An Empirical Investigation of the Effect of Hard and Soft ICT Investment on Innovation Performance of Greek Firms

Firms have been making big investments in information and communication technologies (ICT) in the last twenty years. Therefore the investigation of their effect on various aspects of business performance is necessary. This paper presents an empirical investigation and comparison of the effects of hard and soft ICT investment, and also of four ‘traditional’ innovation drivers (demand expectation, price and non-price competition, market concentration), on the innovation performance of Greek firms. In particular, we examine from this perspective four different types of soft ICT investment in ICT structures, personnel, skills and processes. Our results indicate that while in the innovation averse Greek national context none of the examined traditional innovation drivers have a statistically significant impact on the innovation performance of Greek firms, both hard ICT investment, and three of the examined types of soft ICT investment, have such positive impacts. Our results provide empirical evidence that both hard and soft ICT investment can be strong drivers of innovation, even in such innovation averse contexts, in which the classical innovation drivers do not affect innovation