Efeitos das fontes externas de informação no desempenho inovador das empresas

Abstract

Success in developing an innovation depends on developing and integrating new knowledge into the innovation process. Search for new information and knowledge from external sources is critical in the innovation process and motivated the development of a theoretical framework that emphasizes this reality and will be used in this study, named Open Innovation. This research aims to analyze how two different forms of interaction between companies in the exchange of information and knowledge affects the innovative performance of Brazilian and Italian companies. These forms of interaction captured by the national innovation surveys from Brazil and Italy are the use of information sources and cooperation agreements in the innovation process. The databases used were the Brazilian Innovation Survey (PINTEC), in its last two versions, 2011 and 2014 and the Rilevazione statistica sull'innovazione nelle imprese, edition 2012, referring to Italian companies. Logistic regressions, correlations and descriptive tables were used as analysis procedures. The data analysis was performed through two distinct and complementary methodological strategies: individually, considering each partner of the companies in the innovation process and also through the aggregation of these partners in Open Innovation practice indicators (BREATH and DEPTH). The results were presented comparing the economic sectors (industry and services), the countries involved (Brazil and Italy) and the PINTEC reference periods (2011 and 2014). The main results indicate that, in relation to the service sector in Brazil, the relationship between innovation and the use of information sources or cooperation agreements seems to have a different logic when compared to the industrial sector, revealing contradictory results with the literature and between the periods analyzed. Cooperation agreements and information from universities and clients revealed highly positive effects on the process of radical innovation in Brazilian and Italian industrial and service companies, while suppliers relate to incremental innovations in the same situations. The variety of information sources (BREATH) in Brazil influences companies to innovate radically in the industrial and service sectors. In the Italian industrial sector, the variety of sources of information (BREATH) and the intensity of the relationship (DEPTH) with the partners in the exchange of information and in cooperation agreements revealed important in the radical innovations.