By using panel data on Italian manufacturing firms, this paper contributes to the literature on the nexus between firms’ internationalisation and innovation performance, taking into account the impact of different internationalisation strategies (with a focus on exports, foreign direct investments and outsourcing) on firms’ product and process innovation. Being robust to the implementation of different and complementary methodologies (impact evaluation analysis, multivariate probit and a special regressor approach to instrumental variables), our results suggest that accessing foreign markets through the different strategies considered may ensure different returns in terms of both types of innovation. We find evidence in support of the learning-by-exporting literature since exporting shows positive effects on the probability of carrying out both product and process innovation. Moreover, while investing abroad enhances product innovation, suggesting a more market-seeking oriented strategy (i.e. rather than resource-seeking), on the contrary, outsourcing raises the probability of introducing process innovation. Our results may prompt further reflections on public policies and on incentives for supporting domestic firms’ internationalisation.

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国际活动和创新：来自意大利的特殊回归方法的证据

通过使用意大利制造企业的面板数据，本文贡献了关于企业国际化和创新绩效之间关系的文献，同时考虑了不同国际化战略（重点是出口、外国直接投资和外包）对企业的影响'产品和工艺创新。我们的结果表明，通过考虑的不同策略进入国外市场可以确保两种创新类型的不同回报. 我们找到了支持通过出口学习的文献的证据，因为出口对进行产品和流程创新的可能性显示出积极影响。此外，虽然海外投资增强了产品创新，表明了一种更加以市场寻求为导向的战略（即而不是资源寻求），相反，外包增加了引入流程创新的可能性。我们的结果可能会促使人们进一步思考公共政策和支持国内企业国际化的激励措施。