Innovation, networking and complementarity: evidence on SME performances for a local economic system in North-Eastern Italy

New evidence and theoretical discussion on the complementarity relationships concerning different networking activities and R&D in a local SME oriented system is presented. R&D arises a main driver of innovation and productivity, even without the association to networking. The complementarity between diversified networking activities and R&D/innovation is generally found, in a discrete setting. Non-strict complementarity nevertheless prevails. On the innovation side, complementarity among performance drivers is more crucial for product/radical innovation, relatively to process innovation, which also witnesses substitutability signals. Networking can be a complementary factor in situations where cooperation and networking are needed to achieve economies of scale and/or to merge and integrate diverse skills, technologies and competencies. Managers and policy makers should be aware that in order to exploit asset complementarity, possibly transformed into competitive advantages, both R&D and networking are to be sustained and favoured. Networking elements are crucially linked to innovation dynamics; it is nevertheless innovation that explains and drives networking, and not the often claimed mere existence of local spillovers or of a civic associative culture in the territory. Such public good factors are likely to evolve with and be sustained by firm innovative dynamics.