How do firms innovate in Latin America?

Fernando Vargas

No 2022-018, MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT)

Abstract: The study of innovation in Latin American firms has concentrated almost exclusively on the determinants and impacts of innovation investments and outputs. Less attention has been paid to how firms innovate. This study applies factor and cluster analysis to a unique dataset of harmonized innovation surveys from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay, to identify the main innovation practices and strategies performed by Latin American firms. Three of the four identified innovation strategies can be linked to results from similar studies using European firm-level data. However, none of these strategies resembles a strong science or research orientation. An approach to "open management" innovation emerges as idiosyncratic for Latin American firms. These innovation strategies are associated with differences in sales growth and labor productivity. The analysis also shows that firm resources and capabilities drive innovation strategy selection.

JEL-codes: L20 O12 O14 O30 O32 O33 O54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-05-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-cse, nep-ent, nep-lam, nep-sbm and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/ws/files/106571181/wp2022_018.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:unm:unumer:2022018

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ad Notten ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).