Does internationalisation affect firms’ innovativeness? The case of the Italian manufacturing sector

Innovation represents a multidimensional process which originates within companies from a combination of internal and external factors. In this framework, internationalisation represents a significant source of external knowledge for enterprises since it can raise competition among companies, increase the scale of production, and create opportunities of learning-by-exporting. The present paper aims at investigating the impact of internationalisation on innovations by implementing a sectoral analysis based upon a firm-level dataset of Italian manufacturing companies. Empirical results suggest that being active at international level increases remarkably the probability for Italian companies to innovate in almost all manufacturing sectors and mainly in the supplier dominated and the scale intensive industries.