European Journal of Innovation Management

An empirical investigation of innovation determinants in food machinery enterprises

Barbara Bigliardi Alberto Ivo Dormio

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Barbara Bigliardi Alberto Ivo Dormio, (2009),"An empirical investigation of innovation determinants in food
machinery enterprises", European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 12 Iss 2 pp. 223 - 242
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An empirical investigation
of innovation determinants in food
machinery enterprises
Barbara Bigliardi and Alberto Ivo Dormio

Food machinery
enterprises

223

Industrial Engineering Department, University of Parma, Parma, Italy

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Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the main findings of an empirical study conducted
in the Italian food machinery industry, on identifying the technological innovation determinants in
small or medium enterprises.
Design/methodology/approach On the basis of a research framework, a study was carried out
on 98 Italian firms operating in the food machinery industry, by means of a questionnaire survey.
A statistical analysis was conducted on the data collected, in order to understand which are the most
important factors influencing innovation and the relative effect on the innovation output of the various
factors considered.
Findings The results of the statistical analysis conducted show that, in contrast with the trend of the
industry investigated, great importance is attributed only to collaboration with universities and
research centres. Network actors are not perceived as an important source of information for innovation,
while universities, conferences and scientific papers are significant sources of information in explaining
the share of total turnover from new products or processes and process innovations, respectively. As far
as, obstacles to innovation are concerned, the results indicate that both financial and informative
obstacles are consistently associated with the innovative output. Finally, firms focusing on market and
efficiency related innovation objectives realise higher levels of process related innovative output.
Originality/value The study provides some empirical evidence on identifying and prioritising the
technological innovation determinants for enterprises operating in the context of a northern Italian
district.
Keywords Food industry, Food manufacturing equipment, Innovation, Italy
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
Nowadays, innovation is at the top of many chief executive officers agendas. It is
considered a fundamental component of entrepreneurship and a key element of business
success. According to several specialists, innovation is now unavoidable for companies
which want to develop and maintain a competitive advantage and gain into new markets
(Stock et al., 2002). The undeniable importance of innovation for contemporary companies
justifies the increasing interest that researchers are taking in it. Innovation especially
product innovation is recognised as a key element in the process of value
creation (Han et al., 1998; Vilaseca-Requena et al., 2007; Weerawardena, 2003). Froehle
et al. (2000) and Schilling and Hill (1998) pointed out that firms often opt for innovation or
renovation of their product portfolios in order to improve their competitive situation,
so that strategy guarantees the increase of consumers satisfaction and loyalty
(Atuahene-Gima, 1996a, b; Vorhies et al., 1999). Innovation has been studied in a variety
of contexts, including in relation to technology, commerce, social systems and economic
development. There is, therefore, naturally a wide range of approaches conceptualising
innovation in the scholarly literature. However, a consistent theme may be identified:

European Journal of Innovation

Management
Vol. 12 No. 2, 2009
pp. 223-242
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1460-1060
DOI 10.1108/14601060910953988

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innovation is typically defined as the successful introduction of something new and

useful, for example introducing new methods, techniques, or practices or new or altered
products and services.
Various definition have been developed to explain innovation, and as a result, the
term has gained greater ambiguity (Garcia and Calantone, 2002). Going back to the
roots, Schumpeter (1934) was first to define innovation as the creation of new
combinations. Schumpeters exact definition refers to the introduction of a new good
(that is one with which consumers are not yet familiar) or of a new quality of good; the
introduction of a new method of production, which needs by no means to be founded
upon a discovery scientifically new, and can also exists in a new way of handling a
commodity commercially; the opening of a new market, that is a market into which the
particular branch of manufacture of the country in question has not previously entered,
whether or not this market has existed before; the conquest of a new source of supply
of raw materials or half-manufactured goods, again irrespective of whether this source
already exists or whether it has first to be created; and finally the carrying out of the
new organization of any industry, like the creation of a monopoly position (for example
through trustification) or the breaking up of a monopoly position.
Recently, the economic landscape has changed considerably in comparison to
Schumpeters time, nevertheless his work remains topical. Most of the widely used
definitions of innovation focus on novelty and newness. The European Commission
(1995) Green Paper, for example, defined innovation as the successful production,
assimilation and exploitation of novelty in the economic and social spheres. Zaltman
et al. (1973) defined innovation as any idea, practice, or material artefact perceived to
be new by the relevant unit of adoption, while Damanpour (1991) defined it as
the generation, development, and adaptation of novel ideas on the part of the firm.
Regardless of the definition adopted, innovation may be represented by new products,
new methods of production, new sources of supply, the exploitation of new markets, new
ways to organise business. In the economic literature, various classifications of innovation
have been developed and applied. Following Clarysse et al. (1998) and Lundvall (1992)
classifications, it is possible to identify four domains of innovation (Figure 1):
(1) Product innovation. Any good, service or idea that is perceived by someone as
new.
(2) Process innovation. The adaptation of existing production lines as well the
installation of an entirely new infrastructure and the implementation of new
technologies, and generally it allows the creation of new products.

