IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/adz/wpaper/202202.html

Firm Innovation in Africa and Latin America: Heterogeneity and Country Context

Author

Listed:
  • Eva Paus

    (Economics on the Ford Foundation at Mount Holyoke College. Fiona Tregenna is the Email:)

  • Michael Robinson

    (Economics at Mount Holyoke College)

  • Fiona Tregenna

    (DSI/NRF South African Research Chair in Industrial Development and University of Johannesburg.)

Abstract

In this paper, we analyse the drivers of firm innovation in 35 African and Latin American countries. We investigate how firm-level capabilities and national country characteristics affect firm innovation activities and innovation outputs. Using data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys, we analyse the factors driving firm-level innovation by distinguishing two stages in the innovation process: firm engagement with innovation inputs and the translation of innovation inputs into innovation outputs. The paper provides empirical support for the importance of country level macro and institutional characteristics, in addition to firm level capabilities, across a large number of countries in determining firm level innovation. We demonstrate that capital investment and training are just as important innovation activities as R&D spending in developing economies. We highlight the heterogeneity in firm innovation across firm size, country and firm-level characteristics, and economic sectors.

Suggested Citation

  • Eva Paus & Michael Robinson & Fiona Tregenna, 2022. "Firm Innovation in Africa and Latin America: Heterogeneity and Country Context," SARChI-ID Working Papers 2022-02, SARChI Industrial Development (SARChI-ID), University of Johannesburg (UJ), revised Jan 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:adz:wpaper:202202
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.uj.ac.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/sarchi-wp-2022-02-eva-paus-michael-robinson-fiona-tregenna-january-2022.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2022
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elvis Korku Avenyo & Fiona Tregenna, 2025. "‘Learning to Export’ and ‘Learning By Exporting’: Revisiting the Relationship Between Innovation and Exports in African Firms," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 37(1), March.
    2. Penny Bamber & Karina Fernandez-Stark & Oswaldo Molina, 2024. "Innovation and competitiveness in the copper-mining GVC: developing local suppliers in Peru," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 33(4), pages 940-964.
    3. Saša Petković & Jelica Rastoka & Dragana Radicic, 2023. "Impact of Innovation and Exports on Productivity: Are There Complementary Effects?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-22, April.
    4. Torreggiani, Sofia & Andreoni, Antonio, 2023. "Rising to the challenge or perish? Chinese import penetration and its impact on growth dynamics of manufacturing firms in South Africa," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 199-212.
    5. Zhenzhen Chen & Yu He & Yum K. Kwan, 2024. "The High-tech Enterprise Certification Policy and Innovation: Quantity or Quality?," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(3), pages 14135-14171, September.
    6. Eva Paus & Mike Robinson, 2024. "The Challenge of Productivity-Based Development: Innovation Gaps and Economic Structure in Latin America," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 36(2), pages 277-305, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • O54 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Latin America; Caribbean
    • O55 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Africa

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:adz:wpaper:202202. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Melanie Ridgard (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/secujza.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.