Examination of Innovation Sources and Cooperation Alternatives for Turkish Firms

Abstract

Within organizations, the management of innovation can require the consideration of different patterns of financial issues, human resource skills and cooperation activities with outside stakeholders. The main goal of this study is to identify potential innovation alternatives in order to reach the target of increasing the number of innovative firms in Turkey. To do this, different innovation criteria were examined by evaluating the results of the 2010 Community Innovation Survey Results of Turkish Firms as an indicator. The Analytic Hierarchy Process method was applied to investigate these priorities. Following the introduction and an outline of the rationale behind criteria selection, the analysis section focuses upon two levels of criteria. The first level includes the knowledge sources of innovation, cooperation among the stakeholders, required skills and capabilities, funding sources and lastly monetary allocations. A number of different knowledge sources and factors related to the firm’s networking capabilities were reinvestigated at the second “sub-criteria” level. It was deduced that to reach the goal of improving innovative capability in general terms, firms might concentrate on non-technical innovation activities as the first priority, and then; product and process innovation activities. Additional research guidelines and future strategy measures are also provided in the study.