¿Son la i+d interna y los acuerdos de cooperación en i+d actividades complementarias? implicaciones para el diseño de políticas públicas de promoción de la innovación

Abstract

In this paper, we analyse the existence of complementarity between the internal R&D activities and the R&D cooperative agreements of Spanish innovative manufacturing firms. The database used is the Community Innovation Survey, referring to the Spanish economy. We employ the Heckman correction method as regression technique. The results indicate that there is evidence of substitutability between internal R&D and R&D cooperation, and non-industrial technological opportunities and strategic protection mechanisms have no influence on innovation output. By contrast, industrial technological opportunities do not contribute to increasing the likelihood of innovation, but influence their innovative performance. According to the literature reviewed, this study is one of the pioneers in empirically contrasting the complementarity between the internal R&D activities and the R&D cooperative agreements within the context of the technological opportunities of Spanish innovative manufacturing firms. The analysis of the results provides important findings for decision makers.