Do firms rely on sources of information for organizational innovation?

The growing literature on knowledge and information has focused on the impact of information sources on technological innovation. Our objective was to explore the use made by firms of internal and external (market, research and generally available) sources of information for their organizational innovation practices’ implementation. Furthermore, we studies whether these sources may vary according to whether the firm operates in the manufacturing or service industry. Multivariate probit models’ results on 2008 Community Innovation Survey (CIS) data show notable differences between services and manufacturing, for instance that employees’ skill levels are more important for manufacturing than for services. Overall, this paper provides strong evidence of the heterogeneity in firms’ sources of information to engage in organizational innovation. On one hand, differences appear in the sources of innovation used for the various types of organizational innovation, indicating the appropriateness to differentiate organizational innovation practices rather than using an aggregated measure of organizational innovation. On the other hand, the sources of information vary according to the type of industry, even though some similarities appear. Managerial and theoretical implications for organizational innovation are provided.