Innovation patterns of manufacturing and service firms in Korea

This paper intends to empirically explore distinctive innovation patterns of manufacturing and service firms in Korea. Our focus is specially given to discovering similarities and differences between manufacturing and service firms with radical and incremental innovation, in terms of importance placed upon innovation purposes, importance and performance gap, and innovation value profiles. The data used in this study were collected from manufacturing and service firms in Korea through a comprehensive survey on various innovation strategies and activities for the period 2009-2011. We conducted statistical analyses to test the proposed hypotheses related to innovation patterns, including the importance-performance gap analysis and ANOVA. The analysis results reveal the distinctive innovation patterns between manufacturing and service firms and also between radical and incremental innovation by these firms in terms of the importance of innovation purposes, importance and performance gap, and innovation value profiles. This study provides profound theoretical and managerial implications by disclosing different innovation patterns of manufacturing and service firms with radical and incremental innovation in Korea, which has experienced a successful techno-economic transition.