The study identifies and analyses the factors that influenced the adoption of new technologies in SMEs. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been used as proxy of new technologies. The findings of the study suggest that industry-specific characteristics such as skill- and...

The external situation facing developing countries has changed markedly in the past decade in terms of increased international economic integration and accelerated technological change. In this context, the paper explores the role of technological factors in developing countries' efforts to...

The relationship between insulated state agencies and central actors in the production, adaptation and application of knowledge did not generate realistic policy goals nor stimulate collaboration in authoritarian Latin America. Because the agencies were deficient in social 'embeddedness' and had...

Drawing insights from firm-level survey, this paper addresses three broad issues relating to the role of learning and knowledge in African industry. First, we examined modes of learning proxied by training in small and medium firms. We found that elementary learning mechanisms such as...

This paper is based on a research study designed to assess the impact and potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in micro and small enterprises (MSEs) clustered in Kenya and Ghana; and to explore the effect of clustering on the ability of these enterprises to utilise ICTs...

The growing interest in clusters, understood mainly in terms of spatial agglomerations of enterprises and related supplier and service industries, can be traced back to two changes in the competitive environment of the firm that became increasingly evident over the 1970s and 1980s. These were...

This paper first develops a consistent time-series data on the exports of high technology products from essentially the developing countries. An analysis of the data shows that developing countries are increasingly becoming exporters of manufactured products as against primary products in the...

The impact of patent protection on biomedical innovation has been a controversial issue. Although a “medical anti-commons” has been predicted due to a proliferation of patents on upstream technologies, evidence to test these concerns is only now emerging. However, most industrial surveys...

Exports of apparel represent the principal link of the Caribbean Basin to the international economy. These exports arise from a combination of factors, including low salaries, tax incentives, and preferential access to the North American market designed to assist US apparel firms compete better...

This paper aims to add evidence on the role played by firms' technological competencies in the determination of their intensity of cooperation with other firms. Using a database composed by patents jointly filed by two or more firms in the European Patent Office, the paper: (i) finds no support...