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  • Cooperation vs. firm-based innovation: A sectoral comparison in Portugal
    Publication . Cesário, M.; Fernandes, Silvia Brito; Barata, José
    In today's knowledge-intensive economies, the enterprises can have a strong economic and social influence as "market protagonists". Facing today's economic instability they ought to provide a constant stream of innovations to clients. Researchers suggest that firms can reshape the market through their innovations, for which can contribute some external expert knowledge. The process of developing an innovation may imply three types of approach: make; buy or cooperate with other agents to acquire specific competences or knowledge. This last occurs when the firms' internal knowledge or skill-base is not sufficient or effective and is conveniently complemented with external sources. Firms' cooperation, among them or with clients or other stakeholders, and its potential for innovation is not new. In this paper, our aim is to identify the sectors more willing to engage in cooperation initiatives in order to accomplish innovation. Thus, this paper is structured as follows: Introduction; 1. Literature Review (Innovation and its assets; Disclosing the process of innovation; Open innovation; Cooperation for innovation); 2. Research Design (The CIS instrument; Sampling); 3. Results (The nature of the innovation process by sector: cooperation-based vs. firm-based; The scale and scope of cooperation); Concluding Remarks. Using descriptive statistics, the first step will be to identify the sectors more willing to engage in cooperation initiatives in order to accomplish innovation. Secondly, for those sectors a more detailed analysis on the scale and scope of cooperation is developed. For this study a secondary dataset was used from the CIS-2012 (DGEEC, 2014). The CIS, operation acronym in the Eurostat for Community Innovation Survey, is the main statistical survey (mandatory for EU member states) on innovation in companies. The universe contemplates Portuguese companies with 10 or more employees belonging to the NACE codes. The INITIAL sample consisted of 9423 companies. 6840 valid answers were considered.
  • Interaction between innovation in small firms and their environments: an exploratory study
    Publication . Noronha, Teresa de; Cesário, M.; Fernandes, Silvia Brito
    Small food firms make up an important sector in the European economy and are particularly significant in rural areas where they are potential sources of employment and growth. Despite this, their behaviour as regards innovation has been relatively little studied to date. This exploratory investigation finds different types of innovative behaviours among small agro-food firms in peripheral regions and identifies some of the factors with which they are associated. The research reported here is based on a sample of 323 small and very small food and drink (hereafter “food”) firms drawn from 11 regions in six European countries. The food industry is generally regarded as a mature, low-technology industry, but this study identifies different clusters of small food firms according to innovative behaviours. It finds that, although a substantial number of firms may be defined as non-innovators, by far the largest cluster of food firms is involved in multiple forms of innovative activity. Recent studies have demonstrated the complexity of the determinants of technological progress. This may be modelled as a learning process in which small innovative firms tend to draw on internal and external sources of expertise and are both influenced by and influence the broader socio-economic environment in which they operate. This study uses cluster analyses to identify four types of innovative behaviours and examines the factors influencing these. It takes first steps to incorporate both measures of innovative capacity at the firm level as well as of the local development environment in order to explore links between the innovative capacity of small food firms and the characteristics of their regional contexts.
  • As novas fronteiras da Política Regional: o caso das zonas portuguesas desfavorecidas
    Publication . Noronha, Teresa de; Cesário, M.; Fernandes, Silvia Brito
    O trabalho discute os fundamentos das recentes formas de interacção empresarial para a inovação. Sustenta que tais formas devem ser consideradas na preparação de políticas de apoio ao desenvolvimento das regiões menos favorecidas, ressaltando a importância da descentralização da decisão e da aprendizagem nesse processo. Referimo-nos à necessidade de integrar o conceito de inovação no de política regional. Apontamos os instrumentos fundamentais para que tenha lugar a coordenação de estratégias e a interface com as diferentes organizações de aprendizagem. Com base numa observação sobre o que tem sido a política regional em Portugal, avaliamos os efeitos recentes da política regional e da política nacional de inovação no país, cruzando dados estatísticos a partir de 1988 pelas cinco regiões portuguesas. Finalmente, apresentamos uma apreciação do esforço de investimento das regiões para o seu desenvolvimento e apontamos alguns factores inerentes às modernas dinâmicas da inovação necessários para uma maior eficácia da actual política regional.