CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

These days, innovation increasingly requires a combination ofinternal and external sources of knowledge. The relativeimportance of each may differ, according to the characteristics ofthe production networks in which firms are involved, andaccording to the local context. This paper contributes toexplaining the relative importance of the various linkages thatprovide access to knowledge sources in specific contexts. It isargued that internationalization is part of the geography of thoselinkages, as well as a main driver of production networks, whilethe connections within domestic systems are not negligible inimproving firms? innovation results in some contexts (such asthose found in emerging economies). Tests aroundcomplementarity, applied to cross-sectional firm-level data onautomotive and iron/steel networks in Argentina, reveal thatinstead of acting as substitutes, significant complementarities doexist between internal and external sources of knowledge.Meanwhile, the relevance of foreign sources cannot be absolutelyconfirmed as determinant in this specific context.