Innovationsstrategien von Schweizer Firmen: Identifikation und Dynamik im Zeitraum 1999–2008

The article aims, in a first part, at identifying a set of innovation strategies of Swiss firms based on data stemming from four waves of the KOF Innovation Survey conducted in the period 1999 to 2008. To this end, we perform a cluster analysis of fifteen innovation indicators that yields five categories of firms («clusters»), which, with respect to the underlying indicators, are highly similar and, at the same time, significantly different from the other clusters. Drawing on the most important supply-side and demand-side determinants of a firm’s innovation activity, we examine whether we effectively may interpret the five clusters we detected by using a purely statistical procedure as specific types of strategies. We find that the five clusters indeed represent economically sensible innovation strategies. In a second part, we analyse the frequency and the direction of the firms’ switches from one to another strategy of innovation. The results allow to assessing whether the patterns of the adjustment of strategies are in accordance with the structural change required in a highly advanced economy such as the Swiss one.