Content №1 от 2020
The Empirical Analysis of Innovation System Imperfections
Innovation system failures and companies’ innovation performance have been discussed in a large body of literature. Few studies, however, consider the relation between these two indicators for the regions of different economic specialization. Previous research from abroad contributes to the classification of innovation system failures, it helps to identify system imperfections and understand their nature, but it is not sufficient to develop innovation policies. Regional differences in technological development and in the way of interaction between local actors determine the regional focus of our study. Regions with resource abundance and resource-poor territories differ in innovative performance, though their macroeconomic and institutional environment is similar.
We examine two hypotheses in our study. First, we consider if companies in resource-rich and resource-poor regions differ in their estimates of innovation system failures. Second, we examine if these estimates affect firms’ innovation activity. We used empirical data from the telephone survey of500 commercial institutions from resource-rich (53.8%) and resource-poor regions (46.2%).
We found out that firms in resource-abundant and resource-poor territories are very similar in how they estimate innovation system failures, which proves that the problem of underdeveloped market institutions in Russia is common for them both. Significant differences were identified in social capital, particularly in actors’ interactions to channel innovation. The second hypothesis was not confirmed: the entrepreneurs in the survey do not take into account innovation system failures and their decisions about innovations do not depend on the innovation environment.
The study results are applicable to national and regional innovation policies and can be also used for regions of different economic specialization.
