Abstract
Information sources are considered a catalyst for innovation improvement, and because of this it is particularly important to learn more regarding their impact on innovation performance. Therefore, the goal of this research is to investigate to what extent the usage of different information sources influences internal and external R&D activities in three countries, Croatia, France and the Netherlands, by employing CIS data, which covers the period from 2006 to 2008. These countries were chosen because of the different levels of their country competitiveness (measured by the Global Competitiveness Index), which permits us to investigate if the usage of information sources has varying impact on their innovation performance. Our results reveal that internal sources, customers, suppliers and universities are important information sources for both internal and external R&D activities in all three countries. However, significant differences are also found. Firms from the Netherlands (which has the highest country competitiveness) use information sources differently, relying on competitors as one of their most important sources of innovation. On the other hand, the government did not have any impact on firms in Croatia (which has the lowest country competitiveness), indicating that this may be the reason for similar countries lagging behind.