Measuring innovative performance: is there an advantage in using multiple indicators?
研究近1200家高技术公司，使用研发投入、专利数量、专利引用和新产品公告四个指标，发现它们高度重叠，单一指标也能有效衡量创新绩效。
The innovative performance of companies has been studied quite extensively and for a long period of time. However, the results of many studies have not yet led to a generally accepted indicator of innovative performance or a common set of indicators. So far the variety in terms of constructs, measurements, samples, industries and countries has been substantial. This paper studies the innovative performance of a large international sample of nearly 1200 companies in four high-tech industries, using a variety of indicators. These indicators range from R&D inputs, patent counts and patent citations to new product announcements. The study establishes that a composite construct based on these four indicators clearly catches a latent variable ‘innovative performance’. However, our findings also suggest that the statistical overlap between these indicators is that strong that future research might also consider using any of these indicators to measure the innovative performance of companies in high-tech industries.