El efecto saturación del esfuerzo innovador. Una aplicación al distrito industrial textil valenciano

In recent times, there has been a clear trend in industrial districts towards providing a range of products and services with higher added value. This paper studies the effects of the company knowledge-base, measured in terms of innovative effort, on its capacity to diversify its product portfolio, and how the firm can benefit from being part of the district. Recent findings have shown a positive effect of innovation effort on diversification, but have also shown the existence of a threshold or saturation point of these benefits, as well as a moderating and multiplicative effect of district connectivity on the relationships between innovation effort and diversification of the product portfolio. Our conclusions suggest that R+D investment is extremely important for the competitiveness of the firm, but equally important is a combination of this effort with the participation and commitment of the firm to the district and the shared resources that this implies.