Corporate capability for external R&D absorption: The case of Biscay

Abstract

The present work aims at the diagnosis of the capacities of firms from Biscay/Spain to absorb results of R+D generated by universities and other research centres. First of all, in order to identify core characteristics of firms linked to the above mentioned capacity of absorbing results from R+D, an examination of the current theoretical and empirical literature on this issue has been carried out.The work continues with analysing the impact of those characteristic by means of two random samples: One about 26 firms characterized by their advanced management methods; another deals with firms with more than 10 employees. Finally, those characteristics are identified where firms from Biscay appears satisfactorily capacitated for absorbing external results of R+D and those, that ought to be enhanced because they still have not reached levels satisfactory.

Keywords

• Knowledge management
• university-private company relationship
• innovation