically depends on fixed entry costs and other trade-cost parameters. When fixed costs are low, deterrence collapses and market opening tends to produce competitive reallocation. Conversely, high or sticky fixed costs expand the parameter domain in which strategic hiring can sustain exclusion. Fourth, the analysis identified suggestive empirical patterns consistent with these theoretical predictions. Cross-country and cross-industry proxies revealed a non-monotonic relationship between market size and measures of R&D hiring intensity and entry impedance, while higher trade-friction indicators corresponded to conditions favorable to deterrence. Overall, these findings can be seen in their relevance to the broader trade–innovation literature. Although classic reallocation channels operated in some environments, the model demonstrated how innovation-related labor-market mechanisms can weaken or even reverse the pro-competitive effects of liberalization. Conclusion This study developed a theoretical framework to understand how the strategic recruitment of R&D personnel can serve as an endogenous barrier to foreign market entry, thereby explaining cases in which trade liberalization coincides with increased market concentration. The main policy implications are twofold. First, trade liberalization alone does not necessarily enhance competition if the strategic labor-market effects related to innovation are ignored. Second, policies that lower the effective fixed costs of entry or increase access to R&D talent (e.g., reducing regulatory barriers, improving talent mobility, or promoting open R&D collaborations) can mitigate the anti-competitive incentives for firms to use R&D hiring as an exclusionary tactic. In addition, more targeted competition policies are recommended. These include monitoring wage-driven exclusionary strategies, scrutinizing hiring practices that aim to limit talent rather than enhance productive capacity, and conditioning subsidies or incentives on demonstrable productivity gains. Several empirical extensions are also recommended, such as structurally estimating the model using firm-level data, identifying the causal effects of wage distortions, and evaluating policy experiments designed to reduce fixed trade costs or improve access to R&D personnel. Such efforts are critical for translating the model’s theoretical insights into practical policy solutions.
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