Patterns of institutional cooperation in R&D for Spanish innovative firms in the manufacturing and service sectors

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that influence innovative firms in the manufacturing and service sectors in Spain to cooperate with research institutions in their innovation activities, and to examine the differences between types of firm.Design methodology approach - A literature review is used to identify variables likely to influence a decision to cooperate with research institutions. A logit regression model is then used to verify the importance of those variables. The empirical study was carried out using 2,000 Spanish community innovation survey data. The study sample was 3,964 innovative service and manufacturing firms.Findings - It is found that spillovers, R&D intensity, costs, risks and alternative cooperation strategies influence both manufacturing and service firms in the same way in their decision to cooperate with research institutions in R&D. However, the variables relating to firm size, being part of a larger group of companies and type of innovation were shown to affect manufacturing and service companies differently.Research limitations implications - There was no control over the possible bias introduced into the study by not including firms that were not innovative. The variables included in the study were constrained by the availability of information supplied by the Technological Innovation Survey. And finally, the comparative study of innovative behaviour in manufacturing and services is exploratory in nature.Practical implications - The empirical results make it possible to identify a profile of the Spanish manufacturing and service firms that cooperate with research institutions.Originality value - This paper is original in exploring the differences between manufacturing and service firms in relation to the determinants of establishing institutional cooperation in R&D.