Technological Opportunities, Academic Research, and Innovation Activities in the German Automobile Supply Industry

Juergen Peters and Wolfgang Becker
Additional contact information
Juergen Peters: University of Augsburg, Department of Economics

No 175, Discussion Paper Series from Universitaet Augsburg, Institute for Economics

Abstract: In this paper the importance and the effects of technological opportunities, stemming from academic research, on the innovation activities of firms in the German automobile supply industry are investigated. We observe that the contribution of academic research to firms' innovation activities is less important than the relevance of industrial sources but yet, the most likely partners for formal R&D co-operations are universities. Using measures of suppliers' innovation input and output, we can outline differences in the effects of academic research on suppliers' innovation behavior. Although the proximity to academic research stimulates suppliers' activities in own R&D, the university knowledge substitutes suppliers' investment in R&D and other innovation activities. University co-operations seem to have a positive impact on the improvement of existing rather than on the development of new products or processes. But we can show that the influence of academic research on suppliers' inhouse innovation activities depend on their absorptive capacities.

JEL-codes: H40 I20 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1998-02
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://opus.bibliothek.uni-augsburg.de/opus4/files/25250/175.pdf (application/pdf)

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:aug:augsbe:0175

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Paper Series from Universitaet Augsburg, Institute for Economics Universitaetsstrasse 16, D-86159 Augsburg, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Dr. Simone Raab-Kratzmeier ().