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  • Ways to open innovation: main agents and sources in the Portuguese case
    Publication . Fernandes, Silvia; Cesário, Marisa; Barata, J. M.
    Facing increasing open innovation trends, Portuguese enterprises are considering the related processes and impacts. Thus, this work aims to identify the sectors whose enterprises most engage in open innovation (such as cooperation on this issue) and which sources/agents are most used. This is analyzed by sector and type of innovation as an interesting way of differentiation for better open innovation strategy delineation. Using the data from the Community Innovation Survey (CIS-2012), it first appraises the nature of the innovation process, either cooperative or firm-based, as the starting level of analysis. Then, it differentiates the results by sector illustrating which cooperation sources/agents are most used (scope) and relative intensity of use (scale). This is important to assess levels of openness and related factors. Results show that main innovating sectors in Portugal are of three types: research-based, knowledge-based and service-based. They reveal an increasing focus on knowledge and services, trends that have been leading to more active openness towards innovation. For instance, health and construction are increasing their openness for innovating and internationalizing processes. However, Portuguese innovation is still more firm-based (in-house) than cooperation-based, especially concerning new products' launching. This work and future analyzes around it can contribute to encourage the open innovation strategy in more sectors of the economy as an easy and effective way to cope with rapid trends and changes. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
  • Regional, national and international networks: the suitability of different competitive strategies for different geographic profiles
    Publication . Cesário, M.; Noronha, Teresa de
    The continuous capacity of firms to learn is seen by many scholars as the critical solution in order to avoid firms from becoming locked into obsolete technological and competitive trajectories. This is a very common tendency, particularly in peripheral areas and/or labour-intensive industries. Networks are often seen as the channel to overcome the risk that firms may become rigid. By accessing other markets, assets and technologies, firms free themselves from their own limitations while following the technological trajectories of their competitors. In this paper, we approach the issue with respect to the relation between the competitive strategies of small firms and their networking profile. We report the results of the application of a common questionnaire to a sample of 165 SMEs from labour-intensive sectors belonging to the following southern European areas: North (Portugal), Valencia (Spain), Macedonia (Greece) and South Italy (Italy). Using multivariate statistical analysis, the firms were grouped according to the use of regional, national and international geographic scales for supply, distribution and sales networks. For each one of them, competitive strategies related with market, investments, technology and training were analysed. Our results allow us to observe that competitive strategies vary across the three groups, indicating that there is a relation between the capacity to improve the geographic scale of networking and the capacity to strategically react to market changing conditions. While the related literature confirms the advantages of networking for the competitiveness of firms, we conclude that not all firms have the ability to develop international or even national contacts. Firms with restricted backward and forward linkages are also the ones with lower technological, training and innovative performances. Another important and related insight regards the requirements of going global: the network scaling-up is related more with quality production, than with scale economies. The exploitation of marketing networks depends heavily on the openness towards new opportunities which, in turn, depends on the knowledge stock of firms (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990) and on the empowerment of employees to pursue it (Lechner & Dowling, 2003). The resource-base of firms is both an input for and an output of networking activity, and that can be either a vicious or a virtuous cycle.
  • Conceção e operacionalização de um dispositivo de monitorização trajetória académica e de inserção de diplomados da UALG-1ª fase
    Publication . Carrasqueira, Helder; Cesário, M.; Neves, Oliveira
    Os objetivos comuns da educação e formação a nível europeu têm vindo a atribuir particular relevância à necessidade de modernização do ensino superior e de criação de condições ao nível do quadro de qualificações para a mobilidade no espaço europeu. Nesse sentido, têm focado a sua atuação no apoio às reformas institucionais nos domínios da aprendizagem ao longo da vida e do desenvolvimento (à escala europeia) de instrumentos comuns destinados a promover a qualidade, a transparência e a mobilidade. No passado recente, as profundas alterações resultantes do Processo de Bolonha traçaram novas perspetivas para as trajetórias de empregabilidade dos jovens, acentuaram o papel das Instituições de ensino superior na construção e definição de ofertas que respondam às dinâmicas de inovação, criatividade e empregabilidade contemporâneas e reforçaram o papel nuclear de uma apreciação regular dos resultados dos investimentos na educação superior, com interesse para:os estabelecimentos de ensino que estruturam recursos e promovem ofertas; os jovens (e famílias) que procuram estruturar as suas trajetórias formativas; e as próprias tutelas das políticas públicas que convergem na aprendizagem ao longo da vida, atentas aos sinais de eficácia das opções e prioridades nacionais.
  • Interaction between innovation in small firms and their environments: modelling entrepreneurial patterns
    Publication . Noronha, Teresa de; Cesário, M.; Fernandes, L.
    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.
  • Padrões comportamentais dos empresários portugueses face à inovação: o caso das PMEs do sector agro–alimentar localizadas no Alentejo Central e Oeste
    Publication . Noronha, Teresa de; Cesário, M.
    Muitos têm sido os autores a desenvolver uma argumentação sobre a influência dos comportamentos empresariais no meio e vice-versa.
  • Regional, national and international networks: the suitability of different competitive strategies for different geographic profiles
    Publication . Cesário, M.; Noronha, Teresa de
    The aim of this paper is to conduct an exploratory investigation on the type of competitive strategies that are likely to be associated with different networking profiles. We focus our attention on response strategies related to investments and technological adjustments, and how they vary according to different spatial scales of firms' networks. We report the results of the application of a common questionnaire to a sample of 165 SMEs from labour-intensive sectors belonging to southern Europe. Using cluster analysis, the firms were grouped according to the use of regional, national and international geographic scales for supply, distribution and sales networks. For each group, response strategies were analysed. Our results allow us to observe that there is a relation between the capacity to improve the geographic scale of networking and the capacity to strategically react to changing market conditions.
