La décision d'innovation: cas des entreprises Tunisiennes de services[Explaining the decisions to innovate: the case of Tunisian service firms]

It is widely recognized that innovation is the major driver of economic growth and competitiveness. But, some works focus especially on analyzing the determinants and the effects of innovation while distinguishing product innovation to process innovation. This distinction is often regarded as a fundamental assumption but the way in which firms make the decision to innovate remains rarely tested. Based on a sample of 108 Tunisian service firms, the purpose of the paper is to explain the way in which firms make the decision to innovate: simultaneous (one-stage model) or sequential (two-stage model). Given the multiple discrete choices setting, we use a Multinomial Probit model (MNP). We find that the two-stage model has a statistically-significant advantage in predicting the innovation. This result suggests that, in practice, the sequential model illustrate well the innovation making-decision procedures.