Cooperation for innovationthe impact on innovatory effort

Abstract

Nowadays, in the development of new products it becomes necessary to recognise the importance wielded by agents external to the firm as a source of innovation activities. The complexity and dynamism of present environments make it obligatory to complement the internal knowledge base with others coming from outside, and thus a distinction is made between internal and external innovation sources. Since the former have been adequately studied and analysed in the literature, the present work aims to make progress in knowing the latter. For this purpose, an analysis has been made of the influence of nine types of cooperation with external agents on three indicators of innovatory effort in twenty industrial and service sectors in Spain. These indicators have been: the total intensity of innovation activities, the intramural R&D intensity and the extramural R&D intensity. The findings indicate the existence of very diverse effects on the basis of the partner chosen to cooperate with.