The use of design as a strategic tool for innovation: an analysis for different firms' networking behaviours

Marisa Cesário, Dora Agapito, Helena Almeida and Sílvia Fernandes

European Planning Studies, 2017, vol. 25, issue 11, 2097-2116

Abstract: Current research indicates that the use of design strategy in companies is related to innovation and leads to competitiveness. This research aims empirically to analyse the relationship between firms' networking behaviours and their propensity to engage in design activities. Although much of the literature on networks focuses on the relationship between the development of external linkages and innovation, we argue that small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs)' relationships with different agents and intermediaries, on diverse geographic scales, play an important role for how companies use design as an element of innovation. Using the Community Innovation Survey (CIS 2012) database for Portugal, a logistic regression was performed using the ‘strategic use of design’ as a binary dependent variable. We found that firms' engagement in informal relationships with heterogeneous agents, such as public customers, consultants or conference partners, is positively associated with the strategic use of design. The use of firms' internal assets as information sources also proved to be significant. Regarding market relations, the results indicate that a geographic scaling-up contributes to increasing the odds of a firm recognizing the strategic role of design for competitiveness.

Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09654313.2015.1135232 (text/html)
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:taf:eurpls:v:25:y:2017:i:11:p:2097-2116

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CEPS20

DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2015.1135232

Access Statistics for this article

European Planning Studies is currently edited by Philip Cooke and Louis Albrechts

More articles in European Planning Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().