The Collaboration and Innovation Novelty paper builds on previous innovation analysis by the former Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources and the ABS. It presents the results of an econometric investigation into innovation novelty, collaboration and related characteristics in Australian business. Key findings of the paper include:
- Smaller businesses are less likely to achieve high degrees of novelty of innovation than larger businesses - large businesses are about 50% more likely to achieve 'New to the World' innovation than small businesses, and medium sized businesses about 20% more likely than small businesses
- Foreign ownership is associated with a stronger likelihood of higher degrees of novelty of innovation than is pure domestic ownership - businesses with more than 10 per cent foreign ownership are about 60 per cent more likely to achieve 'new to the world' innovation than businesses that are 100 per cent domestically owned
- An increase in collaboration diversity has quite a strong positive effect on the probability of achieving 'new to the world' innovation novelty. In contrast, a comparable increase in collaboration intensity has only between one quarter and one fifth the impact of collaboration diversity on the degree of novelty of innovation
- Increases in R&D intensity are associated with statistically significant but relatively modest increases in the probability of higher degrees of innovation novelty. A doubling of R&D intensity from the sample average (2.2%) to 4.4% is associated with an increase in the probability of 'new to the world' innovation from 12.1% to 12.9%.