How does accessibility to knowledge sources affect the innovativeness of corporations? : evidence from Sweden

• This paper studies the innovative performance of 130 Swedish corporations during 1993-1994. The number of patents per corporation is explained as a function of the accessibility to internal and external knowledge sources of each corporation. A coherent way of handling accessibility measures, within and between corporations located across regions, is introduced. We examine the relative importance of intra- and interregional knowledge sources from 1) the own corporation, 2) other corporations, and 3) universities. The results show that there is a positive relationship between the innovativeness of a corporation and its accessibility to university researchers within regions where own research groups are located. Good accessibility among the corporation's research units does not have any significant effects on the likelihood of generation of patents. Instead the size of the R&D staff of the corporation seems to be the most important internal factor. There is no indication that intraregional accessibility to other corporations' research is important for a corporation's innovativeness. However, there is some indication of reduced likelihood for own corporate patenting when other corporate R&D is located in nearby regions. This may reflect a negative effect from competition for R&D labor.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Nationalekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economics (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Annan data- och informationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Other Computer and Information Science (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

accessibility

private and university R&D

patents

spillovers

Sweden

Economics

Nationalekonomi

Sweden

spillovers

patents

accessibility

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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