firm size is an important factor for innovation and differences among countries are less pronounced among large firms with employees or more industries that may be regarded as less innovative primarily because of their low rd intensity such as printing and paper products or textiles and clothing frequently have as much propensity to innovate as those in communication or financial services which are often regarded as the leading innovation industries abs a statistics new zealand oecd a subnational innovation data from australia have shown for example that less than of firms account for of innovation expenditure and innovation sales smith and o brien