Jacinta Moreira

Determinants of innovation capacity: Empirical evidence from services firms

Abstract This research aims to analyze the degree of importance of investment and expenditure on innovation activities for innovation capacity, in the scope of Portuguese services firms. The literature review considers three main approaches regarding service innovation: Assimilation, demarcation and synthesis. A conceptual model was proposed and several research hypotheses were empirically tested using secondary data, belonging to the 4th CIS 4, supervised by EUROSTAT. A data set from 1306 services firms was studied. The method used was the logistic regression model. According to the results obtained, the greater the financial investment in acquisition of machinery, equipment and software, in internal research and development, in acquisition of external knowledge, in marketing activities and other procedures, the greater the propensity for firms to innovate in terms of services. This study highlights the contributions that innovation activities can provide in what regards the development of innovation process, giving special emphasis to their service innovation.

Barriers to innovation activities as determinants of ongoing activities or abandoned

Purpose This paper aims to analyses barriers as a determinant of ongoing or abandoned innovation activities. The literature exploits barriers as the nature of innovation and its influence on firm’s. The main focus is the Portuguese SMEs and the impacts that act as barriers in the development of innovation activities. Design/methodology/approach The database was obtained through the Community Innovation Survey 2010 (CIS 2010) that was coordinated by EUROSTAT. In this sense, a logistic regression model is proposed, which makes it possible to analyse the relations between three or more variables, depending on whether the relationship is one of dependence or interdependence, thus allowing the application of distinct statistical techniques, using 6,160 firms Findings There are several sources of information that are associated with the development of innovation projects. Practical implications The importance of barriers to the development of innovation activities, as well as it being a decisive factor in the impediment to and abandon of the same, was noted. Originality/value This study also demonstrated that each case is different and that a barrier in one firm can at the same time be a window of opportunity for another firm.

R&D capital and private production: testing firm characteristics using micro data

This paper aims to provide evidence to add to current knowledge on the contribution of R%D capital to private production based on panel data of Spanish manufacturing firms over the period 1990 to 2005. The differences in how R%D capital affect firm production is explored for small and large firms and for technological intensity of the firm. The empirical exercise performed reflects that, for the whole sample, R%D effort has a significantly and positive impact on the firm production. We also find that belonging to technology-intensive sector exerts a positive effect on this relation. Firm characteristic of size does not lead to important differences according to the impact of R%D capital on production.