Managing Surveys on Technological Knowledge: French Experience in the Nineties

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight on different French experiences during the nineties. The first part reviews the different indicators developed to specify the innovation function more precisely. This section tries to go beyond the usual presentation of innovation inputs and outputs. It is focused on the efforts made to consolidate and accumulate new results on the R&D inputs, an image of the complementary indicators introduced to complete the R&D variables, as well as an overview of the non technological indicators of innovation outputs. The second part leaves the innovation function view to focus on the questionnaires dedicated to innovation management practices. Mainly focused on new technological knowledge, due to an original statistical inquiry on competencies, this survey also includes lessons from the surveys conducted on innovation in organizational practices. Finally, remaining within the already established boundaries of on-going surveys, the paper suggests that a new breed of questionnaire dealing with the knowledge management practices at the firm level as well as at the employee level could be launched.