The Recent Evolution of Canadian Inventive Enterprises

Abstract

While inventive activity is necessary for industrial economies to progress, little is known about the types of enterprises inventing in Canada. The present study examines a typology of Canadian inventive enterprises at the national, subnational, and urban levels and the types of inventions developed in these areas from 1975 to 1989. Canadian patent and industrial directory information shows that Canada's largest enterprises are the most inventive, followed by small and then medium-sized enterprises. Although Canadian enterprises used teams of inventors to develop a considerably larger share of their inventions by 1989, they became discernably more inventive in only one industry after 1981 while concentrating on many process inventions between 1975 and 1989. Geographically, Canada's two largest cities and its core region were adversely affected by the declining inventiveness of this nation's large and foreign-owned enterprises during the 1980s. With respect to Canada's periphery, many of the characteristics typical of Canadian inventive enterprises were not readily apparent in this region, which had a more specialized inventive base than did the core.