This introduction to a special issue of EINT surveys a collection of ten papers that study various aspects of innovation and knowledge management and their impact on performance at the firm level for a number of countries. These studies have been conducted using data drawn from innovation...

We propose a model where both R&D and ICT investment feed into a system of three innovation output equations (product, process and organizational innovation), which ultimately feeds into a productivity equation. We find that ICT investment and usage are important drivers of innovation in both...

An employer-employee panel is used to study whether the movement of workers across firms is a channel of unintended diffusion of R&D-generated knowledge. Somewhat surprisingly, hiring workers from others' R&D labs to one's own does not seem to be a significant spillover channel. Hiring workers...

This paper addresses two prominent issues on the development of small enterprises in Africa. Which factors inhibit or foster innovation activities in small enterprises? Do innovators create more jobs? We use a large set of microenterprises survey data from Ethiopia that comprise 1000...

What do we know about the relationship between innovation and productivity among firms? The workhorse model of this relationship is presented and the implications of analysis using this model and the usually available data on product and process innovation are derived. The recent empirical...

Based on a survey adapted from the Fourth European Community Innovation Survey (CIS-4), this study finds that, in the changing manufacturing environment of Guangdong province in China, Hong Kong-owned businesses that generate a higher share in new product sales as a percentage of total sales or...

Innovation strategies of entrepreneurs are mapped with growth and performance of their firms in this study. Findings of the study are based on the data collected from 1238 small ICT firms located in 25 member states of European Union. The survey was conducted during October 2006 and March 2007....

Internationalisation is a useful strategy to gain firm specific advantages during periods of technological discontinuity. The pharmaceutical industry offers us two such episodes as examples: when the antibiotics revolution was beginning and when the possibilities of genetic routes to new drug...

Innovation is fundamental for economic catching-up and raising living standards. Evidence demonstrate a virtuous circle in which RD spending, innovation, productivity, and per capita income mutually reinforce each other and lead to long-term, sustained growth rates and may foster job creation....

This paper looks at the special characteristics of radical inventions. It tries to identify those variables that differentiate radical inventions from non-radical inventions. Since radical inventions are very important for the economy as a whole and for the individual firm performances,...