EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

An empirical investigation of innovation determinants in food machinery enterprises

Barbara Bigliardi and Alberto Ivo Dormio

European Journal of Innovation Management, 2009, vol. 12, issue 2, 223-242

Abstract: Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present the main findings of an empirical study conducted in the Italian food machinery industry, on identifying the technological innovation determinants in small or medium enterprises. Design/methodology/approach - On the basis of a research framework, a study was carried out on 98 Italian firms operating in the food machinery industry, by means of a questionnaire survey. A statistical analysis was conducted on the data collected, in order to understand which are the most important factors influencing innovation and the relative effect on the innovation output of the various factors considered. Findings - The results of the statistical analysis conducted show that, in contrast with the trend of the industry investigated, great importance is attributed only to collaboration with universities and research centres. Network actors are not perceived as an important source of information for innovation, while universities, conferences and scientific papers are significant sources of information in explaining the share of total turnover from new products or processes and process innovations, respectively. As far as, obstacles to innovation are concerned, the results indicate that both financial and informative obstacles are consistently associated with the innovative output. Finally, firms focusing on market and efficiency related innovation objectives realise higher levels of process related innovative output. Originality/value - The study provides some empirical evidence on identifying and prioritising the technological innovation determinants for enterprises operating in the context of a northern Italian district.

Keywords: Food industry; Food manufacturing equipment; Innovation; Italy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:ejimpp:14601060910953988

DOI: 10.1108/14601060910953988

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Innovation Management is currently edited by Dr Vincenzo Corvello

More articles in European Journal of Innovation Management from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().

 
Page updated 2025-05-31
Handle: RePEc:eme:ejimpp:14601060910953988