Understanding the Influence of R&D Collaboration on Organizational Innovation: Empirical Evidences

Collaboration in R&D has had a positive influence on the performance of firms, but little is known about its impact on organizational innovation. Therefore, this article analyzes the influence of R&D collaboration on firms' ability to introduce organizational innovation. A quantitative approach was used, based on a sample of 5.079 Portuguese firms from the CIS 2010-Community Innovation Survey 2010. The empirical evidence showed R&D collaboration with clients to be predominant in organizational innovation adoption. Cooperation with competitors, universities and state laboratories has no significant influence. R&D collaboration with other firms within the same group, and with suppliers has a significant positive impact on organizational innovation in the workplace. In addition, collaboration with consultants is significant in business practices and external relations. Several theoretical and practical implications are presented.