The role of international and domestic R&D outsourcing for firm innovation
Firms are increasingly outsourcing their high-tech services. Theory suggests that R&D outsourcing allows firms to specialize in core knowledge-intensive tasks, thereby increasing innovation, but R&D outsourcing may also undermine internal capabilities. Our goal is to empirically assess the r...
| Autores: | , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2019 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) |
| Repositorio: | Docta Complutense |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/12335 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/12335 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | L25 O32 R&D outsourcing Transaction cost economics Innovation International versus domestic outsourcing Exporters Desarrollo económico Empresas Economía industrial 5307.03 Modelos y Teorías del desarrollo Económico 5307.04 Estudios del desarrollo Económico 5311 Organización y Dirección de Empresas |
| Sumario: | Firms are increasingly outsourcing their high-tech services. Theory suggests that R&D outsourcing allows firms to specialize in core knowledge-intensive tasks, thereby increasing innovation, but R&D outsourcing may also undermine internal capabilities. Our goal is to empirically assess the relative importance of these two possibilities, distinguishing between national and international R&D outsourcing and firms’ exporting status. We examine R&D purchases of more than 10,000 Spanish firms for the period 2004-2014. We show that R&D outsourcing improves firm innovation. Product innovation rises mostly with domestic outsourcing, while process innovation increases with both domestic and international R&D outsourcing. In addition, we find that international outsourcing provides an extra premium, mostly for exporters. Our results contribute to a better understanding of how firms organize the production of knowledge and innovation. |
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