Firm Size and External Research Relationships

摘要

The average small firm responding to the study had 122 employees, compared with33,121 at the average large firm. Small firm respondents had more sales per employee: $97,000 compared with $83,000 at large firm. R and D averaged 10.6 percent of sales for all firms in the sample but small firms devoted a greater percentage of their sales to R and D than large firms. Firms in the sample with fewer than 100 employees devoted 13.3 percent of their sales to R and D, while the figure for firms with more than 10,000 employees was 5.0 percent. Of the 209 firms in the sample, 142 had research relationships with one or more universities--94 percent of the large firms and 56 percent of the small firms. While the results presented in the report by no means explain fully why small firms have an innovation-related advantage over large firms, they do point out several revealing differences between the two groups. Although large firms are more active in external research relations per se, small firms appear to be better able to internalize the intanible technical knowledge acquired from these cooperative ventures. The statistical evidence reported herein suggests that small firms gain both in R and D flexiblity and in R and D efficiency as a result of their external research relationships. The authors posit that the reason for this is that large firms are encumbered with bureaucratization that inhibits the processes associated with innovation.