One of the main objectives of the new European research and innovation policy agenda is to favour the positive demographics (creation and growth) of EU companies operating in new/knowledge-intensive industries, especially Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). These companies play an important...

This paper assesses whether European firms’ innovative performance is impacted by investments in training directly aimed at developing and/or introducing innovation, in addition to the scale of a firm's investments in innovation proxied by the number of R&D personnels. In particular, it...

Policy-makers have become increasingly aware that corporate R&D and innovation are the main drivers of an economy's competitiveness and growth. The widespread adoption of R&D targets has led researchers and analysts to pursue a deeper understanding of corporate R&D investment trends, drivers and...

Many modern firms compete globally. However, research into whether foreignness is an asset or a liability in competition with domestic firms is inconclusive. We argue that foreign MNC subsidiaries are not per se advantaged or disadvantaged. We suggest that the distinction originates from the...

Innovation in the European Union remains weak according to a number of key ‘input’ indicators, especially R&D investment by the business sector, and there are relatively few signs of progress. From a firm-level perspective, Europe’s innovation gap relative to the US results from an...

The paper investigates the barriers to collaboration in terms of hidden transaction costs, by deriving the distribution of the operating costs and sunk costs associated with firms’ investment choices in R&D and innovation activities with or without a research partner. To retrieve both fixed...

The paper investigates the extent to which outward FDI affect the MNC's capacity of entering (and remaining in) the club of top R&D world investors, benefiting from performance gains in both financial and economic markets. By merging the European Industrial Research and Innovation Scoreboard...

The paper aims to show how policy makers can stimulate firms' cooperation with research organisations in innovation. We argue that the administration of an R&D subsidy can be effective. Furthermore, this should be more so for extra-regional than intra-regional cooperation. The firms' propensity...

The paper aims at extending the analysis of the firm’s absorptive capacity (AC) by taking stock of its manifold nature. Innovation cooperation is recognised as one of its antecedents, along with R&D, but with different possible outcomes, depending on the kind of partner. Human capital is...

The globalisation of R&D activities has continued to grow as companies are increasingly trying to capture knowledge and market opportunities internationally. The rapid evolution of national economies and the ways to conduct knowledge-intensive businesses has brought researchers and analysts to...