Title: Innovation and firm internationalisation: evidence from Italy

Authors: Daniela Federici; Valentino Parisi

Addresses: University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Cassino, Italy ' University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Cassino, Italy

Abstract: The paper explores the relation between innovation investments and internationalisation choices of Italian firms. To this end, we rely on an integrated data set that combines the Indagine sulle Imprese Manifatturiere carried out by the Unicredit Bank with publicly available company accounts for the period 2004-2006 to estimate a multinomial Probit model. This methodology allows studying how innovation affects different modes of internalisation. Our results suggest that the various channels of international involvement are positively associated with both having carried out innovative and ICT investments. As expected, this finding can be traced to the positive impact of these variables on firm productivity, which permits more internationalised firms to exploit market opportunities compared to domestic firms.

Keywords: innovation investment; trade; international business; internationalisation; Italy; ICT investment; firm productivity.

DOI: 10.1504/IJDCET.2017.082506

International Journal of Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism, 2017 Vol.2 No.1, pp.16 - 27

Received: 16 Feb 2016
Accepted: 19 Jul 2016

Published online: 27 Feb 2017 *

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