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Innovation is recognized as a critical driver and component of economic growth and development. While innovation is considered crucial to solve societal problems and create opportunities in rural areas, insufficient effort has gone into examining the nature of innovation processes as they unfold in rural areas. Consequently, our understanding of the patterns of innovation by rural-based enterprises remains limited. This study uses a qualitative approach to explore the patterns of rural innovation processes within two agro-processing enterprises in South Africa's Mopani District Municipality. Data collection was conducted on-site using semi-structured interviews with a range of interviewees located along the agro-processing value chains of the enterprises. The analysis shows that enterprises increasingly engage in adoption and adaptation of different types of innovations. These innovations complement core business operations rather than completely change them. Rural innovation is predominant in non-R&D and non-technological areas such as commodity supply arrangements, production processes and marketing strategies. Our findings provide insights into the conditions that facilitate innovation. We suggest that innovation policy should strengthen and enhance existing local innovation capacity in rural areas. Future research on the origins and nature of rural innovation in emerging enterprises could incorporate large sample data to provide additional insight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firm-level innovation in sub-Saharan Africa remains under-researched. To address this gap, this paper examines the obstacles to innovation faced by small, micro, and medium-sized enterprises (SMMEs) in South Africa. Using the 2018 Business Innovation Survey, we apply the double-hurdle model to investigate factors determining a firm's decision to invest, and the intensity of innovation. Our results show that cost and institutional obstacles were significantly more important as disincentive factors for medium-sized enterprises while knowledge obstacles were significant disincentive factors for large enterprises. In addition, market obstacles hampered investment among large enterprises. Interestingly, none of these factors was found to deter innovation intensity among small and micro enterprises. The study findings suggest that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to innovation policy and intervention programmes to support innovation within firms of different sizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural localities are often viewed as too remote, sparsely populated and poor in critical resources needed for them to be innovation hubs. This study contributes new evidence on how actor networks improve innovation performance among rural enterprises that are privately owned or are not-for-profit operators. We adopt an exploratory case study method to illustrate the channels of innovation know-how flows, the nature of actor networks, and their contribution to the ways in which new knowledge and practices promote or sustain local rural development.One key finding is that actor networks facilitate access to internal and external innovation know-how among rural enterprises. Another insight suggests that rural private and non-profit enterprises rely on face-to-face interactions with no contractual agreements. Furthermore, non-formal ways of sharing innovative ideas and practices frequently extend to rural actors who are considered to be outside a network. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research and experimental development (R&D) is an important driver of economic growth and productivity. Gross expenditure on domestic R&D (GERD) is a country's total expenditure on R&D performed by all sectors of the economy. South Africa's GERD as a percentage of its GDP (GERD/GDP) remains below government targets and has stagnated over the past decade, largely due to declining business sector R&D. This paper aims to identify the drivers of firm-level R&D intensity, defined as the firm's R&D expenditure as a percentage of turnover. It is the first South African study to examine both micro- and macro-economic drivers of firm R&D, with a paucity of literature on this topic for middle-income countries. Using the South African National R&D Survey data, the study utilized the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) model and found that public financial support for firms, smaller firm-size, firm-level collaboration, political stability, foreign direct investment, and public R&D investment are positively associated with firm R&D intensity. The results highlight the importance of public financial support for smaller firms and investments in higher education and research institutions in promoting firm-level R&D, thereby providing useful policy insights for boosting business sector and economy-wide R&D expenditure and reaching national GERD/GDP targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]