IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/adz/wpaper/202207.html

Innovation complementarities in small and micro-enterprises in Johannesburg, South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Godfrey Kamutando

    (DSI/NRF South African Research Chair in Industrial Development, University of Johannesburg and Policy Research in International Services and Manufacturing (PRISM), University of Cape Town.)

  • Fiona Tregenna

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

Abstract

Innovation is important to firms’ productivity, competitiveness, agility, resilience and growth. The success of a firm’s innovation strategy depends in part on how it combines and absorbs different innovation activities. This paper analyses complementarity between various innovation activities, for the case of small and micro manufacturing firms in Johannesburg, South Africa. Specifically, we analyse the extent and determinants of complementarity between types of innovation (product and process innovation) and between innovation sources (internal and external innovation). The empirical analysis utilises rich new firm-level survey data which, unlike most firm surveys, includes micro as well as informal enterprises. This contributes to the innovation complementarity literature that is very limited in the African context, and even internationally only sparsely covers small and micro firms, and informal firms. We extend the specifications used in previous studies to take account of the contextual setting. Our results show complementarity between product and process innovations but not between internal and external innovation. The results suggest that the capital intensity of the firm, firm age, ownership, research and development (R&D), main markets and financial constraints are key variables associated with complementarity.

Suggested Citation

  • Godfrey Kamutando & Fiona Tregenna, 2022. "Innovation complementarities in small and micro-enterprises in Johannesburg, South Africa," SARChI-ID Working Papers 2022-07, SARChI Industrial Development (SARChI-ID), University of Johannesburg (UJ), revised May 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:adz:wpaper:202207
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.uj.ac.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/sarchi-wp-2022-07-kamutando-and-tregenna-may-2022.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2022
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General
    • 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
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    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:202207. 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.