Managing Surveys on Technological Knowledge

At the level of the enterprise, the knowledge capital of firms is presumed to be the dominant source of competitive advantage. When this issue was first recognized, attention was focused on quantifying the production of new knowledge obtained through the employment of new technology. At the beginning of the 1970’s, a first wave of data collection on research and experimental development (R&D) activity was introduced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). A second wave during the 1990’s dealt with technological innovation. This latter initiative led to the development of a number of new indicators at both the input as well as at the output level. These indicators can be summarized as follows. On the input side, the innovation cost indicator is now available (see Eurostat, 1997). It includes more than the usual bulk of R&D expenditures and better fits the resource allocation for innovation. International comparisons appear to show that this measurement indicator is quite reliable since the share of innovation costs is quite homogenous among the European Community (E.C.) countries (Eurostat, 1997, 1998). However, though firms are aware of how many dollars they invest in the innovation process, it seems that they are not able to precisely map the different kinds of resources that are involved (see Evangelista et al., 1994 on CIS1;