Driving business performance: innovation complementarities and persistence patterns

Complementarities between technological and non-technological innovation are crucial determinants of firm performance. This topic has not received the attention that it merits, as the focus has been primarily placed on technological innovation alone or on innovation efforts as measured by R&D or patent activities. The capacities to develop market-oriented behaviour and introduce new organisational innovations are the drivers - together with technological innovation - of a firm’s productivity and profitability. We also underline how the impact of such activities is larger when they persist over time, thus introducing a more general concept of innovation persistence. We present an empirical model based on a large and new panel of Italian manufacturing firms covering the period 2000-2012 that enables us to derive the precise impacts of a firm’s innovative effort - based on a broad definition that incorporates non-technological innovation and persistence - on its productivity and profitability.