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 show...