Firm-Level Innovation In Africa

Firm-Level Innovation In Africa
Author: Abiodun Egbetokun
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2020-04-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0429892497

The literature on innovation in Africa is rapidly expanding, and a recurring thread in the emergent literature is the pervasiveness of systemic weaknesses that inhibit the innovation process. Despite these, firms are able to innovate in Africa. It is then logical to ask: how do African firms manage to overcome the prevalent constraints and learn to innovate? This book directly tackles this question, with a view to improving our understanding of the innovation landscape in Africa. The book brings together some of the latest innovation research from across the African continent, ranging from Tanzania and Ethiopia in the east to Nigeria in the west. The chapters included in the collection adopt different but complementary theoretical and methodological approaches to address a rich mix of interrelated issues. These issues include the factors that enhance or inhibit innovation in African firms, the sources of (knowledge/information for) innovation, policy options for overcoming constraints and facilitating firm-level innovation, the nature and roles of brokers and intermediaries in dealing with innovation constraints and in facilitating the innovation process and the role of interactive learning and acquisition of embodied technology in the innovation process. This book was originally published as a special issue of Innovation and Development.

Innovation under the Radar

Innovation under the Radar
Author: Xiaolan Fu
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2020-12-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1316872211

Investigating the nature, drivers and sources of innovation in Africa, this book examines the channels for effective diffusion of innovation in and to Africa under institutional, resource and affordability constraints. Fu draws on almost a decade of research on innovation in Africa to explore these issues and unpack the process, combining a rigorous statistical analysis of a purposely designed multi-wave, multi-country survey with in-depth studies of representative cases. Building on this research, Fu argues that African firms are innovative but unsupported. Those 'under-the-radar' innovations that widely exist in Africa as a result of the constraints are not sufficient to enable Africa to leapfrog the innovation gap in the era of the fourth Industrial Revolution. This is the first comprehensive analysis of the creation and diffusion of innovation in low income countries. It also provides the first survey-based analysis of innovation in the informal economy.

Innovation in Firms A Microeconomic Perspective

Innovation in Firms A Microeconomic Perspective
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2009-12-14
Genre:
ISBN:

This book presents the main results of the OECD Innovation Microdata Project -- the first large-scale effort to exploit firm-level data from innovation surveys across 20 countries in an internationally harmonised way, with a view to addressing common analytical questions.

What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa?

What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa?
Author: Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2017-06-16
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0262533901

Explorations of science, technology, and innovation in Africa not as the product of “technology transfer” from elsewhere but as the working of African knowledge. In the STI literature, Africa has often been regarded as a recipient of science, technology, and innovation rather than a maker of them. In this book, scholars from a range of disciplines show that STI in Africa is not merely the product of “technology transfer” from elsewhere but the working of African knowledge. Their contributions focus on African ways of looking, meaning-making, and creating. The chapter authors see Africans as intellectual agents whose perspectives constitute authoritative knowledge and whose strategic deployment of both endogenous and inbound things represents an African-centered notion of STI. “Things do not (always) mean the same from everywhere,” observes Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga, the volume's editor. Western, colonialist definitions of STI are not universalizable. The contributors discuss topics that include the trivialization of indigenous knowledge under colonialism; the creative labor of chimurenga, the transformation of everyday surroundings into military infrastructure; the role of enslaved Africans in America as innovators and synthesizers; the African ethos of “fixing”; the constitutive appropriation that makes mobile technologies African; and an African innovation strategy that builds on domestic capacities. The contributions describe an Africa that is creative, technological, and scientific, showing that African STI is the latest iteration of a long process of accumulative, multicultural knowledge production. Contributors Geri Augusto, Shadreck Chirikure, Chux Daniels, Ron Eglash, Ellen Foster, Garrick E. Louis, D. A. Masolo, Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga, Neda Nazemi, Toluwalogo Odumosu, Katrien Pype, Scott Remer

Performance of Manufacturing Firms in Africa

Performance of Manufacturing Firms in Africa
Author: Hinh T. Dinh
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2012-08-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0821396331

This book presents empirical analyses of manufacturing firm performance in Africa based on the World Bank Enterprise Survey and on a one-time quantitative survey conducted for the World Bank by the Center for the Study of African Economies of Oxford University.

Firm Innovation and Productivity in Latin America and the Caribbean

Firm Innovation and Productivity in Latin America and the Caribbean
Author: Inter-American Development Bank
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2016-07-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1349581518

This volume uses the study of firm dynamics to investigate the factors preventing faster productivity growth in Latin America and the Caribbean, pushing past the limits of traditional macroeconomic analyses. Each chapter is dedicated to an examination of a different factor affecting firm productivity - innovation, ICT usage, on-the-job-training, firm age, access to credit, and international linkages - highlighting the differences in firm characteristics, behaviors, and strategies. By showcasing this remarkable heterogeneity, this collection challenges regional policymakers to look beyond one-size-fits-all solutions and create balanced policy mixes tailored to distinct firm needs. This book is open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO license.

Determinants of Innovation

Determinants of Innovation
Author: Alfred Kleinknecht
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 182
Release: 1996-11-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1349139173

Micro-econometric analyses cover a wide range of new innovation 'input' and 'output' indicators. Among the robust findings about determinants of innovation is evidence on the importance of technological opportunity, of appropriability of innovation benefits, and of Schmooklerian demand-pull effects. As opposed to the evidence from standard R&D data, small firms appear more innovative and the impact of market power on innovation is, in the best case, modest.

Industrial Clusters and Innovation Systems in Africa

Industrial Clusters and Innovation Systems in Africa
Author: Oyebanji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka
Publisher: UNU
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2007
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

This book examines the incidence and role of clusters as a viable and increasingly important form of industrial organization in Africa. It presents a series of theoretically grounded case studies that analyze clusters in different industrial sectors and at different levels of economic development. The overall aim is to improve understanding of how local clusters can be transformed into local systems of innovation and how local clusters can be better connected to global actors. The authors draw out implications for policy and practice and provide guidance to governments, private sector associations, and non-governmental organizations.--Publisher's description.

Big Data Approach to Firm Level Innovation in Manufacturing

Big Data Approach to Firm Level Innovation in Manufacturing
Author: Seyed Mehrshad Parvin Hosseini
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 78
Release: 2020-08-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9811563004

This book discusses utilizing Big Data and Machine Learning approaches in investigating five aspects of firm level innovation in manufacturing; (1) factors that determine the decision to innovate (2) the extent of innovation (3) characteristics of an innovating firm (4) types of innovation undertaken and (5) the factors that drive and enable different types of innovation. A conceptual model and a cost-benefit framework were developed to explain a firm’s decision to innovate. To empirically demonstrate these aspects, Big data and machine learning approaches were introduced in the form of a case study. The result of Big data analysis as an inferior method to analyse innovation data was also compared with the results of conventional statistical methods. The implications of the findings of the study for increasing the pace of innovation are also discussed.