Technological/Technical
innovation

Figure 1.
The four domains
of innovation

Non-Technological/ NonTechnical innovation

Product innovation

Organisational
innovation

Process innovation

Market innovation

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(3) Organisational innovation. Changes in marketing, purchases, sales,

administration, management, staff policy.
(4) Market innovation. The exploitation of new territorial markets and the
penetration of new market segments within existing markets.
Figure 1 shows the definition of innovation given by Lundvall (1992), that is
innovation can be considered an ongoing process of leaving, searching and exploring
which results in new products, new processes, new forms of organisation and new
markets. Most researchers have focused on technological/technical innovations, that
is on product and process innovation. Following the Oslo Manuals lead, we define
technological innovation as implemented technologically new products and processes
and significant technological improvements in products and processes (OECD, 1997).
Underlying all of the studies above mentioned is a fundamental question, namely
why are some firms more innovative than others. One way to recast this question is to
ask which factors determine and influence the innovation output of a firm. With this
purpose in mind, we compare innovative firms with non/less innovative firms, in order
to understand which are the most prominent factors explaining the innovative output
of food machinery firms.
The paper is organised as follows. In Sections 2 and 3, a theoretical justification for
the variables considered in the study is provided and the research framework is
introduced, respectively. First, the aspects under which the innovative output of a firm
can be investigated are illustrated, and then the role of factors that are most likely to
affect the innovative output is discussed. Then, the specific research framework is
introduced, and the research hypotheses are formulated. In Section 4, after a clear view
of the context under examination (the food machinery industry), it is illustrated the
experimental design of the survey conducted. Sections 5 and 6 are devoted to the
presentation and discussion of the empirical findings. Finally, in Section 7 conclusions
are drawn and indication for future research are proposed.
2. Factors measuring and influencing the innovation output
The identification of factors measuring and influencing firms innovation is a popular
topic in the empirical literature. Patents are a widely employed direct measure of
innovation output (Patel and Pavitt, 1992), but other indicators, complementary or
alternative, have been developed and used in empirical analyses, such as citation
counts of patents (Albert et al., 1991), self-assessment by managers of the number of
innovations introduced by their firm (Pavitt et al., 1987; Cohen and Levin, 1989), the
share of innovative products and processes in a firms total share (Brouwer and
Kleinknecht, 1994).
As far as the factors influencing the innovation output are concerned, various
factors, have been identified in literature, of both internal and external nature.
The research methodology followed to select these factors was a combination of
literature analysis and interviews with a panel of experts. Once the literature review
had been completed, a panel of experts was set up to validate the variables proposed.
To this extent, the panel included:
.
Five academics whose research studies mainly focus on innovation management.
Owing to their expertise in such area, academics could support the panel of
experts during the decision-making process.

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About 15 members from as many firms operating in the food machinery

industry. They were selected among people directly operating in the key
business functions involved in the research and development (R&D) activities,
and were asked to validate the variables selected based on their in field
experience in the industry.

Based on findings from the literature, academics initially proposed a viable set of
factors, structured into an appropriate questionnaire to be sent to the panel members,
to be used as determinants of the innovative output. For each variable, the panel
members were asked to express their agreement with regard to the suitability of
implementation in the food machinery industry. Moreover, they could indicate the need
for further specifications of variables, as well as the main strengths and weaknesses of
each variable identified. Hence, a second questionnaire was organized, incorporating
additional variables proposed by the panellists and removing non relevant ones, and
submitted to the panel members. Then, the panel was involved in a final roundtable
discussion, to confirm the agreements on the results and at the end a general agreement
was reached. The final version of the questionnaire contained the variables listed
below and detailed in the next paragraph:
.
reasons for introducing innovation;
.
obstacles and barriers to innovation;
.
collaboration with external actors; and
.
information sources.
3. The research hypotheses
If we look at innovation as a process, first of all we have to consider the decision to
innovate, that is the innovation strategy. A firm can decide to be at the forefront of new
developments (the so-called first mover), or to follow the new developments once proven
successful (the so-called follower) (Schilling, 2005). In the first case, there are several
advantages that can be gained from entering first: scarce resources can be pre-empted,
e.g. occupation of prime retail locations, the ability to register patents and trademarks
that will protect the first entrant from future competition, changing the economics of the
market in a way that second entrants will not have an economic justification to enter,
early profits can be re-invested in improving the resource base, and reputation will likely
have the advantages that come from suppliers, distributors and customers who are
familiar with and loyal to their products. Nevertheless, there are two obvious drawbacks
to being the first mover: costs and risks. Not only it is expensive to be a pioneer, but also
it is risky, as the first company in a particular market cannot benefit from knowledge of
successes and mistakes of others (Lieberman and Montgomery, 1998). Finally, a firm
can, obviously, decide not to innovate. The technological strategy adopted by a firm
depends on the reason that motivate the firm to innovate. Empirical works have shown
that, at the industry level, a greater range of innovation objectives is associated with
greater rates of innovation, while at a firm level innovation objectives affect the ability of
firms to successfully innovate (Cohen and Malerba, 2001).
Among all, the most important reasons for firms to innovate can be listed as follows:
the value added, the differentiation of products, the enhancement of firms efficiency
and effectiveness, the possibility to gain a funding, or just to meet legislative demands

