The Determinants of Innovation Adoption

Abstract

Abstract:Using a sample of 46 000 EU firms from the Community Innovation Survey, this paper analyses the drivers of innovation adoption. In contrast to most empirical studies on innovation diffusion in which a specific technology is analyzed, this study covers several countries and industries in the European Union. Following Van de Ven and Van Praag (1981), Heckman's method is applied in a context of binary endogenous variable to explain the choices made by firms regarding innovation. Distinctions are made between the internal generation of innovation and the adoption of innovation produced by others, as well as between different types of adoption (product vs. process and cooperation-based adoption vs. isolated adoption). The study is focused on the impact of users' features and their cooperation with suppliers on the adoption choices. The results point out that cooperation is a key driver of adoption choices. Usual determinants such as firm size, absorptive capability or exports would foster generation of innovation instead of adoption.

Determinants of innovation: the role of the agglomeration economies

“…Having U.S and Canada as exports markets increases the probability of innovating in marketing. ese positive effects are explained by the fact that the presence of a firm in foreign markets requires more innovations to be internationally competitive (Autant-Bernard et al, 2010). By contrast, when one of the exports destination is the African market, the probability of general innovation decreases by 74 p.p.…”

“…e skilled employees are one important factor to develop innovations because they are those who carry out the R&D activities and can operate new machinery or soware that the company acquires (González et al, 2016). e knowledge, skills and abilities of qualified human capital can be used by the firm in order to identify and absorb knowledge to conduct innovation activities more efficiently (Autant-Bernard et al, 2010;González et al, 2016). erefore, the 1% increase in the number of skilled workers in a firm increases the probability of innovating by 0.0404 p.p.…”

“…Skilled labor is another positive expected factor of the innovation since human capital increases the absorptive capacity and the capacity of generation of new knowledge of firms (González et al, 2016). Autant-Bernard et al (2010) in their study show that the value of exports encourages innovations, because, if the goods or services are devoted to the international market, companies will have a greater demand to increase their competitiveness. Companies as part of international markets are forced to generate innovative ideas on a global scale (Grossman and Helpman, 1993) to meet the quality requirements from international customers (López-Mielgo et al, 2012).…”

“…For medium and small companies innovation might be a complex aspect (Acosta and Coronado, 1999;Autant-Bernard et al, 2010;López-Mielgo et al, 2012). Nevertheless, the evidence has demonstrated that the bureocracy of large firms may hinder the innovative process.…”

Determinantes de la Adopción de Innovación en Ecuador

“…La innovación en una empresa se puede lograr a través de dos vías: La primera es una innovación propia, desarrollada internamente por la misma entidad que la utiliza. La segunda opción es la adopción, que es realizada principalmente por otras entidades y adquirida posteriormente por otra empresa que hará uso de la misma (Autant-Bernard et al, 2010).…”