This chapter explores innovation rates for New Zealand in more detail. Innovation in New Zealand was spread evenly across all four types of innovation. More than half of innovating businesses developed these innovations themselves.
Please view tables 5–7 (in chapter 17 of the pdf or in the available files section online) along with this chapter.
Innovation rate by type of innovation
The surveyed businesses were asked about their innovation activities in each of the four innovation types: product, process, organisational, and marketing. Figure 4.01 illustrates the rates of each type of innovation in New Zealand. The total innovation rate for 2009 was 46 percent, and each type of innovation had a rate close to 25 percent. These results indicate that no one type of innovation is more prevalent and that many businesses are involved with more than one type of innovation activity.
Figure 4.01
Development of innovations
The survey asked innovating businesses to indicate how each type of innovation was developed to determine whether businesses were more likely to develop their own innovations or to obtain them from others. Businesses could select a combination of answers if they used more than one approach.
Businesses have differing levels of capability, resource, experience, or knowledge for innovation. Some businesses may choose to develop their own innovations, keeping them in-house. Others may choose to develop innovations in partnership with others so they benefit from shared knowledge or resources.
The results indicated that most businesses develop their own innovations (58 percent of product innovators) or develop innovations in partnership with others (27 percent). A smaller number of product innovators obtained innovations from others and made significant improvements (17 percent). Slightly fewer obtained innovations from others and made no significant improvements (15 percent).
Innovation rate compared with gross domestic product
To explore innovation more thoroughly, innovation can be compared with gross domestic product (GDP) by industry sector.
Gross domestic product is a commonly used measure of national income. For full details of GDP methodology, see the latest Statistics New Zealand GDP release (available from www.stats.govt.nz).
The Business Operations Survey 2009 results show that the industry with the highest innovation rate – information media and telecommunications – only contributes 3 percent to gross domestic product. This low level of contribution is due to the smaller number of businesses in this industry compared with others.
The manufacturing industry contributed the most to gross domestic product, with 14 percent, and had the second highest innovation rate of 57 percent.
In comparison, the primary agricultural sector contributed 5 percent to gross domestic product and had an innovation rate of 32 percent.
These few results show that innovation rates vary according to the nature of business activities in different industries. However, the industries with the highest rates of innovation are not necessarily the industries that are most important to the economy.