Do firms benefit from interactions with public research organisations beyond innovation? An analysis of small firms

Abstract

In this paper we argue that there is an extensive number of studies examining how firms obtain new products from their interactions with scientific agents, but other type of benefits has been overlooked. Specifically, we add to previous literature by considering not only product innovation, but also exploratory (long-term) and exploitative (short-term) results. We administer a tailored survey to firms collaborating with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and data was completed with secondary sources. Results based on a sample of 756 firms suggest that firms consider all types of result as moderately important to them. Moreover, we observe that small firms report higher benefits in terms of product innovation and long-term results in contrast to large firms.