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and quality standards. All these reasons can be grouped together into three types of
innovation objectives:
(1) Market or efficiency related objectives, that is firms innovate in order to
strengthening the value added or products differentiation, or in order to enhance
their efficiency, effectiveness or flexibility.
(2) Legislative related objectives: in the context investigated, regulations for food
safety, for the use of specific technologies or ingredients as well as labelling
requirements are of particular relevance (Menrad, 2004). As a consequence, firms
can decide to innovate in order to meet legislative demands and quality standards.
(3) Financially related objectives, that is the possibility to gain a funding for R&D
projects.
This variety of motivations can push and pull firms along the innovation path. The
motivations listed above may be classified as proactive and reactive. Proactive
motivations may represent stimuli for firm-initiated strategic change, that is the wish to
enhance its product mix, efficiency or effectiveness. Reactive motivations may on the
contrary describe stimuli that result in a firms response and adaptation to changes
imposed by the outside environment (typically, legislative demands and quality
standards). Proactive firms are more likely to have solicited their innovation process,
whereas reactive firms frequently begin innovative activities after receiving an unsolicited
order from abroad. In general, firms that are more successful in the innovation process are
usually motivated by proactive factors (Cohen and Malerba, 2001), the contrary for
reactive factors. Proactive firms are frequently more product/service-oriented than
reactive firms. Further, they are more marketing and strategy oriented than reactive firms,
which have as their major concern operational issues. Since Porter (1980), most authors
have confirmed direct and positive links between proactive strategy and financial
performance (Aragon-Correa and Rubio-Lopez, 2007). Generally, we expect that firms
focusing proactive objectives (that is on market or efficiency related objectives) will realise
higher levels of innovation output, the contrary for reactive innovation objectives of types
(2) and (3). These considerations support the following hypotheses:
H1a. Firms focusing on market related innovation or on efficiency related
innovation objectives realise higher levels of innovative output.
H1b. Firms focusing on legislative related or financial innovation objectives realise
lower levels of innovative output.
Once a firm decides if and how to innovate, the innovation process not necessarily has
a successful conclusion. Innovation process can be regarded as a complex management
process associated with many failures and related obstacles (Tidd et al., 2005), that can
be of different nature. In several countries, the main obstacles are the financial ones
(Garcia Martinez and Briz, 2000), that is, for example, the lack of the necessary
financial resources or to too high-innovation costs. Financial problems are particularly
acute in the case of innovation activities due to some of their inherent characteristics:
risk, appropriability, and use of intangible assets (Hall, 2002; Myers and Majluf, 1984).
Next to financial obstacles, firms may experience also organizational obstacles (for
example a lack of qualified staff, a lack of knowledge, or an inflexible internal
organisation), too much uncertainty of future benefits and costs, and uncertainty of future

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market developments. With reference to the former type of obstacles, small and medium
firms have often faced with difficulties integrating new complex technologies in the
existing processes, or developing new products using such technologies. On the other
hand, large firms, having more resources available for innovation, are hampered by the
inflexibility and weak entrepreneurial drive within bureaucratised innovation
departments. Finally, firms may experience obstacles from outside the firm, e.g.
difficulties with regulations or standards, limited market acceptance of new products, a
lack of information about the innovation process or about the market.
Previous studies analysed the effects of the different kinds of obstacles listed above
on the innovative output (Mohnen et al., 2008; Santarelli, 1993). Results from these
studies show that firms generally do not only experience financial constraints, but also
they are hampered in various ways with economic market uncertainty, organizational
rigidities and lack of information. Regardless from the type of obstacles, their effects on
the innovation output varied from the abandoning of the innovation project, to the
prematurely write off or the slow down of the project, until not starting the project at
all (Gomes et al., 2006; Mohnen et al., 2008). Therefore, it is to be expected that firms
experiencing obstacles have lower levels of innovative output compared with firms
who do not experience innovation obstacles, that is:
H2. Firms that experience innovation obstacles perform worse in terms of
innovative output.
Innovations are more and more seen as the result of an interactive process of
knowledge generation, diffusion and application. The importance of these interactions
for innovation and the role of collaboration as a means of accessing external knowledge
by extending the knowledge boundaries of firms has been widely stressed by the
strategic management literature (Camagni, 1991; Bottazzi and Peri, 2003; Edquist,
2005; Miotti and Sachwald, 2003; Powell and Grodal, 2005; Rothaermel and Deeds,
2006; Womack et al., 1991). Womack et al. (1991), for example, highlighted the potential
role of collaboration as a means of accessing external expertise to allow concurrent
development to take place and to accelerate the product development process.
Networks may also allow firms to take advantage of potential agglomeration and
informational advantages in both high-tech (Saxenian, 1996; Shefer and Frenkel, 1998)
and more traditional sectors (Perry, 1999). With reference to small and medium
enterprises (SMEs) that characterise the selected industry, since innovation strategies
look increasingly similar and commoditized, more and more organizations try to
further improve their innovation performance through intensifying collaboration
across industry networks and partnerships, opening up their innovation processes in
line with the open innovation framework (Chesbrough, 2003; EIRMA, 2004). Inter-firms
relationships in terms of networks and alliances have been recognised as important for
the development of their innovations and technologies (Gandolfi, 1999).
Partners for collaboration may be part of the supply chain or belong to other
industries, and may influence and determine the type of collaboration. Collaboration
with customers, for instance, could be generally associated with retrieving market
information, whereas cooperation with competitors could be associated with exploiting
economies of scale and reducing individual costs of innovation. Moreover, the type of
collaboration may change in function of the type of innovation to be introduced.
Todtling et al. (2009) showed that advanced or radical innovations are drawn on new

scientific knowledge, generated in universities and research organizations, while

incremental innovations take place more in interaction with partners from the business
sector often located at higher spatial levels beyond the region. The majority of
innovation studies found a positive effect of collaboration on innovation performance
(de Man and Duysters, 2005). Then, following de Man and Duysters (2005), we
hypothesise that collaboration is positively related to innovative output:

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H3. Collaboration for innovation is positively related to innovative output.

