Abstract:

The manufacturing industry of the countries has a vital importance in achieving high value-added products by realizing technological innovations and thus providing a competitive advantage by increasing the market share. In this context, the aim of the study is to reveal the general view of the Turkish manufacturing industry with innovation indicators in the axis of international technology spillovers channels such as foreign direct investments (FDI), export and technology transfer, and to make a comparative analysis with selected world countries. For this purpose, micro level data of companies operating and data of selected countries within the historical process were obtained from Turkish Statistical Institute and the World Bank, respectively for the time period 2009-2016. The results show that domestic companies are predominantly in low and medium-low technology intensive industries, while foreign companies are concentrated in medium-high and high technology intensive industries. Hence, innovation activities in the Turkish manufacturing industry occur mostly in the axis of foreign companies rather than domestic companies. In addition, FDI inflows and domestic R&D expenditures are not at the sufficient level in Turkey and they fall behind the average values of developing countries and the world.

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