ABSTRACT

Comparing the Innovative Behaviour of ‘British’ and ‘Foreign’ Firms Operating in the UK

CRIC Discussion Paper No. 23

Mark Tomlinson & Rod Coombs

This paper reports on the analysis of data from the 1998 CBI Innovation Trends Survey. Building on earlier work on the 1997 survey, the paper shows that foreign firms operating in the UK appear somewhat more likely than comparable UK firms to exhibit innovation behaviour involving the exploitation of novel technologies and externally sourced technologies. This casts new light on the issue of the relationships between innovative firms and the UK science base. Additional results from the analysis are that the more radical innovation styles are associated with greater reported improvements in business performance; and that knowledge-intensive service industries exhibit radical innovation styles as frequently as do manufacturing industries.

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