Abstract
The main goal of this research is to study the role of several factors and firms’ resources that could have had an impact on the development of innovative activities of Spanish big firms, exploring how these factors can help to achieve success through innovation and improving business performance. We propose a new model to analyze the relationships between a set of organizational, technological, financial and information-based resources, as well as other aspects such as company’s cooperation. We employ a Structural Equation Model and the PLS technique in order to validate the theoretical model proposed in this research. The data come from the Spanish National Statistics Institute’s Survey on Firms Technological Innovation. The sample is composed by 2224 observations referred to firms with 200 or more workers. The main results show that human and financial resources and cooperation affect positively R&D activities. At the same time R&D, information management and technological resources have a positive effect on innovation. Finally, R&D activities, innovation results (product and process innovation) and information management influence business results.
Highlights
The relationships between firm’s characteristics, innovation behavior and business performance have been studied by many authors
The main goal of this research is to study the role of several factors and firms’ resources that could have had an impact on the development of innovative activities of Spanish big firms, exploring how these factors can help to achieve success through innovation and improving business performance
The model we propose defines three constructs affecting R&D activities: “Human resources”, defined by one variable: R&D personnel (PIDT3); “Financial resources”, approached by R&D expenses (GTID2); and “Cooperation”, observed by one variable, cooperation with other firms (COOPERA)
Summary
The relationships between firm’s characteristics, innovation behavior and business performance have been studied by many authors. The first reference in economic literature related to econometric analysis of R&D activities is Griliches’ technical knowledge production function [1]. Griliches’ function includes the typical productive factors and, it incorporates another one named “technological capital”, depending on R&D firms’ expenditure, Universities R&D, and Technological Centers’ activities. This production function has been used in several studies [2,3,4,5]. Griliches’ function does not consider all the activities included in innovation process, which is multidimensional and interactive [6]. Calvo in a study employing Spanish manufacturing firms [8], obtained that three quarters of process innovation firms did not have R&D personnel and more than a half of product innovative firms did not expend in R&D
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