The Effects of Employee Training on Open Innovation in Emerging Markets : Evidence from ASEAN countries

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of employee training programs on open innovation performance in Southeast Asian emerging markets. In particular, we investigate the impacts of general job training and innovation-focused training on product innovation and process innovation with or entirely by external partners as well as the purchase of intellectual property right by firms in Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. To this end, we select 6,024 firms from the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) dataset and adopt the Heckman two-stage regression model to control for endogeneity. This study finds that both general and innovation-focused training have positive impacts on product and processes innovation with or entirely by external partners. Both types of training are also positively associated with the purchase of intellectual property right. The findings of this study have important implications as they emphasize the role of employee training in Southeast Asian emerging markets.