Technological Innovation and Interfirm Cooperation. An exploratory analysis using survey data from manufacturing firms in the metropolitan region of Vienna

Manfred Fischer and Attila Varga

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper centres around two research questions: first, the identification of five types of networks that manufacturing firms located in the metropolitan region of Vienna may have created for different purposes; and second, the question to what extent the likelihood of interfirm cooperation is conditioned by the general profile of manufacturing establishments and their technological resources. Although this paper focuses on the manufacturing sector a special emphasis is placed on the electronics industry. The study utilizes a recent postal survey providing data on size and organization, products and markets, research and development, innovation and interfirm relationships. The analysis of the first question finds that: first, networking does not yet seem to be a popular managerial and organisational concept for manufacturing firms located in the metropolitan region of Vienna; second, networking activities are primarily based on vertical relationships (customer, manufacturer supplier and producer service provider networks) rather than on horizontal linkages (producer networks, industry-university linkages); third, networks focusing on the later stages of the innovation process are less common than those focusing on the earlier stages; fourth, firms tend to rely on sources of technology from national and – especially – international networks. It appears that metropolitan networking is less common than has been thought. For technical advance spatial proximity does not seem to be very important. Turning to the second research question of the study, focusing on the adoption of the managerial and organizational concept of networking, the results are bolstering the argument that establishment traits and technology related-capabilities do play a role. The results achieved reveal, for example, that in-house research skills are a very good predictor for industry-university relationships.

Keywords: Electronics; Manufacturing; Innovation; Networking; Regional Innovation Systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (29)

Published in International Journal of Technology Management 7/8.24(2002): pp. 724-742

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/77808/1/MPRA_paper_77808.pdf original version (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:pra:mprapa:77808

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().