Grandes empresas e startups científicas: desafios e interseções na interação para integração tecnológica

Abstract

The current context is that of global competition, where technological innovation tends to be a relevant factor of attractivity to companies. The open innovation mechanisms have been used to expand opportunities of access and dispersion of technologies and the subsequent creation of competitive advantages for companies. In that context, the research and development (R&D) corporate practices may interact with third parties' technological efforts or result in the waiver of intellectual property rights to be explored by other organizations. Bearing in mind that scientific startups - companies built to explore technological inventions originated from scientific research - are potential suppliers of technology for the radical innovation in long established companies, this study focuses on the interaction between the actors involved (companies and startups). The main purpose of this work was to characterize the interaction between long-established companies and scientific startups in technological integration processes, under the perspective of large corporations. Based on the literature on open innovation, corporate startup engagement, and technology transfer, a processual model was built having been applied to three company contexts of interaction between pairs of established companies and scientific startups with the purpose of assessing their potential to synthesize the experiences found and elucidate the core analysis points of those interactions. Examining the relations studied, at first, the motivations of the company were explored when choosing for collaborating with scientific startups and, then, the research tried to identify the goals which belong with the interaction. Afterwards, among a set of possibilities coming from specialized literature, the type of interaction or the corporate engagement program which sustains the relation studied was defined. Minding the technological base of scientific startups, we opted by using literature which deals with technology transfer to create a framework of analysis of the factors mediating the relation, segmenting the elements in four dimensions: a) organizational: strategy, experience, project management/leadership capacity, facilities and research equipment, technical skills, economic issues, marketing; b) technological: maturity, technological selection, complexity, level of novelty of the innovation (radical/incremental), risks and uncertainties; c) marketing: competitive positioning, trade deal, investment climate; d) environmental: project timeline, governmental support, relationships (trustworthiness, behavior, communication, network, cooperation, etc.), technology/training usability. Given the experiences registered, it was concluded that the model serves the propositions in the study. The instrument has the potential to guide the organizations’ analysis towards the opportunities for engagement with large companies, considering it reveals central points of the interaction to be established, which must be considered prior to the formalization of the contracts. The purpose is that the organizations that proposed to create innovation based on technological integration may support themselves in the model to plan and organize their interaction processes and, by consequence, potentialize the success of the relationship.