The challenge of measuring innovation in emerging economies' firms: A proposal of a new set of indicators on innovation
Luciana Marins
#2008-044
The traditional indicators on innovation rely on the linear assumption
that research leads to development, centring on the measurement of
inputs and outputs. Based on the traditional innovation indicators,
recent studies focused on the industrial innovation process at Latin
America state that nowadays Latin American firms display a passive role
at world’s innovative activities, characterised by the lack of firms’
innovative skills. However, these indicators do not seem to be the most
appropriate for measuring innovation, especially in emerging economies’
firms. The focus of this paper is to theoretically propose a set of new
indicators on innovation that might be more adequate to the reality of
firms located in emerging economies, centring on the way innovation
activities process takes place within the firms. In order to do so, the
paper searches for support from five approaches of the economic theory.
The validation of the suggested set of new indicators could shed some
light on the understanding of the innovative performance of emerging
economies’ firms.
Keywords: innovation process, indicators, economic theory, emerging
economies’ firms.
JEL Classification: L20, M10, M21, O30.
UNU-MERIT Working Papers
ISSN 1871-9872