Direct and Complementary Effects of Investment in Knowledge-Based Economy on Innovation Performance in Tunisian Firms
- PDF / 640,959 Bytes
- 29 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 46 Downloads / 225 Views
Direct and Complementary Effects of Investment in Knowledge-Based Economy on Innovation Performance in Tunisian Firms Adel Ben Khalifa 1
Received: 30 June 2015 / Accepted: 9 March 2017 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2017
Abstract This paper investigates two sets of hypotheses related to the relationship between the investment in the knowledge-based economy (KBE) and innovation performance in a developing country. The first set supposes that investment in information and communication technologies (ICT), organizational innovations, and human capital, the main three pillars of KBE, has a direct effect on innovation performance of Tunisian firms. The second set tests the hypothesis of complementary effect of these pillars such that their combination constitutes a significant production system affecting the innovation performance. Using recent firm-level data, we find evidence of direct effect of investment in the KBE on firm’s innovation performance. The second set of hypotheses is partly supported. We find evidence of complementarity between ICT and human capital as well as between ICT and organizational innovations, but we do not find evidence of complementarity between human capital and organizational innovations. Moreover, we find that full complementarity between ICT, organizational innovations, and human capital does not apply to Tunisian firms. Keywords Knowledge-based economy . ICT . Organizational innovations . Human capital . Product and process innovation . Direct and complementary effects JEL Classification O3 . L2 . J2
Introduction After the Second World War, the growth of BThirty glorious years^ (1945–1975) was made possible by the accumulation of production factors, within a context of full
* Adel Ben Khalifa [email protected]
1
Tunisian Institute of Competitiveness and Quantitative Studies (ITCEQ) and University of Carthage (ENVIE), Tunis 1002, Tunisia
J Knowl Econ
employment. In the globalized and increasingly competitive knowledge-based economy (KBE), with shifting structural boundaries, knowledge and innovation are now seen as the cornerstone of long-term growth, job creation, and economic development, in addition to the growing labor force. The recognition of the importance of knowledge in the production process has been in the rise since the early 1960s (Machlup 1962; Arow 1962; Becker 1964; Drucker 1969; Rosenberg 1976; Bell 1973; Porat 1977; Romer 1986, 1990). As a concept, BKnowledge economy^ was first used by Peter Drucker, as a title of chapter 12 in his 1969 book The Age of Discontinuity, to state the growing increase of the share of the knowledge industries in the gross national product (GNP) of US economy (one quarter of GNP in 1955 and by 1965, it was taking one third of a much bigger GNP) (Drucker 1969, p. 263). However, it was not until the mid-1990s that the concept of Bknowledge-based economy^ becomes a popular concept with international organisms (such as OECD and World Bank) that invest effort in trying to find ways to harness it. Thus, a broad defini
Data Loading...
