IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unm/unumer/2008044.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The challenge of measuring innovation in emerging economies' firms: A proposal of a new set of indicators on innovation

Author

Listed:
  • Marins, Luciana

    (UNU-MERIT)

Abstract

The traditional indicators on innovation rely on the linear assumption that research leads to development, centring on the measurement of inputs and outputs. Based on the traditional innovation indicators, recent studies focused on the industrial innovation process at Latin America state that nowadays Latin American firms display a passive role at world’s innovative activities, characterised by the lack of firms’ innovative skills. However, these indicators do not seem to be the most appropriate for measuring innovation, especially in emerging economies’ firms. The focus of this paper is to theoretically propose a set of new indicators on innovation that might be more adequate to the reality of firms located in emerging economies, centring on the way innovation activities process takes place within the firms. In order to do so, the paper searches for support from five approaches of the economic theory. The validation of the suggested set of new indicators could shed some light on the understanding of the innovative performance of emerging economies’ firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Marins, Luciana, 2008. "The challenge of measuring innovation in emerging economies' firms: A proposal of a new set of indicators on innovation," MERIT Working Papers 2008-044, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    • Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2008044
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2008/wp2008-044.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Archibugi, Daniele & Coco, Alberto, 2005. "Measuring technological capabilities at the country level: A survey and a menu for choice," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 175-194, March.
    2. Jose Eduardo Cassiolato & Helena Maria Martins Lastres, 2000. "Local Systems Of Innovation In Mercosur Countries," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(1), pages 33-53.
    3. Jan Fagerberg, 2003. "Innovation: A Guide to the Literature," Working Papers on Innovation Studies 20031012, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.
    4. Dosi, Giovanni, 1993. "Technological paradigms and technological trajectories : A suggested interpretation of the determinants and directions of technical change," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 102-103, April.
    5. Mario Cimoli & Jorge Katz, 2003. "Structural reforms, technological gaps and economic development: a Latin American perspective," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 12(2), pages 387-411, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jan Fransen & A.H.J. (Bert) Helmsing, 2017. "Absorptive Capacity as a Mediator: Innovation of Handicraft Exporters in Yogyakarta, Indonesia," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 108(6), pages 737-752, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rainer Kattel & Erkki Karo, 2010. "Is 'Open Innovation' Re-Inventing Innovation Policy for Catching-up Economies?," The Other Canon Foundation and Tallinn University of Technology Working Papers in Technology Governance and Economic Dynamics 30, TUT Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance.
    2. Hötte, Kerstin, 2023. "Demand-pull, technology-push, and the direction of technological change," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(5).
    3. Fagerberg, Jan, 2018. "Mobilizing innovation for sustainability transitions: A comment on transformative innovation policy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(9), pages 1568-1576.
    4. Fagerberg, Jan & Srholec, Martin & Verspagen, Bart, 2010. "Innovation and Economic Development," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 833-872, Elsevier.
    5. Mingook Lee & Sungjoo Lee, 2016. "Evaluating Internal Technological Capabilities in Energy Companies," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-23, March.
    6. Alessandro Nuvolari & Emanuele Russo, 2019. "Technical progress and structural change: a long-term view," LEM Papers Series 2019/17, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    7. Marco Túlio Dinali Viglioni & Mozar José Brito & Cristina Lelis Leal Calegario, 2020. "Innovation and R&D in Latin America and the Caribbean countries: a systematic literature review," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2131-2167, December.
    8. Franco Malerba & Keun Lee, 2021. "An evolutionary perspective on economic catch-up by latecomers [Catching-up, forging ahead, and falling behind]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 30(4), pages 986-1010.
    9. Confraria, Hugo & Ciarli, Tommaso & Noyons, Ed, 2024. "Countries' research priorities in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(3).
    10. We Shim & Oh-jin Kwon & Yeong-ho Moon & Keun-hwan Kim, 2016. "Understanding the Dynamic Convergence Phenomenon from the Perspective of Diversity and Persistence: A Cross-Sector Comparative Analysis between the United States and South Korea," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(7), pages 1-29, July.
    11. Jan Fagerberg, 2018. "Mission (im)possible? The role of innovation (and innovation policy) in supporting structural change & sustainability transitions," Working Papers on Innovation Studies 20180216, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.
    12. Bajmócy, Zoltán & Málovics, György, 2009. "A fenntarthatóság közgazdaságtani értelmezései [Economic interpretations of sustainability]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(5), pages 464-483.
    13. Kounetas, Konstantinos, 2015. "Heterogeneous technologies, strategic groups and environmental efficiency technology gaps for European countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 277-287.
    14. Roediger-Schluga, Thomas & Dachs, Bernhard, 2006. "Does technology affect network structure? - A quantitative analysis of collaborative research projects in two specific EU programmes," MERIT Working Papers 2006-041, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    15. Giovanni Dosi & Matteo Tranchero, 2018. "The Role of Comparative Advantage, Endowments and Technology in Structural Transformation," LEM Papers Series 2018/33, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    16. Carolina Castaldi & Mario Cimoli & Nelson Correa & Giovanni Dosi, 2004. "Technological Learning, Policy Regimes and Growth in a `Globalized' Economy: General Patterns and the Latin American Experience," LEM Papers Series 2004/01, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    17. Smith, Adrian & Raven, Rob, 2012. "What is protective space? Reconsidering niches in transitions to sustainability," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 1025-1036.
    18. Figueiredo, Paulo N. & Vedovello, Conceição, 2005. "Firms’ Creative Capabilities, the Supporting Innovation System and Globalization in Southern Latin America: A Bleak Technological Outlook or a Myopic Standpoint? Evidence from a Developing Region in B," UNU-INTECH Discussion Paper Series 2005-04, United Nations University - INTECH.
    19. Cerulli, Giovanni, 2014. "The Impact of Technological Capabilities on Invention: An Investigation Based on Country Responsiveness Scores," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 147-165.
    20. João Prates Romero, 2016. "Increasing Returns To Scale, Technological Catch-Up And Research Intensity: An Industry-Level Investigation Combining Eu Klems Productivity Data With Patent Data," Anais do XLIII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 43rd Brazilian Economics Meeting] 102, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].

    More about this item

    Keywords

    innovation; indicators; economic theory; emerging economies; firms; industrial innovation; enterprises; Latin America;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L20 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - General
    • M10 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - General
    • M21 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics - - - Business Economics
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2008044. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ad Notten (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/meritnl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.