IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cte/wbrepe/wb066620.html

Technological collaboration : bridging the innovation gap between small and large firms

Author

Listed:
  • Nieto Sánchez, María Jesús
  • Santamaría Sánchez, Luis

Abstract

This paper analyses technological collaboration as an input to the innovation processes of SMEs. Technological collaboration may be a useful mechanism to offset some of the weaknesses in SMEs resource endowments and bring their innovation capabilities closer to that of their large counterparts. The results, based on a large longitudinal sample of Spanish manufacturing firms, show that technological collaboration is a critical factor in improving the capabilities and innovativeness of SMEs. While a general bridging of the gap between the innovativeness of SMEs and large firms was observed, the most significant advance was in product rather than process innovations.

Suggested Citation

  • Nieto Sánchez, María Jesús & Santamaría Sánchez, Luis, 2006. "Technological collaboration : bridging the innovation gap between small and large firms," DEE - Working Papers. Business Economics. WB wb066620, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía de la Empresa.
    • Handle: RePEc:cte:wbrepe:wb066620
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://e-archivo.uc3m.es/rest/api/core/bitstreams/890cff52-4e06-4634-ace8-695fa8b98dce/content
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Audretsch, David B & Vivarelli, Marco, 1996. "Firms Size and R&D Spillovers: Evidence from Italy," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 249-258, June.
    2. Holmstrom, Bengt, 1989. "Agency costs and innovation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 305-327, December.
    3. Kleinknecht, Alfred & Reijnen, Jeroen O. N., 1991. "More evidence on the undercounting of small firm R&D," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 579-587, December.
    4. Zoltan Acs & David Audretsch, 1990. "Innovation and Small Firms," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262011131, December.
    5. Bayona, Cristina & Garcia-Marco, Teresa & Huerta, Emilio, 2001. "Firms' motivations for cooperative R&D: an empirical analysis of Spanish firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(8), pages 1289-1307, October.
    6. Michael Fritsch & Monika Meschede, 2001. "Product Innovation, Process Innovation, and Size," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 19(3), pages 335-350, November.
    7. Hagedoorn, John & Link, Albert N. & Vonortas, Nicholas S., 2000. "Research partnerships1," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(4-5), pages 567-586, April.
    8. Bougrain, Frederic & Haudeville, Bernard, 2002. "Innovation, collaboration and SMEs internal research capacities," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 735-747, July.
    9. Zoltan J. Acs & David B. Audretsch, 2008. "Innovation in Large and Small Firms: An Empirical Analysis," Chapters, in: Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy, chapter 1, pages 3-15, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Cohen, Wesley M & Klepper, Steven, 1992. "The Anatomy of Industry R&D Intensity Distributions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 773-799, September.
    11. James Love & Stephen Roper, 1999. "The Determinants of Innovation: R & D, Technology Transfer and Networking Effects," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 15(1), pages 43-64, August.
    12. Mark Rogers, 2004. "Networks, Firm Size and Innovation," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 141-153, March.
    13. Yannis Caloghirou & Stavros Ioannides & Nicholas S. Vonortas, 2003. "Research Joint Ventures," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(4), pages 541-570, September.
    14. Cohen, Wesley M & Klepper, Steven, 1996. "Firm Size and the Nature of Innovation within Industries: The Case of Process and Product R&D," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(2), pages 232-243, May.
    15. Kumar, Nagesh & Saqib, Mohammed, 1996. "Firm size, opportunities for adaptation and in-house R & D activity in developing countries: the case of Indian manufacturing," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 713-722, August.
    16. Carolyny. Y. Woo & Arnold C. Cooper, 1981. "Strategies of effective low share businesses," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(3), pages 301-318, July.
    17. Nola Hewitt-Dundas, 2006. "Resource and Capability Constraints to Innovation in Small and Large Plants," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 257-277, April.
    18. Pavitt, Keith, 1984. "Sectoral patterns of technical change: Towards a taxonomy and a theory," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 13(6), pages 343-373, December.
    19. R Ahern, 1993. "Implications of Strategic Alliances for small R&D-Intensive Firms," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 25(10), pages 1511-1526, October.
