摘要
The aim of this research is to test to what extent do the classifying variables of company size, technological level and subcontractor nature moderate on the causal relationship between a finn＇s innovative capacities and its competitiveness. To this end, we use a random sample of 861 manufactttring f＇Lrms with 10 or more employees from the Basque Autonomous Community （in Spain）, accounting for 26.29% of the population. Maximum sampling error is 2.87% for a 95% confidence interval. We start from a competitiveness general model of the firm, and set out under the resource based view of the finn, which had been previously tested and validated by Martinez （2009） for the whole sample. The model is formed with the constructs of management capabilities, innovative capabilities, marketing capabilities, quality capabilities, current competitiveness and future competitiveness. From this point, we test a set of alternative hierarchical models both for the total sample and for different divisions in sub-samples, according to the intervals of size in number of employees, OECD technological levels and firms＇ subcontractor character. The innovative capabilities construct is reflected in the items of radical product innovation, incremental product innovation, innovation in the production process, innovation in marketing, management innovation and the efforts in company workers＇ training and development. From all these items, previous descriptive data analysis showed that although product radical innovation was the most representative capability for superior innovativeness, it was at the same time the least evident from all the aforementioned items in the case of the analyzed Basque industrial companies. The analysis of results led us to conclude that the factor of innovative capabilities was the most influential on current competitiveness among the whole sample. In particular, as regards the size factor, this positive effect dilutes in the case of smaller companies. In the same manner, whereas in the case of the companies with higher technological level it is verified that the factor of innovative capabilities reveals crucial, in the group of fhans with lower technological level the most relevant factor is quality. Also, the same effect is evidenced for the case of the subcontractor/non-subcontractor nature of the finns： The first ones show quality as the most relevant construct while for the second ones it is the innovative capabilities.
