The literature on innovation in Africa is rapidly expanding, and a recurring thread in the emergent literature is the pervasiveness of systemic weaknesses that inhibit the innovation process. Despite these, firms are able to innovate in Africa. It is then logical to ask: how do African firms manage to overcome the prevalent constraints and learn to innovate? This book directly tackles this question, with a view to improving our understanding of the innovation landscape in Africa. The book brings together some of the latest innovation research from across the African continent, ranging from Tanzania and Ethiopia in the east to Nigeria in the west. The chapters included in the collection adopt different but complementary theoretical and methodological approaches to address a rich mix of interrelated issues. These issues include the factors that enhance or inhibit innovation in African firms, the sources of (knowledge/information for) innovation, policy options for overcoming constraints and facilitating firm-level innovation, the nature and roles of brokers and intermediaries in dealing with innovation constraints and in facilitating the innovation process and the role of interactive learning and acquisition of embodied technology in the innovation process. This book was originally published as a special issue of Innovation and Development.

The literature on innovation in Africa is rapidly expanding, and a recurring thread in the emergent literature is the pervasiveness of systemic weaknesses that inhibit the innovation process. Despite these, firms are able to innovate in Africa. It is then logical to ask: how do African firms manage to overcome the prevalent constraints and learn to innovate? This book directly tackles this question, with a view to improving our understanding of the innovation landscape in Africa. The book brings together some of the latest innovation research from across the African continent, ranging from Tanzania and Ethiopia in the east to Nigeria in the west. The chapters included in the collection adopt different but complementary theoretical and methodological approaches to address a rich mix of interrelated issues. These issues include the factors that enhance or inhibit innovation in African firms, the sources of (knowledge/information for) innovation, policy options for overcoming constraints and facilitating firm-level innovation, the nature and roles of brokers and intermediaries in dealing with innovation constraints and in facilitating the innovation process and the role of interactive learning and acquisition of embodied technology in the innovation process. This book was originally published as a special issue of Innovation and Development.

This study examined the intensity of technological innovations in the indigenous Nigeria's oil and gas servicing sub-sector and evaluated the factors that influenced the capability of the firms in the sub-sector to innovate. This was done with a view to making appropriate strategic recommendations to enhance firm-level innovativeness so as to increase indigenous participation in the sub-sector. The study, which used primary and secondary data sources, was based on a sample of the indigenous oil and gas servicing firms in Nigeria. 100 firms were purposefully selected and sampled, focusing on the period between 2001 and 2010. Four types of questionnaire were administered in each firm. This was supplemented with shop-floor observations and interviews. The questionnaires elicited information on the firms' innovation activities and the factors that influenced these. A total of 100 questionnaires were administered on heads of Production, Engineering, Finance and Administration in the firms out of which 70% were returned and found suitable for analysis. The data so obtained were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics.