Trinidad and Tobago's oil and gas industry is well established and is one of the oldest in the world, which has led to a large and growing number of oil and gas Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS) firms. These firms provide advanced technological or professional knowledge as intensive inputs into the business processes of other organizations. This paper aims to investigate innovation in KIBS firms in the oil and gas sector in Trinidad and Tobago, and to identify market and government failures that hinder their development to inform policy making. The factors that increase KIBS firm's likelihood of introducing an innovation are firm size, age, number of customers, internal research and development, and the use of external information. Moreover, several market failures hinder their potential for innovation and technology diffusion, including information asymmetries, difficulty in obtaining finance, lack of appropriate skills, and limited partnerships/collaboration with research institutions. This study recommends the development of a national innovation policy and program, greater dialogue, and clear communication channels among all industry stakeholders, and the expansion of several existing local policy initiatives, including trade missions and corporate governance programs and training and skills through tertiary educational institutes.

In-firm training is a crucial innovative activity in modern knowledge-based economies which face increasing global competition and rapidly changing technology. Nevertheless, there are few studies which look at in-firm training in the Caribbean. This study uses the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) 2010 and Compete Caribbean's Productivity Technology Innovation Survey (PROTEqIN) 2014 to provide empirical evidence on in-firm training in the region. The results suggest that there is a relatively low incidence of training in the region, although there are significant differences across countries and this may be because of heterogeneities in public support and barriers to in-firm training. Also, various firm characteristics affect in-firm training, including size, ownership, whether the firm exports, whether the firm is part of a larger organization, innovative activity and workforce structure and educational level. Lastly, the findings suggest that in-firm training in the region may play a relatively small role and may not even matter for innovation and productivity.

Nascent entrepreneurship is important for economic growth and development because it often involves new firm creation and innovation. Besides the perceived ability to become an entrepreneur, determined by one’s human, social and financial capital, individuals must have a willingness to become self-employed as exhibited by their entrepreneurial motivation. A distinction is made between opportunity or “pull” entrepreneurs who set up a business to take advantage of an identified opportunity and necessity or “push” entrepreneurs who are forced to start a business to escape unemployment or poverty. This paper investigates nascent entrepreneurship in a selection of Small Island Developing States of the Caribbean (SIDS), along with differences between nascent opportunity and necessity entrepreneurs. We use the 2012 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Adult Population Survey (APS) for Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. Probit regressions are used and comparisons between opportunity and necessity driven entrepreneurs are made. The findings indicate that both socio-economic and perceptual factors affect nascent entrepreneurship and do so differently among opportunity and necessity entrepreneurs with important policy implications for encouraging new firm creation.

This volume uses the study of firm dynamics to investigate the factors preventing faster productivity growth in Latin America and the Caribbean, pushing past the limits of traditional macroeconomic analyses. Each chapter is dedicated to an examination of a different factor affecting firm productivity - innovation, ICT usage, on-the-job-training, firm age, access to credit, and international linkages - highlighting the differences in firm characteristics, behaviors, and strategies. By showcasing this remarkable heterogeneity, this collection challenges regional policymakers to look beyond one-size-fits-all solutions and create balanced policy mixes tailored to distinct firm needs.

The objective of this chapter is twofold: to investigate the impact of innovation on the productivity of Caribbean firms and to establish the determinants of such innovation. To this end, a rich firm-level dataset covering 14 different Caribbean countries is used, and various non-parametric, semi-parametric, and parametric statistical tools are applied to models using the data. The results provide evidence that, while firms may be productive for many reasons, there are substantial productivity benefits to be derived from investment in innovation. Moreover, these benefits do not appear to differ significantly from those that prevail in Latin American and other developing countries. However, there is some indication that factors that would normally encourage innovation investment, such as patent protection, public subsidies, or cooperation among innovators, may not bear fruit in the Caribbean.

Small island communities are inherently coastal communities, sharing many of the attributes and challenges faced by cities, towns and villages situated on the shores of larger islands and continents. In the context of rapidly changing climates, all coastal communities are challenged by their exposure to changing sea levels, to increasingly frequent and severe storms, and to the cumulative effects of higher storm surges. Across the globe, small island developing states, and small islands in larger states, are part of a distinctive set of stakeholders threatened, not only by climate change but also by shifting social, economic, and cultural conditions. C-Change is a collaborative International Community–University Research Alliance (ICURA) project whose goal is to assist participating coastal communities in Canada and the Caribbean region to share experiences and tools that aid adaptation to changes in their physical environment, including sea-level rise and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events associated with climate change. C-Change researchers have been working with eight partner communities to identify threats, vulnerabilities, and risks, to improve understanding of the ramifications of climate change to local conditions and local assets, and to increase capacity for planning for adaptation to their changing world. This paper reports on the knowledge gained and shared and the challenges to date in this ongoing collaboration between science and society.

In this introductory article of the issue paper on marine resources, the authors review the issues with usage and consumption patterns, in terms of protection and governance systems. They stress their environmental significance, social but also economic for many country and coastal communities. They focus on the actions already implemented and the need to deepen knowledge in this field.

As teachers of mathematics in the middle grades, we were excited to find an approach to teaching algebra concepts that could be readily modified to be successful with all our students.