Firm Survival and Innovation: Knowledge Context Matters! (original) (raw)

Firm Innovation in the Italian Industrial Sector: Profitability and Persistence

This paper represents a contribution to empirical debate on the determinants of innovation in the firm, by exploiting an innovative panel database which for the first time links three waves of the Italian Community Innovation Survey with an administrative data source providing economic and financial information for firms in the Italian manufacturing sector. Our approach represents a novelty within the empirical literature based on CIS data, as it allows us both to retain a sample of firms which is larger than that obtained with a brute linkage between the three CIS waves, and to derive an innovation variable which is mainly derived from CIS information and which is suitable for dynamic investigations. We present an analytical framework in which a firm s propensity to introduce a successful innovation can be analysed. One of our research questions focuses on the role of profitability in determining a firm s successful innovation. Our data confirm that the innovation propensity is sig...

Survivor: The role of innovation in firms’ survival

Research Policy, 2006

This paper explores the relationship between innovation and the survival of manufacturing firms in the Netherlands. The determinants of the survival probability of a firm, traditionally identified in the size and age of a firm, are extended to include the ability of a firm to introduce an innovation in the market. The empirical analysis combines economic and demographic data from the Business Register of the population of firms active in the Netherlands with data on innovation derived from the second Community Innovation Survey. The survival probability of a firm is estimated by using a non-parametric approach: Transition Probability Matrices were calculating over different time periods. We observe that, in general, innovation has a positive and significant effect on firms' survival that increases as time lengthens. Furthermore, our results confirm that small and young firms are those most exposed to the risk of exit, but at the same time those that benefit most of innovation to survive in the market, especially in the longer term.

A Matter of Life and Death: Innovation and Firm Survival

Industrial and Corporate Change, 2005

This paper examines the effects of innovation on the survival of manufacturing firms in the Netherlands. The demographics of firms according to their innovative performance and type of innovation are traced by using the Business Register population of all firms active in the Netherlands and the Community Innovation Survey. Through estimation of a parametric duration model, we observe that firms do benefit of an innovation premium that extends their life expectancy, independent of firm-specific traits such as age and size. Especially process innovation seems to have a distinctive effect on survival. Furthermore, our results confirm that survival chances increase with age and the growth rate of a firm, the latter representing a more crucial factor than the initial size. Finally, sectors at high intensity of technology, that is, science based and specialised suppliers are most favourable environments to the survival of firms.

Bivariate Probit Models for Analysing how “Knowledge” Affects Innovation and Performance in Small and Medium Sized Firms

2011

This paper examines the determinants of innovation and its effects on small-and medium-sized firms We use the data from the OPIS databank, which provides a survey on a representative sample of firms from a province of the Southern Italy. We want to study whether small and medium sized firms can have a competitive advantage using their innovative capabilities, regardless of their sectoral and size limits. The main factor influencing the likelihood of innovation is knowledge, which is acquired through different ways. The econometric methodology consists of two bivariate models in order to estimate the probability of increased sales conditioned to the probability of innovation. We found that knowledge positively influences the probability of innovation; at the same time, knowledge has also a positive indirect effect on the increase of sales through innovation.

Innovation and business survival: A long-term approach

Research Policy, 2018

This paper explores the influence of innovation on the probability of survival of two hundred top British firms founded throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To this end, we have collected the firms’ significant innovations and classified them by Schumpeterian types, patented and non-patented and domestic and imported. The number of patents registered by the firms throughout their lifetime −a rough measure of their incremental innovation activity– has also been recorded. In addition, twelve control variables −five characteristics of the firms and seven of their business leaders– have been included. Both log-normal and gamma duration models have been used in the analysis. They have been estimated, firstly for the whole set of firms and, secondly, for the manufacturing and the service firms separately to control for industry differences. The results of the log-normal and gamma estimations are highly coincident, with some nuances. The significant innovations −particularly new processes, non-patented and domestic ones– have been found to positively influence the probability of business survival. The number of patent applications seems to increase the survival probability of the manufacturing firms, but not of the service ones. Among the control variables, the firm’s size, its international dimension, and the age of the business leader at entry seem to be the most influential ones on business survival, although there are some differences between manufacturing and services. The main results are robust to the division of the sample by entry period.

Evidence from Italian Firm-level Data

2011

Several empirical works have shown the robust and positive relation between growth and innovation at macroeconomic level and between firm economic performance and innovation at microeconomic level. However, the economists have had less opportunities to study such linkages during severe global downturns of the economic cycle. Moreover, the present disruptive economic downturn has forced the firms to implement survival strategies. One of such strategic behaviour regards the way of intervention on product and process areas through innovative actions. Focusing the attention on the micro level, the present work provides an empirical analysis on the basis of more than 500 Italian manufacturing firms located in Emilia-Romagna region, with the aim of disentangling the relations between pre-crisis innovation strategies with: on the one hand, firm economic performance during the crisis; on the other hand, innovative actions implemented to react to the recession’s challenges. The results sugge...

Profitability and Innovation: New Empirical Findings based on Italian Data 1996-2003

Rivista internazionale di scienze sociali

This paper provides new evidence of the short- and long-run effects of innovation on firms’ economic performance by exploiting an innovative panel database which for the first time links three waves of the Italian Community Innovation Survey with an administrative, economic and financial data source. Results support the hypothesis that innovation is a significant driver of a firm’s performance. Support for the firm efficiency view of firm profitability is found. Conversely, industry concentration, as a proxy for the industry view of competition, is not the key variable for explaining profitability. Sectoral spillovers generated by both the introduction of new products and the use of new processes positively affect a firm’s profitability.

Inside innovation persistence: New evidence from Italian micro-data

Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 2012

This paper contributes the analysis of the persistence of innovation activities, as measured by different innovation indicators and explores its past and path dependent characteristics. The study provides new insights on the role of R&D investments in innovation persistence and analyses differentiated patterns of persistence across product and process innovation, by accounting for complementarity effects between the two types of innovative behaviour. The empirical analysis is based on a sample of 451 Italian manufacturing companies observed during the years 1998-2006, and exploits both descriptive techniques such as Transition Probability Matrix and econometric methods based on dynamic probit models. Results highlight the relevance of innovation persistence. The highest level of persistence is found for R&D-based innovation activities, witnessing the actual presence of significant entry and exit barriers. Moreover, we obtain more robust evidence of persistence for product innovation than for process innovation when complementarity effects between the two types of innovation are accounted for.

Drivers to firm innovation and their effects on performance: an international comparison

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 2013

This research aims to analyse the drivers to company innovation and their effects on the financial performance. This study is based upon a sample of companies, located in two neighbouring countries (Portugal and Spain). Linear regression was the methodology deployed to analyse the importance of innovation types (differences between Portugal and Spain). To analyse the extent to which the innovation capacity variables influence financial performance (turnover), we made recourse to Probit Regression models. Our results show significant differences in terms of both the drivers and inhibitors to innovation in these two countries. The introduction of products into new markets only proved significant at Spanish companies whilst innovations in both products and processes are significant in both sets of Iberian companies.