A higher share of Norwegian enterprises report innovations

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Sixty-five per cent of Norwegian enterprises reported some form of innovation activity in the survey covering the period 2014-2016. This is a significant increase compared to the previous period from 2012 to 2014.

The increase in innovation activity applies to all four main types of innovation; product (goods or services), process, organisational and marketing innovation. Overall, the increases range from 8 to 12 percentage points, giving an increase of up to 57 per cent for service innovators. The increase in the share of innovative enterprises can be observed throughout all main industry and size group aggregates. Results for the detailed industry breakdowns are somewhat more varied, but these also predominantly show increases in the share of innovators.

Figure 1. Types of innovation activity

2012-2014 2014-2016
Marketing innovation 29 38
Organisational innovation 25 33
Process innovation 24 37
Product innovation (services) 14 24
Product innovation (goods) 17 27
Product and/or process innovation activity 40 54
Innovation activity 52 65

New-to-market innovations stagnant

Among the product innovative enterprises, the increase in the share of innovators can be attributed wholly to innovations that were only new to the enterprise but not new to the enterprises’ market. As a percentage of all enterprises, there was a slight increase in the share of enterprises introducing products new to the Norwegian market, while the share of enterprises introducing innovations that were new to the world market decreased equally. However, both these changes are considered to be within the margin of error of the survey.

Figure 2. Product innovative enterprises, by novelty

2012-2014 2014-2016
New to the world market 7 5
New to the European market 5 5
New to the Norwegian market 13 15
New to the enterprises' market 18 19
Only new to the enterprise 17 27

As in previous Norwegian innovation surveys, a significant majority of the innovative enterprises consider at least one of their innovations to be developed mainly by the enterprise itself. This trend applies to both goods and services as well as processes, although co-operative innovation development or adoption of innovations mainly developed by others were somewhat more common for process innovations.

When it comes to marketing innovations, it is primarily one of the available options driving the increase, namely the use of new media or new techniques for product promotion. For organisational innovation, all types show an increase compared to the last survey with none of them standing out in particular. Additionally, organisational innovation and marketing innovation remain significantly more common amongst enterprises also engaging on other innovation activities, both types show an increase for both enterprises with and without product or process innovations.

Other results in line with previous surveys

As a share of all enterprises, the number of enterprises reporting having engaged in innovation co-operation increased slightly, but compared to the number of enterprises engaged in product or process innovation activities, innovation co-operation has become less common. The enterprises who did co-operate on innovation development also, on average, reported a distinctly lower number of different types of innovation partners.

Nevertheless, the patterns for with whom the enterprises co-operate most frequently and which types of partners are considered the most important remained similar to the results from previous surveys. Co-operation with suppliers and customers are still both most frequently reported overall and most frequently reported as the most important partners.

Figure 3. Almost two thirds of enterprises have innovation activity

Co-operation partners Most important partner
Research institutes 16 5
Universities or other higher education 20 5
Commercial labs or research and dev. enterprises 13 4
Consultants 24 9
Competitors or other enterprises in the same industry 17 6
Clients or customers in the public sector 14 4
Clients or customers in the private sector 37 20
Suppliers 49 25
Other enterprises within the enterprise group 31 22

Similarly, the stated objectives for engaging in product and process innovation activities are largely similar to the ones given in previous surveys. Most alternatives are substantially unchanged when viewed as a percentage of innovating enterprises. In other words, they have increased linearly with the number of innovators. However, “to increase range of goods or services” and “to replace outdated products or processes” remain reported by roughly the same share of enterprises in the population as in the last survey, indicating a lessened relative importance compared to other objectives.

Overall interpretation of the results and a caution

When viewed in relation to each other, the results from the latest innovation survey may be interpreted as showing an increase in innovation propensity and awareness about the need to adapt and change among Norwegian enterprises. Nevertheless, this increased inclination towards innovativeness has not (yet) manifested as an increase in more novelty, technological intensity, or an increased inclination towards co-operation among the “new” innovators. It should also be noted that a change in the data collection practices of the present survey may have influenced the results with regard to making direct comparisons with previous surveys.

Figure 4. Highly important innovation objectives

2012-2014 2014-2016
Improve health and safety of employees 25 27
Reduce environmental impacts 19 20
Reduce material and energy costs per unit 20 20
Reduce labour costs per unit 32 33
Increase capacity for producing goods or services 27 27
Improve flexibility for producing goods or services 27 28
Improve quality of goods or services 49 48
Enter new markets or increase market share 44 43
Replace outdated products or processes 34 27
Increase range of goods or services 49 39

Comparability over time

Starting with the present survey covering the period 2014-2016, the data collection process for the Norwegian innovations survey has transitioned from using an in-house survey platform to using the common government platform Altinn; both for direct communication with the respondents and for supplying the requested data/answering the survey. While the wording of the questions themselves remained as unaltered as possible, several structural changes in the questionnaire were unavoidable. In addition, the transition to fully electronic communication with the respondents as well as other aspects of the standardised system may have influenced the response processes in the enterprises.

Statistics Norway has observed some trends in the data that are likely to be, at least partially, caused by such issues, but without a baseline for comparison it is difficult to quantify the substantial impact of any such effects.

We would therefore encourage users of the data to show some caution when making inferences or drawing conclusions based on these data in comparison with those from the past two surveys, 2011-2013 and 2012-2014. Due to previous methodological changes, data covering the periods 2010-2012 and earlier are not considered comparable to the present survey.

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