ABSTRACT 

Many current economic theories on and approaches to innovation, to a greater or lesser extent, hold that individual firms are seldom capable of innovating independently and that, therefore, they need to access complementary resources from beyond their boundaries. Nevertheless, some researchers have warned about the risk of overestimating the role played by external knowledge sources, arguing that in many industries innovation efforts are not only made by firms themselves but are generated in-house. Some authors have even suggested that in attempting to outsource R&D activities firms may weaken their core competences.
This doctoral thesis analyzes the innovation strategies used by Spanish manufacturing firms by examining both the factors determining the choice between different strategies and the effects of such strategies on the introduction of new products and processes onto the market. A key aspect in the study is the analysis of the relationships between the innovation strategies by considering not only their coexistence in the firm’s global strategy, but also their complementary effects on firm’s innovative performance. As innovation strategies, we analyse the in-house R&D activities (make) and the external knowledge sourcing through market transactions (R&D contracting, licensing agreements and the purchase of machinery and equipment) and the cooperation with external agents (industrial and scientific agents).
The thesis is structured in two parts. Part one (chapters 1-4) reviews the literature related to the analysis of knowledge sources for innovation and the business strategies to generate or acquire technological knowledge. Part two (chapters 5-7) consists of an empirical investigation of the determining factors and the effects of innovation strategies. The analysis uses firm level data from the 2004 Technological Innovation in Companies Survey conducted by Spain’s National Statistical Institute.
The results reveal that for Spanish manufacturing firms the external knowledge sourcing is not driven by logic of strategic resource needs, but it seems to be driven by tactical motivations such as reducing costs or accessing additional financial resources. As a result, the external knowledge acquisition has a limited effect on firm’s innovative performance and also it does not have synergistic effects with internal knowledge generation. In fact, the results indicate the existence of a possible substitution effect between in-house R&D activities and cooperation with scientific agents (universities, public research institutions, etc.)
The above results have at least two important implications. Firstly, they support the idea that product innovation is a process that largely builds on the firm’s internal capabilities, and warns against the risk of overrating external knowledge sourcing. Secondly, they highlight the limited effects that cooperation with external agents exercises on innovation and, therefore, the need for policy makers to establish innovation policies which go beyond simple support for these relationships.