As previously stated, collaboration is used also as a means to gather knowledge
required for the innovation process. The knowledge-based view of the firm (Kogut and
Zander, 1992; Grant, 1996) has focused attention on the importance of knowledge
sources to innovative success. For example, information from supply chain partners
are important for innovation activities: customers provide feedback regarding
problems with, and desired modifications of, existing products (von Hippel, 1976),
while suppliers provide knowledge regarding inputs, including raw materials, plant,
equipment and components. In the industry selected, in particular, an important source
of information for innovative firms is represented by customers, that is firms belonging
to the food industry. Past studies (von Hippel, 1976; Montoya-Weiss and Calantone,
1994; Cooper, 1999) show that by incorporating the interests of the final customer in the
innovation process, the chances for success can be increased. Other studies indicate
competitors and institutions (i.e. universities and research institutions) as an important
source of informations for innovation: academic research provides, for instance, the
access to basic scientific knowledge (Arora and Gambardella, 1990). Further, it is
possible to list among the possible sources of innovation, scientific literature, fairs and
traders (Gandolfi, 1999). Researches on innovation management suggest two main
reasons why multiple knowledge sources may be associated with greater innovation
success. First, firms may be able to increase the value of their innovation success by
sampling a range of knowledge sources; second, firms may benefit from
complementarities and synergies among knowledge sources.
Helfat and Leiponen (2005) suggested that broader horizons with respect to
knowledge and information sources are associated with successful innovation.
Moreover, the innovation objectives above mentioned can benefit from the range of
knowledge sources, that provide the opportunity for technological advance (Klevorich
et al., 1995). As a consequence, access to a greater range of knowledge sources may
help firms to improve their odds of successful innovation (Helfat and Leiponen, 2005).
Based on these arguments, we expect that firms who use informations gathered from
their network realise higher levels of innovative output, and thus we postulate the
following hypothesis:
H4. Firms that gather information from their network realise higher levels of
innovative output.
The research model that summarises the hypothesis is shown in Figure 2.
4. Research methodology
4.1 The context investigated: the food machinery industry
The empirical research was based on the study of the food machinery industry, in which
research and development into new technological solutions for the processing of food

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Innovation objectives

Innovation obstacles
Innovation output

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Figure 2.
The research model

Collaboration

Information sources

products is extremely active and dynamic. The choice of this specific industry was
motivated by two reasons. First, it represents one of the most important industrial
sectors of northern Italy. In particular, this sector is the most important, together with
the food industry, as for the Parma District. As an indication of its importance, it should
be pointed out that this sector represent the 48 per cent of the total of industrial sectors,
reaching a turnover of e8.500 million out of a total of e17.700 million (www.upi.pr.it).
Moreover, since the middle of the nineteenth century, preservation and processing of
agricultural products has constituted a major part of the Parma area economy and
represents the primary and most significant impulse to the mechanical industry.
Complete food processing systems, designed and produced in Parma, are installed
throughout the world, particularly for mass production of canned tomatoes and sauces,
vegetables in general, regular and exotic fruit, juices, preserves, beverages and canned
meats and fish. Also companies involved in the production of cooling systems, food and
drink bottling equipment and packaging machinery in general, are very active. For these
reasons, the biennial trade fair of world food technology, CIBUS TEC, is held in Parma,
which has become known as the sector capital thanks to the high-concentration of food and
food engineering enterprises in the area. Of course, the application of data from just one
particular industry reduces on the one hand the number of observations but has, on the
other hand, the advantage that firms are relatively homogeneous (Kraft, 1990). Given that
the technical opportunity for innovations presumably differs considerably, an aggregation
of observations from different industries could be problematic (Cohen et al., 1987).
4.2 Data
The results presented in the paper come from an in depth questionnaire survey carried
out among firms operating in the food machinery industry in northern Italy in Parma
District, in the period 2006-2007. Prior to the survey, in order to provide more complete
information for the hypotheses and render the preliminary version of the questionnaire
valid, the questionnaire was tested. This stage has been particular useful since it
provided a direct insight into how specific phenomena, which came to the fore during the
literature survey, found actual application in the industrial practice within the context
under investigation. This activity pursued two distinct objectives: building a framework
for a structured research hypothesis concerning the factors explaining the innovation
output, and, second, to decide upon which data should be collected in a subsequent
questionnaire survey. The results of this process were edited for overlaps to produce a
questionnaire with a final list of more than 50 items. The questionnaire consisted of three
parts: the first referred to the collection of general information about the company,

its competitive environment, its characteristics in terms of human resources and its
technological strategy. The second aimed at investigating the characteristics of the
innovative activity carried out by the firm, both in terms of technological/technical
innovation (product and process innovation), and in terms of non technological/non
technical innovation (marketing and organisational innovation). Finally, Section 3
concerned the relationships between innovation and organisational culture.

