Title: Complementarities between innovation policies in emerging economies. The case of Argentina's software sector

Authors: Jorge José Motta; Hernán Alejandro Morero; Carina Borrastero; Pablo Arnaldo Ortiz

Addresses: Instituto de Economía y Finanzas, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Calle Valparaíso S/N, Ciudad Universitaria, Zip Code 5000, Córdoba, Argentina ' Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad (CIECS) – CONICET, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Rondeau 467, 1º Piso, Córdoba, Argentina; Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Calle Valparaíso S/N, Ciudad Universitaria, Zip Code 5000, Córdoba, Argentina ' Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Av. Rivadavia 1917, Zip Code 1033, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales, Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Calle Paraná, 145, 5th Floor, Zip Code 1017, Buenos Aires, Argentina ' Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Calle Valparaíso S/N, Ciudad Universitaria, Zip Code 5000, Córdoba, Argentina

Abstract: This paper analyses the presence of complementarity and substitutability relations between innovation policies in the software sector from Argentina. Supermodularity and submodularity tests between obstacles to innovation were performed with technological data from 257 Argentinean software firms, for the period 2008 to 2010. This research adds empirical evidence on the complementarities and supplementarities of innovation policies in an emerging economy and in a knowledge intensive business services sector. This kind of analysis allows to evaluate the convenience to attack jointly or separately a set of obstacles or separately. The results show multiple feedback relations between diverse obstacles and consequently between policies, and the main finding is that, in this emerging economy, innovation policies aimed to encourage firms to become innovators serve as well as an incentive for innovative firms to increase and intensify its innovation performance.

Keywords: knowledge intensive business services; KIBS; software industry; Argentina; supermodularity; innovation policy; emerging economies; complementarity; substitutability.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTLID.2013.060865

International Journal of Technological Learning, Innovation and Development, 2013 Vol.6 No.4, pp.355 - 373

Received: 22 Jun 2013
Accepted: 19 Dec 2013
Published online: 02 Jul 2014 *

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