Abstract

TORRENT-SELLENS, Joan  and  FICAPAL-CUSI, Pilar. New Co-innovating Sources of Business Productivity?. Innovar [online]. 2010, vol.20, n.38, pp.111-124. ISSN 0121-5051.

The current economic crisis has underlined the need for transforming the pattern of growth of many economies throughout the world. In the process of transition towards the global knowledge economy, productivity sources pivot from extensive competitive models (accumulation of productive resources) towards intensive competitive models (innovation). In line with international evidence, this article analyzes the new co-innovating sources (uses of information and communications technologies -ICT-, new forms of organization of work and classification of workers) of business productivity for an entire productive fabric. The business system of Catalonia (a region in northern Spain) as a whole shows certain very defined intrinsic characteristics, such as the predominance of companies of reduced size with a low level of intensity in the use of technology and knowledge that not very innovative, whose employees have a low level of education and employment training and need to improve their usage of ICT; these companies also have significant problems of efficiency and competitiveness. Undoubtedly, this situation also applies to other parts of the world economy, and therefore the methodology and the results obtained could be useful for research and to promote new sources of efficiency and business growth in other countries, regions, sectors of activity and groups of companies throughout the world. The results indicate to us that evidence has not been found for the great majority of Catalan companies to corroborate the existence of new sources of productivity and therefore show their lack of adaptation to enable them to compete in global knowledge markets.

Keywords : uses of ICT; intensity in technology and knowledge; classification of work; new forms of work organization; co-innovating sources of business productivity.

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