Abstract

Purpose – The paper aims to analyze the influence of cooperation in innovation in the introduction of new organizational methods. As the company shares different kind of knowledge with each partner, this research pretends to get a broader picture of the interaction between its collaboration with distinct partners and the adoption of organizational innovations.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper studies the influence of four different agents: clients, suppliers, competitors and universities, that are going to be analyzed, using a probit regression with data about 9172 companies of the Spanish PITEC (Panel of Technological Innovation), for the year 2013.

Findings – The papers results show that the four types of cooperation have a positive and significant effect in the introduction of organizational innovations. From highest to lowest influence; competitors, clients, suppliers and universities.

Research limitations/implication – The study only uses data from the Spanish business scene, limited by its social and political conditions, so it isn’t possible to generalize the results for the rest of countries. Therefore, future lines of investigation are proposed at the end.

Practical implications – The results show that in order to adopt new organizational methods in the company, managers could collaborate in innovation with the four agents selected, but specially, they should cooperate with competitors and clients.

Originality/value –The paper extends the literature of cooperation in innovation with the organizational innovation, a theme that has been barely taken into account, as researches have been mainly focused on technological innovations, rather than on the non-technological ones.