    20. Elena Huergo & Jordi Jaumandreu, 2004. "How Does Probability of Innovation Change with Firm Age?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 22(3_4), pages 193-207, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ye Seul Choi & Up Lim, 2017. "Contextual Factors Affecting the Innovation Performance of Manufacturing SMEs in Korea: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(7), pages 1-15, July.
    2. Annalisa Caloffi & Marco Mariani & Fabrizia Mealli, 2013. "What kinds of R&D consortia enhance SMEs productivity? Evidence from a small-business innovation policy," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0172, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    3. Koutroumpis, Pantelis & Leiponen, Aija & Thomas, Llewellyn D W, 2017. "The Young, the Old and the Innovative: The Impact of R&D on Firm Performance in ICT versus Other Sectors," ETLA Working Papers 51, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    4. Waheed, Abdul, 2011. "Size, competition, and innovative activities: a developing world perspective," MERIT Working Papers 2011-052, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    5. Salvatore Farace & Fernanda Mazzotta, 2015. "The effect of human capital and networks on knowledge and innovation in SMEs," Journal of Innovation Economics, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(1), pages 39-71.
    6. Cohen, Wesley M., 2010. "Fifty Years of Empirical Studies of Innovative Activity and Performance," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 129-213, Elsevier.
    7. Ahunjonov Umidjon & Hu Shuhua & Bandula Jayathilake & Mu Renyan, 2014. "Characteristics of Small and Medium Enterprise Innovativeness: Cases of Uzbekistan and China," International Journal of Management Science and Business Administration, Inovatus Services Ltd., vol. 1(1), pages 12-27, December.
    8. Jaakko Simonen, 2005. "The innovativeness of the Finnish high technology firms – The role of internal factors, cooperation, and the mobility of labour," ERSA conference papers ersa05p462, European Regional Science Association.
    9. Andrew Copus & Dimitris Skuras & Kyriaki Tsegenidi, 2006. "Innovation and Peripherality: A Comparative Study in Six EU Member Countries," ERSA conference papers ersa06p295, European Regional Science Association.
    10. Baumann, Julian & Kritikos, Alexander S., 2016. "The link between R&D, innovation and productivity: Are micro firms different?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(6), pages 1263-1274.
    11. Juan A. Máñez & María E. Rochina‐Barrachina & Amparo Sanchis & Juan A. Sanchis, 2009. "The Role Of Sunk Costs In The Decision To Invest In R&D," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(4), pages 712-735, December.
    12. Barajas, A. & Huergo, E. & Moreno, L., 2012. "The Impact of International Research Joint Ventures on SMEs Performance," MPRA Paper 36306, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Raquel Ortega-Argilés & Marco Vivarelli & Peter Voigt, 2009. "R&D in SMEs: a paradox?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 3-11, June.
    14. Bos, Jaap W.B. & Economidou, Claire & Sanders, Mark W.J.L., 2013. "Innovation over the industry life-cycle: Evidence from EU manufacturing," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 78-91.
    15. Kyung Min Lee & John S. Earle & Lokesh Dani & Ray Bowman, 2023. "Who innovates during a crisis? Evidence from small businesses in the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 893-950, July.
    16. Coppola, Adele & Pascucci, Stefano, 2007. "The Role of Innovations in the Competitive Strategies of Italian Agri-Food Enterprises," 2007 1st Forum, February 15-17, 2007, Innsbruck, Austria 6584, International European Forum on System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks.
    17. Doh, Soogwan & Kim, Byungkyu, 2014. "Government support for SME innovations in the regional industries: The case of government financial support program in South Korea," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(9), pages 1557-1569.
    18. Pellegrino, Gabriele & Piva, Mariacristina & Vivarelli, Marco, 2012. "Young firms and innovation: A microeconometric analysis," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 329-340.
    19. Bettina Becker, 2013. "The Determinants of R&D Investment: A Survey of the Empirical Research," Discussion Paper Series 2013_09, Department of Economics, Loughborough University, revised Sep 2013.
    20. Cucculelli, Marco & Peruzzi, Valentina, 2020. "Innovation over the industry life-cycle. Does ownership matter?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(1).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cte:wbrepe:wb066620. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Ana Poveda (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.business.uc3m.es/es/index .

    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.