What hampers innovation? Revealed barriers versus deterring barriers

By Pablo D'Este, S. Iammarino, M. Savona, Nick von Tunzelmann. 2012

577 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Innovating firms are likely to face several challenges and experience different types of barriers. In this paper we argue that it is necessary to distinguish between two kinds of barriers to innovation. The first corresponds to what we describe as revealed barriers and reflects the degree of difficulty of the innovation process and the learning experience consequent on the firm engaging in innovation activity. The second type of impediment, which we label deterring barriers, encompasses the obstacles that prevent firms from committing to innovation. We use data from the 4th UK Community Innovation Survey (CIS4) to investigate the relationship between firms’ engagement in innovation and their assessment of the barriers to innovation. We show that the relationship is curvilinear in the case of costs and market barriers. These results have important implications for innovation policy and innovation management.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Management of Technology and Innovation, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2536a47f8d2f374769345a0e2d64587948514f29

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Citations in the corpus

A systematic review of barriers to public sector innovation process (2019, background): “Studies that investigated ‘deterring barriers’ (D’Este et al. 2012) causing organizations not to initiate the innovation process were excluded. Some articles, for instance Kraemer et al. (2014) did not clearly distinguish between these barriers, and were hence excluded.”
Foreign multinationals and domestic innovation: Intra-industry effects and firm heterogeneity (2015, background): “This broader measure of innovative performance, accounting also for activities other than product or process innovation, has been proposed in the context of the CIS and recently applied in a number of studies (e.g. Cereda et al., 2005; Johansson and Lööf, 2008; D'Este et al., 2012) to cope with the ”
Did the global financial crisis impact firms' innovation performance? The role of internal and external knowledge capabilities in high and low tech industries (2018, unknown): “R&D human capital is responsible for transforming the idiosyncratic tacit and explicit knowledge, including learning abilities, experience, and abilities necessary to perform firms’ activities (D’Este et al., 2012; Delgado-Verde et al., 2016).”
Access to finance for innovative SMEs since the financial crisis (2015, background): “If access to finance is not available, this may lead to a long-term drag on the economy, particularly if firms are then deterred from introducing new products in response (D’Este et al. 2012).”
Self-employment and entrepreneurship in urban and rural labour markets ☆ (2014, methodology): “Despite these limitations, the CIS survey is seen as an important tool for ‘‘measuring the level of innovation activity in the UK’’ (ONS, 2011b) and has been extensively used in the analysis of ﬁrms’ innovative activities (see D’Este et al., 2012; Iammarino et al., forthcoming).”
Greasing the Wheels of Change: Bribery, Institutions, and New Product Introductions in Emerging Markets (2019, background): “As a result, innovating firms in these environments face numerous bureaucratic barriers in the form of approvals, permits, licenses, and certifications (Hadjimanolis, 1999; D’Este et al., 2012) which significantly deter their ability to introduce new products in a timely fashion (Chryssochoidis & Wo”