Abstract

This paper employs datasets from the Enterprise Survey conducted by the World Bank to examine the relationship between four types of innovation defined by the Oslo Manual (OECD, 2005): product innovation, process innovation, marketing innovation, organization innovation, and the firm performance in the selected developing ASEAN economies. The main objective of this paper is to understand the characteristics of innovation activities at the firm level and how various innovation types affect firm performance. The empirical results from ASEAN manufacturing firms reveal that product innovation positively affects firms’ performance, while non-technological innovations are negatively related to the performance of firms. The further employed quantile regression provides more insights into the roles of innovation types on different levels of firm performance: while product and process innovations actively contribute to the small and medium-size firms (below 25th quantile and median), organizational and marketing innovations negatively affect them. Interestingly, the role of process innovation decreases when firm performance grows.