A Study on the Factors That Influence Innovation Activities of Spanish Big Firms

Alvaro Gómez Vieites, José Luis Calvo

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DOI: 10.4236/ti.2011.21002                

Abstract

The main goal of this research is to study the role of several factors and firms’ resources that could have had an impact on the development of innovative activities of Spanish big firms, exploring how these factors can help to achieve success through innovation and improving business performance. We propose a new model to analyze the relationships between a set of organizational, technological, financial and information-based resources, as well as other aspects such as company’s cooperation. We employ a Structural Equation Model and the PLS technique in order to validate the theoretical model proposed in this research. The data come from the Spanish National Statistics Institute’s Survey on Firms Technological Innovation. The sample is composed by 2224 observations referred to firms with 200 or more workers. The main results show that human and financial resources and cooperation affect positively R&D activities. At the same time R&D, information management and technological resources have a positive effect on innovation. Finally, R&D activities, innovation results (product and process innovation) and information management influence business results.

Keywords

Innovation Activities; Information Management; Technology Management; R&D Investment; R&D Personnel; PLS; Structural Equation Model (SEM)

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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