Innovation and Export

1The Innovation–Export Relationship: A Complex Vision

The relationship between innovation and export is the subject of particular attention, both in the professional and academic worlds. Several studies have shown that innovative companies are also those most present internationally, and vice versa. However, the support systems dedicated to these activities tend to offer differentiated support, exclusively oriented towards either innovation or export. Moreover, within the companies and organizations themselves, the people in charge of one or the other activity are different. Thus, from an operational point of view, the vision of innovation and export remains relatively compartmentalized, although there is a tendency to combine support systems dedicated both to innovation and export. These trends are linked to the theories mainly developed in the scientific literature adopting a causalist vision of the innovation–export relationship. However, this causal vision is sometimes challenged by empirical studies in favor of another vision in terms of complementarities, which tends to show that innovation and export form a virtuous circle that creates synergies. This chapter, therefore, puts into perspective the operational difficulty of implementing an innovation–export relationship in business support with regard to the theories mobilized in the academic world. The underlying complexity of the innovation–export relationship thus encourages a paradigm shift away from the causalist system ...