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4.3 Characteristics of the sample
An overall population of 201 firms was obtained from different data sources: the CIBUS
database (an annual exhibition of food and beverage machinery manufacturers), the
chamber of commerce, and different professional associations. All 201 firms were sent
the questionnaire and were contacted by mail in order to check their willingness to
participate in the survey. A final number of 98 usable questionnaire was obtained, with a
satisfying return rate of 48.75 per cent. The questionnaire was submitted to managers
who were identified as being responsible of the innovative process.
4.4 Variables and measures
Based on the research framework, indicators were selected for the questionnaire. These
indicators relate to innovation objectives, innovation obstacles, collaboration and
information sources. In order to reduce the total number of variables, some questions
were grouped according to their relations to particular concepts. In the remainder of
this paragraph we operationalise the research framework.
4.4.1 Dependent variable. In our research, we used as indicator of the innovative
output the share of innovative products and processes in a firms total share.
This method, used by Brouwer and Kleinknecht (1994), consists in asking firms to
report for a certain period the percentages of their sales which are due to products
and/or processes incrementally improved, radically changed, or newly introduced, that
can in turn be divided into products/processes new to the firm and already known in
the industry, or products/processes new to the market and not introduced earlier by
another firm. For the purpose of our research, and on the basis of the prevalence in the
mechanical industry of process innovation, with reference to the last classification, we
referred only to process innovation (see the following indicators (2) and (3)).
Summarising, the four indicators used are listed below:
(1) the impact of new products and/or processes on firms total turnover;
(2) process innovation new to the market;
(3) process innovation new to the firm; and
(4) type of product and process innovation (radical vs incremental).
The first indicator refers to the impact of new or strongly improved products and/or
processes realised during the last five years on firms total turnover, and allows us to
measure the fact that a firm has been innovating, but also the perceived impact of these
innovation activities on its turnover. The second indicator determines whether a firm
realised one or more process innovation in the past five years that were new to the
market. We used a similar indicator for process innovations from the past five years
that were new to the firm. As for the last indicator, it takes into account the type of
innovation introduced in the last five years (radical or incremental).

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4.4.2 Independent variables. The proposed analytical model considers four factors
as possible determinants of innovation: objectives (OBJ), obstacles (OBST),
collaboration (COLL) and information (INFO). The innovation objectives, that is the
motivation that prompts firm at introduce an innovation, were grouped into four
categories: market related objectives (larger market share, new market and new foreign
market penetration and broader assortment), efficiency related objectives (higher
productivity, cost reduction), normative related objectives (meeting legislation on
safety, quality, food health and environmental protection) and financial objectives (the
possibility to gain financial incentives). For these variables, group averages were
calculated and used in the analysis. The obstacles met in the development and/or
introduction of innovation are assessed by considering the importance attributed by
the firm to different factors hampering their innovation activities, or even hampering
innovation activities from getting started. In particular, obstacles were grouped
together: financially related obstacles (lack of finance, too high costs), information
related obstacles (lack of information about market and/or about technologies),
internally related obstacles (lack of qualified personnel, lack of knowledge) and
externally related obstacles (lack of partnerships or difficulty in establishing them). To
measure collaboration, we take into account of the importance attributed by the firm to
collaboration with industry and non-industry agents for the development of innovative
activities. Specifically, we distinguish between customers, suppliers, competitors,
universities and research centres. The variable INFO refers to the importance
associated with several sources of information for innovation. The possible sources in
the questionnaire were: not completed projects or past patents, competitors,
customers/suppliers, universities, research institution, conferences and fairs,
literature, and professional associations. Table I shows all the variables included
into the analysis and their scale of measurement.
5. Data analysis
First of all, we conducted a descriptive analysis, with the purpose to understand the
characteristics of the sample in general terms and in terms of innovation in particular.
Then, in order to investigate the hypotheses, we propose eight models, with reference
to the eight variables used to describe the innovative output (Model 1 refers to the
analysis conducted for the dependent variable IMPPROD, Model 2 refers to the same
analysis conducted for the dependent variable IMPPROC, and so on). We have chosen a
multiple linear regression (Hair et al., 1998) as estimation technique to evaluate these
models. An assessment of multicollinearity was carried out through the computation of
tolerance value and variable inflation factor (VIF). For most of the variable, the
tolerance values were well above ten cutoff and the VIFs were substantially below ten
cutoff, indicating multicollinearity was not a problem. Only for few variables there was
problem of multicollinearity, as such these items have been eliminated and not
considered in the analysis (Field, 2000).
6. Results
Descriptive data are presented in Table II. Only 18.4 per cent of the firms are big firms,
the remaining 81.6 per cent are SMEs, in confirmation of the structure of the industry
under investigation. This fact is confirmed also by the breakdown of turnover into
categories.

