Abstract
Innovation is at the heart of economic growth and development. It is through innovation that new products are brought to market, new production processes developed and organizational change realized. Given existing cross-industry variations in structure, competitiveness and maturity, it is reasonable to expect that firms in different industries will innovate for different reasons, in different ways and with different results. This report focuses on how the innovation activities of firms in three dynamic service industries are conditioned by their different environments. Through an understanding of what competitive pressures come into play and how these pressures affect the type of innovation that is performed, Innovation in dynamic service industries goes some way in illustrating how innovation regimes differ substantially, and quite logically, from one industry to another. This is the fifth in the series of publications on innovation and technological change in Canada. One of the earlier studies investigated the type of innovation taking place in the manufacturing sector (Baldwin and Da Pont, Innovation in Canadian manufacturing enterprises, Catalogue No. 88-513-XPB). Two others focused on advanced manufacturing technologies. The first (Baldwin and Sabourin, Technology adoption in Canadian manufacturing, Catalogue No. 88-512-XPB) outlined the intensity of use of these technologies. The second (Baldwin, Sabourin, and Rafiquzzaman, Benefits and problems associated with technology adoption, Catalogue No. 88-514-XPE) investigated the determinants of adoption. Another study (Baldwin, Innovation and intellectual property, Catalogue No. 88-515-XPE) examined how innovative firms protect their intellectual property after they have innovated.
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