The perception of obstacles to innovation: foreign multinationals and domestic firms in Italy

This paper looks at the perception of obstacles to innovation of both foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) and domestic firms located in Italy. Drawing on firm-level data from the Italian third Community Innovation Survey (CIS3), we show that important differences in firms’ perception of obstacles to innovation occur both across macro-regions and types of firms (i.e. foreign multinationals versus domestic firms belonging to a group and single domestic firms). The results offer support to the typical North-South divide that exists in the Italian innovation system. In addition, firms belonging to a group (especially foreign MNEs) appear to be less sensitive to their socio-economic and institutional context than single domestic firms.