Variable

Description (items in the questionnaire)

Scale of measurement

IMPPROD
IMPPROC

Impact of product innovation on firms total turnover

Impact of process innovation on firms total turnover

NEWMK

Firm develops predominantly process innovation

new to the market
Firm develops predominantly process innovation
new to the firm
Firm develops predominantly incremental product
innovation
Firm develops predominantly radical product
innovation
Firm develops predominantly incremental process
innovation
Firm develops predominantly radical process
innovation
Firm introduces innovations in order to meet
legislation in matter of safety, quality, food health
and environmental protection
Firm introduces innovations in order to
increase its market share, to enter
new market or foreign market, or to enlarge its
product assortment
Firm introduces innovations in order
to increase its productivity or to decrease its
production costs
Firm introduces innovations because
of the possibility to gain financial
incentives
Importance of lack of finance or presence of costs too
high as obstacle at the development/introduction of
innovation
Importance of lack of information about
technology and/or market as obstacle
at the development/introduction
of innovation
Importance of lack of qualified personnel and
knowledge as obstacle at the
development/introduction of innovation
Importance of lack of partnership or difficulty in
establishing them as obstacle at the
development/introduction of innovation
Importance of collaboration with customers and/or
suppliers
Importance of collaboration with competitors
Importance of collaboration with universities an/or
research centres

1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3

NEWFIRM

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INCRPROD
RADPROD
INCRPROC
RADPROC
OBJ1
OBJ2

OBJ3
OBJ4

OBST1
OBST2

OBST3
OBST4
COLL1
COLL2
COLL3

null
low
medium
high
very high
strongly disagree
disagree
neither agree nor
disagree
4 agree
5 strongly agree

Food machinery
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233

1 strongly disagree
2 disagree
3 neither agree nor
disagree
4 agree
5 strongly agree

1 unimportant
2 of little importance
3 moderately
important
4 important
5 very important

1
2
3
4
5

unimportant
of little importance
moderately important
important
very important

(continued)

Table I.
Description of variables

EJIM
12,2

Variable

Description (items in the questionnaire)

Scale of measurement

INFO1

Importance of unfinished projects as information

source for innovation
Importance of past patents as information source for
innovation
Importance of competitors as information source for
innovation
Importance of customers and/or suppliers as
information source for innovation
Importance of universities as information source for
innovation
Importance of research centres as information source
for innovation
Importance of conferences and fairs as information
source for innovation
Importance of literature and scientific papers as
information source for innovation
Importance of professional associations as
information source for innovation

1
2
3
4
5

INFO2

234

INFO3
INFO4

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INFO5
INFO6
INFO7
INFO8
INFO9
Table I.

unimportant
of little importance
moderately important
important
very important

Per cent

Table II.
Descriptive data

Turnover (e million)
#2
2-10
10-25
25-50
.50
No. of employees
1-9
10-49
50-150
150-249
.250
Percentage of employees staffed in R&D departments
,5
5-10
10-15
15-20
.20
Education (percentage of employees with graduate degree)
,5
5-10
10-15
15-20
.20

2.0
13.3
45.9
36.7
2.0
1.1
14.2
66.3
15.3
3.1
48.0
12.2
14.3
19.4
6.1
5.1
37.8
28.6
20.4
8.1

Almost all of the firms (84 per cent) exports their product, while 71 per cent owns a ISO
9000 certification. As far as legal and organisational structure is concerned, 80.6 per cent
of the firms are limited liability company or commercial partnership, the remaining
percentage are public limited company, while almost half of the firms has a functional

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(41.8 per cent), informal (36.7 per cent) or divisional (13.3 per cent) structure. Only four
firms (corresponding to 4 per cent) present a matrix structure. As for the average age of
employees, it is comprised among 35- and 39-years old. With regard to innovation, 50
firms (corresponding to 51 per cent) own a R&D unit, where the main innovation
activities pertain to the acquisition of plants or software/hardware equipment aimed at
introducing product/process innovation, followed by the acquisition of R&D units
belonging to other companies and, less important, the acquisition of patents or
innovation not patented.
It is interesting to note that more than half of the firms (56) indicates that they did
not introduce product innovation, while only six firms did not introduce process
innovation; this evidence confirms the prevalence of process innovation on product
innovation in the industry investigated. With regard to process innovations, these are
predominantly incremental innovations, in confirmation of the literature review about
this type of innovation.
As far as the regression analysis is concerned, its results are presented in the sequel
of the section. The aim of the regression analysis was to measure the impact of each
independent variable on each dependent variable. Results of the multivariate analyses
are presented in Table III.
With H1 we argued that there is a significant positive relationship between firms who
introduce innovation focusing on market- or efficiency related objectives and the
innovation output, while we expect a negative relationship between firms who introduce
an innovation motivated by financially or normative related objectives. We see a
negative relationship between normative (OBJ1) and market related (OBJ2) objectives
and the dependent variables impact of process innovation on total turnover
and incremental process innovation ( p , 0.05 and p , 0.01 for Models 2 and 7,
respectively). A strong positive relationship exists between the dependent variable
impact of process innovation on total turnover and efficiency related (OBJ3) objectives
( p , 0.01, Model 2). The results of the analysis with Model 8 show negative relationship
between normative (OBJ1) and efficiency related (OBJ3) objectives and firms who
introduce radical process innovation ( p , 0.01 and p , 0.05, respectively), and a strong
positive relationship ( p , 0.01) between market related objectives (OBJ2) and the same
dependent variable. We do not find any significant relationship with the other models. In
sum, H1 is confirmed for a limited number of objectives and for different variables for
innovation output.
With H2 we argued that obstacles to innovation are negatively related to the
innovation output. This hypothesis is confirmed only for two types of obstacles and
only for process innovation. In fact, Table III shows that there are negative strong
relationships ( p , 0.01) only between financially related (OBST1) obstacles and
incremental process innovations, and between internal (OBST3) obstacles and radical
process innovations ( p , 0.05). For the other models the obstacles variables are not
significant.
H3 regards the relationship between collaboration and the realised levels of
innovative output. Model 1 represents the regression with the impact of product
innovations on total turnover. It indicates a positive relationship with collaboration
with universities and research centres (COLL3) ( p , 0.05). For the same, independent
variable is shown a negative relationship ( p , 0.05) with the dependent variable
impact of process innovations on total turnover. The results of the analysis with

