Georgia manufacturing industry: key factors of exchange of knowledge with external sources

Economic studies indicated that highly innovative firms have a decisive influence on national economic growth. Some studies have shown that many industry innovations arise out of research collaboration. Therefore, states seek to implement policies that promote research collaboration leading to highly innovative behaviour among firms within their states. This research study addressed the question: what organisational characteristics of firms are most positively associated with engagement in research collaboration? Drawing data from the 2005 Georgia Manufacturing Survey, this study has compared firms not engaged in research collaboration with those engaged in research collaboration with other firms and/or public research organisations. Using a logic model from econometrics, this research has identified four variables most positively associated with firm's tendency to engage in research collaboration between two firms (size, highly innovative, percentage of workers organised in teams and percentage of workers with training in information technology). The five public-private variables include size, highly innovative and teamwork, process innovation and intra-organisational incentives. Some of these variables are components of a firm's capacity to absorb external knowledge and apply it toward innovation, such us, team work and IT training.