  • The use of design as a strategic tool for innovation: an analysis for different firms' networking behaviours
    Publication . Cesário, Marisa; Agapito, Dora; Almeida, H.; Fernandes, Silvia
    Current research indicates that the use of design strategy in companies is related to innovation and leads to competitiveness. This research aims empirically to analyse the relationship between firms' networking behaviours and their propensity to engage in design activities. Although much of the literature on networks focuses on the relationship between the development of external linkages and innovation, we argue that small and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs)' relationships with different agents and intermediaries, on diverse geographic scales, play an important role for how companies use design as an element of innovation. Using the Community Innovation Survey (CIS 2012) database for Portugal, a logistic regression was performed using the strategic use of design' as a binary dependent variable. We found that firms' engagement in informal relationships with heterogeneous agents, such as public customers, consultants or conference partners, is positively associated with the strategic use of design. The use of firms' internal assets as information sources also proved to be significant. Regarding market relations, the results indicate that a geographic scaling-up contributes to increasing the odds of a firm recognizing the strategic role of design for competitiveness.
  • Technological adjustments in textile, clothes and leather industries: an alternative pathway for competitiveness
    Publication . Cesário, M.; Noronha, Teresa de
    The importance of the textile, clothing and leather (TCL) sectors in Europe is obvious. As an industry based predominantly on small and medium-sized enterprises(SME) with an annual turnover of more than €230 billion produced by around 273 000 enterprises, these sectors employ more than 3 million people in the European Union (EU)-27. The liberalization process following the signing of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement has increased import penetration in these sectors, with the EU industry experiencing serious difficulties in competing with foreign operators working with lower labour costs and less stringent social and environmental regulations (COM, 2004). These new economic conditions have been forcing a restructuring in these industries. The ability to react and to adjust technologically to the challenges of these harder market conditions is what determines whether a region is a producer of high-value- added goods or a mere subcontractor. Although delocalization is a common threat, industrial agglomerations in low-cost countries are related to inferior working conditions, while in economically advanced countries the expansion of more skilled forms of work in the fashion-intensive production centres could compensate the further job loss. In fact, alternative employment opportunities may arise from complementary areas linked to technological innovations, and although one can expect further job decline in manufacturing productive units, the creation of high-qualification jobs in complementary areas, such as design, marketing, retail and management, may also be expected (Scott, 2006). The first objective of the present research is to describe the process of adoption of new technologies in the TCL sectors from a group of southern European regions. The way technological capabilities depend on localized assets is debated, and the evolutionary economics perspective is used to understand how regions are able to adapt to change, given their history. As argued by Bristow (2010), regional economic resilience is best understood when it is related to place-specific assets. The second objective is to observe the impacts of technological adjustment strategies on local labour demand. Manufacturing activities, like TCL, that are very susceptible to offshoring to low-wage countries, rely on the low level of territorialization and the low level of transaction costs(Storper, 1999, 2000). This situation allows low-wage product competition, and, when measured in terms of its impact on labour markets in developed countries, it creates low-wage competition for about 5 per cent of its workforce (Revenga, 1992). On this issue, we argue that technological adjustment strategies in the TCL sectors are decisive for regional employment and income perspectives because they provide alternative pathways for competitiveness in regions where low-cost strategies are not able to supply competitive advantages.
  • Factores determinantes de inovação nas pequenas empresas : uma aplicação ao sector agro-alimentar em Portugal
    Publication . Noronha, Teresa de; Cesário, M.
    Este trabalho desenvolve instrumentos para pesquisar, ao nível regional, sinais determinantes de inovação em pequenas empresas localizadas em zonas desfavorecidas da União Europeia. Foram criados indicadores de performance inovadora para diagnosticar factores internos e externos determinantes da inovação em empresas portuguesas do Ribatejo Oeste e do Alentejo. Foi utilizada uma amostra aleatória de 52 empresas do sector agro-alimentar, com dimensão inferior a 50 trabalhadores, à qual foi aplicado um inquérito composto por 90 questões fechadas. Tais questões focaram grupos de determinantes possíveis de inovação, tais como: as características do empresário, a história e perfil da empresa, a força de trabalho e sua formação, os tipos de produtos e processos utilizados, as relações inter-empresariais e os apoios públicos fornecidos. Através das correlações de Spearman encontrámos relações de causa - efeito entre determinantes e performance inovadora.
  • Behavioural patterns towards innovation: the case of European rural regions
    Publication . Noronha, Teresa de; Cesário, M.
    Contrarily to big firms, small firms interact intensively with the territory in which they locate, as a signal of their embeddedness. The particular tight links they develop with their external environment reduce uncertainty risks. In general, for them, geographical and sociological proximities constitute the main sources of assets and information determining their perspectives and strategic choices. The present study uses a set of enquires, developed within the framework of a European research project, with the purpose of modelling the determinants of innovation in a bi-univocal relationship of interdependencies between small firms and their environmental contexts. We dealt mainly with lagging regions and a panel of 323 firms from the agro-food sector, located in 11 different European rural regions from six different countries. Using a set of variables able to characterise the innovative processes and through the application of k-mean clusters statistical analysis, it was possible to detect behavioural patterns towards innovation among those firms. Non-innovators, pioneer innovators and follower innovators were the identified patterns. Using cross tabs analysis between those patterns and a set of attributes dealing with the importance of human capital, the profile of each group were drawn.