Key Knowledge Providers as Sources of Business Innovation

Abstract

Studies of innovation are giving increasing attention to the relationships that businesses maintain with different participants in the innovation process. It is generally assumed that interaction with other businesses, universities and government organizations can generate knowledge that will improve the ability to innovate. However, there is little evidence of the specific roles that businesses assign to partners with regard to the provision of knowledge for innovation activities. This paper presents results from research on the dynamics of Triple Helix networks, where such networks provide the basis for building innovation capacity for businesses in catch-up geographical regions. The principal assumption is that businesses adopting an open collaboration strategy have a greater capacity to combine knowledge from different sources and adapt the knowledge to suit their innovation processes. A large set of key indicators is used to identify which regional sources are considered by businesses to be important for acquiring knowledge. The study is based on a survey of 737 businesses in the Andalusia region of Southern Spain and analysis of the results provides a typology of businesses characterized by the extent to which they focus their interest on specific groups of participants in the innovation process. The conclusions highlight and compare the role of universities with that of business networks, service providers, government and other sources.