Trajetória e aprendizados da inovação corporativa: estudo de caso em uma indústria de grande porte no Brasil

Abstract

Innovation has increasingly taken place in corporate topics and agendas. Technological transformations and changes in organizations dynamics have been promoted by the companies’ uninterrupted search for modernization – for both unlocking new markets and/or increasing operational efficiency. Thus, it is possible to observe a movement of creation of innovation areas or departments inside the companies, with the objective of managing this increasing need to be tuned to the recent discoveries. However, according to recent research and studies, there is still a certain inconsistency or struggle of finding the best paths for innovation prosperity inside the organizations. It is noticed a certain gap between the “willing to innovate” and the “actual innovate”, passing through the difficulty of establishing purpose, structure, strategy, and management more compatible with the reality of each organization. With that, it gets to the central motivation of this work: to explore theoretical and practical elements about corporate innovation and analyze the current challenges and struggles of innovating in an organizational context. From a theoretical discussion based on previous studies and research about innovation and organizations, this work maps different relevant elements in order to understand the presence and performance of corporate innovation. Then, those elements are used to observe and analyze a specific case of innovation area journey in a large organization in Brazil. Therefore, theory and practice are articulated in order to understand characteristics of the specific organization but possibly common to other companies. This work draws conclusions about definitions, purpose and strategies of an innovation area or department, highlighting the relationship between the innovation area itself and the organization where it is part of. Finally, this work also brings a critical analysis and recommendations of actions and future works, that might be useful for the studied company itself and other organizations that may be interested in.