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Variables

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236

Table III.
The results of the
regression analysis

OBJ1
OBJ2
OBJ3
OBJ4
OBST1
OBST2
OBST3
OBST4
COLL1
COLL2
COLL3
INFO1
INFO2
INFO3
INFO5
INFO6
INFO7
INFO8
INFO9

Model 1
IMPPROD
b
t
0.142
20.051
20.013
0.129
20.002
0.223
0.193
0.062
20.168
0.074
0.319
0.126
20.117
0.098
0.280
20.060
20.118
0.104
0.040

1.259
20.388
20.98
1.133
20.013
1.334
21.264
0.591
20.826
0.355
1.462 *
0.753
20.846
0.618
1.270 *
20.442
20.376
0.438
0.244

Model 2
IMPPROC
b
t
2 0.226
2 0.226
0.563
2 0.066
0.094
0.077
0.005
2 0.055
2 0.033
0.355
2 0.420
2 0.147
2 0.046
2 0.050
2 0.183
0.077
0.170
2 0.069
0.000

2 2.236 *
2 1.925 *
4.633 * *
2 0.651
0.748
0.459
0.032
2 0.522
2 0.162
1.698
2 1.915 *
2 0.867
2 0.332
2 0.309
2 1.321 *
0.346
0.536
2 0.287
2 0.002

Model 7
INCRPROC
b
t
20.125
20.303
0.143
0.052
20.293
0.327
20.025
20.179
20.027
20.251
20.380
20.098
20.162
20.102
20.029
0.011
0.264
20.315
0.291

21.139 * *
22.374 * *
1.082
0.468
22.408 * *
2.028
20.169
21.754
20.132
21.227
20.177
20.582
21.161 *
20.639
20.129
0.083
0.834
21.316
1.760 *

Model 8
RADPROC
b
t
20.157
0.247
20.088
0.106
0.311
0.617
20.554
0.018
0.298
0.330
20.023
0.026
20.123
0.079
20.091
20.078
20.453
0.595
20.054

2 1.421 * *
1.921 * *
2 0.663 *
2 0.950
3.013
4.508
2 4.420 *
0.210
1.734
1.884 *
2 0.126
0.159
2 0.915
0.513
2 0.425
2 0.587
2 1.485 *
2.577 *
2 0.339

Notes: Significance at the *5 and * * 1 per cent. The modelling strategy used is the method of forced
entry (enter), in which all predictors, selected based on past works, are forced into the model
simultaneously

Model 8 show a positive relationship ( p , 0.05) between collaboration with

competitors (COLL2) and firms who innovate in processes, specifically with firms
who introduce radical process innovations. We do not find any significant
relationships with the other models. As a consequence, this hypothesis is confirmed
for product related innovative output (the impact of product innovations on the total
turnover) and for process related innovative output (Models 2 and 8).
Finally, with H4 we argued there is a significant positive relationship between firms
who use different sources of information and realised innovative output. The only strong
positive relationships resulted from the regression analysis is between Universities
(INFO5) and the impact of product innovations on total turnover ( p , 0.05), between
trade-union (INFO9) and incremental process innovations ( p , 0.05), and between
literature and scientific papers (INFO8) and radical process innovations ( p , 0.05).
This is quite surprising, as traditionally these sources of information are considered the
less important for the development and introduction of innovation. The test for the same
hypothesis shows negative relationships ( p , 0.05) between Universities (INFO5) and
the dependent variable impact of process innovations on total turnover (Model 2),
past patents and the dependent variable incremental process innovations (Model 7),
and finally between the dependent variable radical process innovation and
conferences and fairs as source of information (Model 8).
There is no support for the four hypotheses for Models 3, 4, 5 and 6, that is when the
innovation output is measured by means of process innovation new to the market or to

