Beyond R&D activities: the determinants of firms’ absorptive capacity explaining the access to scientific institutes in low--medium-tech contexts

A firm's search strategy is to use innovation inputs from external sources such as suppliers, clients, competitors, universities and research transfer offices (RTOs) to complement their in-house knowledge. Thus, a firm needs to be capable of identifying and valuing the potential value of certain external knowledge, i.e. absorptive capacity. Most of the studies regarding search patterns are reduced mostly to medium--high- and high-tech industries in which only the level of investment in R&D activities as determinant of a firm's search strategy is considered. In addition, when the flows of external knowledge arise from firm--university interactions, the evidence is still inconclusive, specifically for SMEs and low--medium-tech environments. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to explore the pattern of a firm's search strategy through its absorptive capacity to acquire external flows of knowledge from universities and RTOs. The paper draws especially on the role of non-R&D innovation activities in low--medium-tech sectors. Seven hundred and forty three innovative firms from the Spanish Ministry of Industry are analysed. Results suggest that human resources and other non-R&D activities are the core drivers explaining the cooperation agreements to access external knowledge from universities and RTOs. Surprisingly, R&D expenditures do not contribute to the explanation. This paper presents important implications for policy-makers beyond the classic R&D policies.