Attitudes to innovation in peripheral economic regions

The objective of this study is to shed light on the identification of the internal and external factors that affect the attitudes towards innovation of companies located in regions situated on the periphery of economic centres. The main research questions are as follows: (1) What are the internal factors that predispose companies to seek access to innovation? (2) To what extent do external factors such as location and technological opportunities condition or stimulate favourable attitudes towards innovation? To test the hypotheses put forward to answer these questions, we formulate and estimate econometric specifications, taking a sample of more than 2000 companies situated in Andalusia (one of the less-favoured regions in Spain). Our results show that the cost of innovation and the level of indebtedness of a company have a statistically significant and negative effect on attitudes to innovation, whereas the technical qualifications of the employees, the propensity to export, and the company size (measured by the number of employees) have a significant and positive effect on a company's attitude towards innovation. Furthermore, technological opportunities and location exert positive effects on attitudes towards innovation. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.