Innovation networks of industry and business‐related services—relations between innovation intensity of firms and regional inter‐firm cooperation

Abstract

Abstract The hypothesis is put forward in this paper that the innovation activity of a firm also reflects its ability to interact with other partners. It is assumed that innovation intensive manufacturing and service firms, defined by a share of innovation expenditures in turnover of above 3.5%, strongly interact with other partners in the innovation process and that by learning effects, accumulated knowledge and a higher absorption capacity the spatial search radius for potential cooperation partners is increased, resulting in a wide spatial range of networking relations. Using data from a German regional innovation survey, probit models reveal that innovation intensive firms do indeed exhibit a stronger emphasis on interregional networking. Access to external knowledge sources seems to be more important for service than for manufacturing firms, for which a clear knowledge contributing effect of service assistance in the innovation process could not be detected. Interregional differences in networking behaviour exist in a way that firms in central regions show a higher probability for interregional interactions, while in rural areas intraregional contacts dominate.