Patterns of innovation and intra-industry heterogeneity in Turkey

This study investigates the patterns of innovation in Turkey and its primary aim is to examine the intra-industry heterogeneity in innovative activities. For this purpose double-level factor analysis is performed and the resulting factor scores are used in the subsequent cluster analyses. Four distinct innovation patterns, which may be interpreted as ingredients of different technological regimes, are identified. A taxonomy of innovative firms is also constructed by grouping firms according to their innovation characteristics and, to the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical classification study in Turkey. These results indicate that industries differ in terms of innovative activities. However, industries are not dominated by a single technological regime. On the contrary, five technological regimes were observed in almost all sectors. Building upon these facts, it can be speculated that sector-specific conditions determine the extent of intra-industry heterogeneity.