@ARTICLE{10.21494/ISTE.OP.2020.0510, TITLE={The drivers of innovation in an African middle-income economy, a reassessment of innovation models}, AUTHOR={Christian Le Bas, Laurence Nkakene Molou, }, JOURNAL={Technology and Innovation}, VOLUME={5}, NUMBER={Issue 3
}, YEAR={2020}, URL={http://openscience.fr/The-drivers-of-innovation-in-an-African-middle-income-economy-a-reassessment-of}, DOI={10.21494/ISTE.OP.2020.0510}, ISSN={2399-8571}, ABSTRACT={There are few studies dealing with the drivers of innovation in African economies. We contribute to the literature in many ways. First of all, due to the diversity of African economies, we argue it is necessary to target the type of economy we observe. As a consequence, we focus our research on the African economies with medium level revenue, namely Cameroon. Secondly, we analyze the innovation behavior by distinguishing product versus process innovator and single versus complex innovator. Thirdly we use the data set released by the World Bank for 2016. Our estimations show the R&D expenditures do not explain the innovation decision. This result that contrasts with the Schumpeterian (evolutionary) tradition could be accounted for by three factors: the existence of a market pull strategy, the presence of innovations “below the radar”, the importance of frugal and grassroots innovations.}}