The Relationship Between Direct Government Support for R&D and Patents in Emerging Economies: A Turkish Case Study Rustem Baris Yesilay Ege Higher Vocational School, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey rustem.baris.yesilay@ege.edu.tr Ilker Murat Ar * Department of Business Administration Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon, Turkey ilkerar@ktu.edu.tr Serdal Temel Science and Technology Center Ege University, Izmir, Turkey serdal.temel@ege.edu.tr Received 16 August 2014 Revised 4 November 2014 Accepted 10 November 2014 Published 23 June 2015 Emerging economies have been trying to improve economic growth with the help of di®erent policies like R&D, technology development, technology transfer and patents. Despite the large amount of literature on the relationship between technology, direct government R&D support, R&D activities and patents, it has not been clearly de¯ned in emerging economies. With this research based on 191 observations from companies in the Aegean Region of Turkey, we have found signi¯cant relationships between technological infrastructures, inward technology transfer and patents. Furthermore, the ¯ndings prove that there is a signi¯cant relationship between R&D activities, R&D experience and patents. Surprisingly, there is no signi¯cant relationship between outward technology transfer, direct government R&D support and patents. These results contribute to the literature on the relationship between direct R&D support, R&D activities, technology and patents in emerging economies. Keywords: R&D; technology transfer; government R&D support; patents. 1. Introduction It is clear that the globalization of the world has accelerated competition not only between the companies but also between countries [Hadjimanolis (1999)]. Globali- zation has driven countries to adapt to very ¯erce competition; even emerging *Corresponding author. International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management Vol. 12, No. 5 (2015) 1550021 (20 pages) # . c World Scienti¯c Publishing Company DOI: 10.1142/S0219877015500212 1550021-1 Int. J. Innovation Technol. Management Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com by Dr. Serdal TEMEL on 07/06/15. For personal use only.