Businesses can cooperate with many different kinds of partners for innovation. This chapter explores the types of cooperative arrangements for innovation and the reasons for engaging in them.
- Most cooperative arrangements were with suppliers located in New Zealand.
- The most common reason for cooperative arrangements was to access new markets.
Please view detailed tables 20–22 (in chapter 17 of the pdf or in the available files section online) along with this chapter.
Partners in cooperative arrangements for innovation
In the Business Operations Survey 2009, a cooperative arrangement was defined as participating with another organisation or individual in activities for the purposes of innovation.
Most cooperative arrangements were made with partners located within New Zealand, as illustrated in figure 10.01. Fifteen percent of innovating businesses had cooperative arrangements with suppliers and 12 percent with customers. Nine percent of innovating businesses cooperated with businesses in the same business group.
Results for cooperation with overseas partners were similar to those of 2007.
Figure 10.01
Reasons for cooperative arrangements for innovation
The most common reason for innovating businesses engaging in cooperative arrangements was to access new markets (44 percent), as shown in figure 10.02. Other significant reasons included to share costs (40 percent) and access R&D (36 percent).
The 2009 results for cooperative arrangements have changed slightly from the 2007 results. Access to management skills was reported as a reason for cooperation by 29 percent of innovating businesses with cooperative arrangements in 2009, compared with 42 percent in 2007. The changing environment (such as a tighter labour market) that businesses were operating in at the time could explain this difference.
Figure 10.02
Types of innovation-related cooperation activities
Business can perform many different activities when cooperating for the purpose of innovation. The most common activities were joint:
- marketing or distribution (53 percent)
- training (36 percent)
- R&D (32 percent)
- prototype development (26 percent).
The retail trade industry had the highest rate of joint marketing or distribution activities, with 94 percent.