An overview of firm innovativeness and the role of public sector assistance in a sample of dimension and millwork firms

The role of the public sector federal, state, and university levels in helping secondary hardwood manufacturers evaluate, finance, and obtain information about new processing technologies was investigated. A scale as developed to classify responding dimension and millwork firms as innovative and noninnovative based on the number pre-specified processing technologies adopted. Some significant differences were found among reported levels of different types of government assistance received between innovative and noninnovative firms in both a small-firm and large-firm subsample. The perceived importance of the different types of government assistance was also investigated. Innovative large firms generally perceived government assistance as less important than did noninnovative large firms. Correlations between receipt and perceived importance of the different types of federal and state assistance were calculated. Although positive correlations were consistently found, the only statistically significant correlation was for federal assistance among large firms. The rank order of means of perceived importance of the types of assistance investigated was nearly identical for small and large firms. Tax information, safety information, and tax incentives were perceived to be the most important types of government assistance investigated among responding firms.

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