Collaboration with External Organizations and Technological Innovations: Evidence from Spanish Manufacturing Firms

Abstract

Based on the two knowledge dimensions of availability and accessibility, this study investigates the influence of cooperation with external organizations on technological, product, and process innovations. Using longitudinal data from Spanish manufacturing firms, we estimate dynamic random-effects probit models and thus take into account that technological innovations exhibit persistent behavior. We find that cooperation with suppliers and universities is positively associated with both product and process innovations. However, sectoral analysis according to technological intensity reveals that cooperation with suppliers increases the propensity to technological innovation in industries with a higher degree of technological intensity, while cooperation with universities increases the likelihood of innovation in industries with a lower degree of technological intensity. Moreover, empirical results indicate a high degree of true or genuine state dependence in both types of innovations. Based on these findings, we discuss the theoretical, managerial, and policy implications of the study.

Instrument policy mix and firm size: is there complementarity between R&D subsidies and R&D tax credits?

“…Control variables are lagged one period to take into account that the impact of firms' internal and external factors on innovation is not instantaneous, but rather occurs with a time lag (Busom et al, 2017;Radicic & Pinto, 2019;Un & Asakawa, 2015). They include a range of variables capturing firm and market characteristics.…”

“…R&D activities are particularly relevant determinants of product and process innovations and of absorptive capacity (Huang et al, 2010;Radicic & Balavac, 2019). Concerning types of innovation, product innovation usually requires a certain degree of R&D activities (Huang et al, 2010), while process innovation is more affected by non-R&D activities (Polder et al, 2010;Rouvinen, 2002) and by collaboration with suppliers (Huang et al, 2010;Radicic & Pinto, 2019). To operationalize absorptive capacity, we include more than one indicator, as suggested by previous studies (Hervas-Oliver et al, 2011.…”

The Effect of Formal and Informal External Collaboration on Innovation Performance of SMEs: Evidence from China

“…[16,28]. Participating in such external collaboration activities provides firms with opportunities to acquire various resources, ideas, and technologies [29]. Besides, it can also help firms to share the costs of innovation with their partners and reduce the uncertainty in the process of innovation [30].…”

Process innovation capability in less-structured business processes: a systematic literature review

“…Several studies have investigated the concept and practicality of process innovation in large and well-structured organizations (Radicic and Pinto, 2019;Fang and Wu, 2006;Partanen and Matinlassi, 2015). Furthermore, there are numerous studies on process innovation in general that do not distinguish between fully structured and unstructured business processes (Godart et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2018), even though each business process has different characteristics (Szela ˛gowski and Lupeikiene, 2020).…”