Abstract
This study focuses on the innovation activities as determinants of the financial value of the firm. This approach breaks with the binary approach to measure the degree of innovation and replaces it by an aggregative index. The innovation level corresponding to a set of innovation activities is reported on the basis of a “scoring” for the processed industrial enterprises. On the basis of this proposal, we develop a quantitative measure of the level of innovation in order to evaluate the impact of innovation on the financial performance, controlling for some other variables. On a sample of 95 Tunisian industrial companies, empirical results showed that financial performance depends on the realization of innovation activities and the disclosure of these innovation activities. The empirical research field is Tunisia. In fact, it is an example of a developing country that has been involved in an important national program since 1995 of upgrading companies to help them cope with international competition. This national program is also meant to restructure Tunisian companies by encouraging them to invest in intangible investment so as to stimulate innovation which leads to a sustainable competitive advantage.
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Appendix (Extract from the Questionnaire)
Appendix (Extract from the Questionnaire)
During the last 3 years (2014–2016) and under the influence of the owners of the company, please indicate if your company had adopted the following activities of innovation (Please read attentively the conception and the terminology of the activities of innovation for which we look):
Innovation activities | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Introduction of a new product on the market during the last three years | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | |
Marketing of a product sharply improved during the last three years. | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | |
Introduction of a new manufacturing process during the last three years. | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | |
Introduction of a manufacturing process sharply improved during the last three years. | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | |
Introduction of a technological change importing during the last three years | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | |
More than 50% of the employees use a microcomputer | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | |
More than 20% of the employees are connected to the Intranet or more than 5% of the employees are connected to the Internet, | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | |
Presence of robots and of Activities of innovation | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | |
Introduction of an organizational change during the last three years (organized by structured partnership) | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | |
Between 2014 and 2016, your company set up new methods of management (organization just in time, ABC, Benchmarking) | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | Yes ☐ No ☐ | |
At the end of 2016, your company had: | A written policy of management of the knowledge | Yes ☐ No ☐ | ||
a culture to promote the sharing of the knowledge | Yes ☐ No ☐ | |||
of partnerships or alliances to acquire knowledge | Yes ☐ No ☐ | |||
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Chouaibi, J. Innovation and Financial Performance in Manufacturing Companies: an Empirical Study Tunisian. J Knowl Econ 12, 1870–1890 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-020-00692-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-020-00692-8