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the firm, and by means of radical or incremental product innovation. As a consequence,

all the models tested and found to be not significant were deleted from Table III.
7. Conclusions and future research
The study of innovation process in organizations has evolved as a multidisciplinary
endeavour. Research into the managerial and economics aspects of technological
innovation has undergone some substantial changes in direction and emphasis since
the early work of Schumpeter (1934). Over the past years, technological innovation has
become increasingly critical for firms as they struggle to achieve and maintain
competitive advantage, and as a consequence technological innovation management
has become one of the most attractive and promising areas of study in the field of
management. This fact is confirmed by the increasing number of scholars that have
oriented their research towards this area and, not least, that every year there are new
scientific journals specialising in the study of innovation phenomena.
This paper focus on technological/technical innovation, that is on product and
process innovation. These innovations are often classified into different types,
requiring different kinds of underlying knowledge and with different impacts on the
industrys competitors and customers (Schilling, 2005). For successful innovation to
occur, the process of innovation needs to be carefully managed, and to do this, it is of
primary importance to know which factors influence the innovation activities and
outputs. The purpose of this paper was exactly to understand which factors, among
those proposed in literature, most influence and explain the innovation output in a
specific context, that is the food machinery industry. In order to reach this purpose, we
developed a research model and a questionnaire, and conducted a multivariate analysis
(specifically, a regression analysis one). The research model encloses all the variables
that were first selected from the economic literature as potential influencing factors of
the innovation output, then validated by a panel of experts by means of interviews.
Result from the literature review and interviews was a list of variables included in the
questionnaire, that is the motivation that prompt firms to innovate, the obstacles to the
introduction of an innovation, the main form of collaboration, and the sources of
information useful in order to develop and introduce an innovation.
The findings in this paper partly support existing findings pertaining to success
factors for innovation, partly contradict existing theories. The different models (one for
each dependent variable used to describe the innovation output), show different
relationships between the factors and the different variables for innovative output, by
supporting the primary proposition of the study. Firms innovate in process in order to
enhance their market share, to improve product quality and to improve their product
assortments. This results from the fact that market and efficiency related objectives are
strongly related with process related innovative output variables, and confirms earlier
findings (Montoya-Weiss and Calantone, 1994) that market-orientation is crucial for
the innovation process. Firms that innovate in order to meet legislative requirements
perform worst in term of process innovative output, as confirmed by the strong
negative relationship resulted from the analysis. Moreover, the same objectives were
not consistently significant predictors of product innovation success. In this paper, we
have analysed also the nature and the degree of obstacles to innovative activity. Our
analysis led us to conclude that the constraints faced by innovative firms are important
and have a major negative impact on innovative activity. Financial constraints and

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238

internal obstacles turned out to be the major factors hampering firms that innovate in
process. Our empirical results are in line with the conclusions of numerous studies
about the important beneficial effects of the absence of barriers to innovation. We can
conclude that in order to innovate a firm must have the right organisational conditions,
such as sufficient qualified personnel, sufficient knowledge, and a flexible organisation
structure, but it must also have the right financial conditions, that is financial resources
and costs for innovation not too high. Without these right conditions, innovation
hardly can take place. With regard to the role of collaboration for innovation, the
findings show that firms introducing innovations are cooperating more often with
universities and research organizations, and with competitors. Given the potential
advantages of collaboration advocated by various scholars, in the industry and in
the area taken into consideration the network with customers and suppliers seems to
be under-utilised for innovation purposes. At the same way, the network cannot be
considered as an important source of information for innovation. As for the sources of
information, once again universities and scientific literature are important sources,
together with trade association. We could not find a significant relation between
innovative output and customers and/or suppliers as source of information. This is
remarkable, as earlier research found contrary results (Claro et al., 2004). These results
are quite surprising. First, in fact, generally it is not recognised as an important role for
universities and research centres as form of collaboration or as source of information.
Second, the fact that actors from the network are not considered as collaboration or
sources of information is remarkable, given the theoretical arguments in favour of
collaboration with suppliers and customers (Boon, 2001).
To date, this is the first quantitative research that focused on the factors explaining
innovative output of Italian food machinery firms. By using multiple indicators for
innovativeness, this study contributes to a broader understanding of the factors that
determine the innovative output. As such, we found differences in the factors
explaining product innovation and process innovation. The research entails some
weaknesses as well. In fact, while this quantitative study has established a clear
picture of relationships between the innovation output and its determinants, some
caution must be exercised when interpreting these findings due to a number of limiting
factors. First, the use of a relatively underdeveloped instrument measuring the
determinants of innovation output and the relatively small sample size. Our results
show that several variables included in the questionnaire are not significant, that is
they do not impact on the innovation output of firms. Second, a quantitative study is
not suitable at well explaining the reasons behind these relationships. Thus, future
qualitative research needs to be considered. Moreover, the study provides a static view,
while future research should be extended and supported by a number of case or
longitudinal studies showing the connection among the variables considered. It would
also be interesting to extend the analysis to other Italian or European areas, and carry
out comparative studies to identify innovation patterns that are either region-specific
or generalisable, or to extend the study to near industries, such as the food one, that is
strictly connected with the industry investigated.
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About the authors
Barbara Bigliardi graduated (with distinction) in 2004 in Industrial Engineering and
Management at the University of Parma and holds a PhD in Industrial Engineering from the
same university in 2008. Since 2005, she has been a researcher at the Department of Industrial
Engineering of the same university. Her research activities mainly concern innovation
management, human resources management and technology transfer. Her research has been
published in international journals, such as the European Journal of Innovation Management,
Technovation and The Leadership & Organization Development Journal.
Alberto Ivo Dormio graduated in Mechanical Engineering at the Politecnico of Bari. He holds
a Master in Management of Innovation and a PhD in Management Engineering. Since 2006, he is
an Associate Professor at the University of Parma. His research activities mainly concern
innovation management, project management and technology transfer. His research has been
published in international journals, such as the European Journal of Innovation Management,
Technovation and The Leadership & Organization Development Journal.

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