A Non-Parametric Delphi Approach to Foster Innovation Policy Debate in Spain

Abstract

Abstract:The aim of this paper is to identify some changes needed in Spain's innovation policy to fill the gap between its innovation results and those of other European countries in lieu of sustainable leadership. To do this we apply the Delphi methodology to experts from academia, business, and government. To overcome the shortcomings of traditional descriptive methods, we develop an inferential analysis by following a non-parametric bootstrap method which enables us to identify important changes that should be implemented. Particularly interesting is the support found for improving the interconnections among the relevant agents of the innovation system (instead of focusing exclusively in the provision of knowledge and technological inputs through R and D activities), or the support found for "soft" policy instruments aimed at providing a homogeneous framework to assess the innovation capabilities of firms (e.g., for funding purposes). Attention to potential innovators among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and traditional industries is particularly encouraged by experts.Keywords: innovation policy; Delphi; bootstrap; intangibles; intellectual capital; Spain Conceptual FrameworkInnovation is a complex process where agents produce knowledge based on other pieces of disperse and fragmented knowledge. As a consequence, we can reasonably expect that agents will almost never go through this process in isolation, but interact with other agents to acquire and exchange knowledge, information, and other resources [1]. Social and technological changes in past decades induced more complexity on the innovation process, increasing the potential connections among actors [2]. Indeed, it has been argued that innovation increasingly depends on external knowledge sources [3].The theoretical approaches to assess innovation have reacted to such changes, shifting from a "linear" and autonomous perspective on the production of knowledge [4] to a comprehensive approach where the innovation process is the result of the co-evolution of society and technology, where agents do not innovate in isolation but within a "system", and where interactions and feedback processes are key to explaining innovation paths [5][6][7][8]. This holistic vision of the innovation process gave rise to new research agendas, such as "open innovation", in which the discussion is centered at acknowledging the value of using external knowledge [9][10][11]. There has been an increasing interest in the research of empirical evidence relating open innovation and innovation performance [12], but its implications for public policy-making have not yet been analyzed in detail (with few exceptions [13]).These changes in innovation practice and theory also induced changes in innovation policy [14,15]. For example, they showed the increasing need to manage interfaces between users and producers of innovations beyond the pure transfer of knowledge and technologies (e.g., stimulating demand articulation and bridging gaps between actors). These changes also urged policy-m...

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