The role of learning in innovationin-house versus externally contracted R&D experience

Resumo

This paper analyses the role of learning in firms¿ innovation success, taking into account the heterogeneous nature of innovation activities, and in particular, distinguishing between learning arising from the internal organization of R&D activities and learning from externally contracting these activities. We use a representative sample of Spanish manufacturing firms for the period 1990-2006, and within an innovation production function approach, we estimate count data models to investigate the influence of firms¿ in-house and externally contracted R&D experience in the achievement of innovative results. Our results show that learning is important in the achievement of product innovations when the firms organize R&D activities internally, and that experience from externally contracted R&D activities does not influence the number of product innovations.