New challenges for public research organisations in agricultural innovation in developing economies: Evidence from Embrapa in Brazil's soybean industry

Abstract

This article is concerned with the characteristics of technological capabilities for agricultural innovation in indigenous public research organisations in developing economies. This issue is examined in the context of the Brazilian Corporation for Agricultural Research (Embrapa), in relation to the soybean industry. EMBRAPA's technological capabilities for innovation are diverse in terms of their levels of novelty and complexity, they are varied across different technologies and they are inter-organisationally distributed. Considering the evidence and in view of the developing world's unprecedented demand for food and the increased interdependency of the innovative activities, the article suggests that indigenous public research organisations, such as EMBRAPA, need to re-invent the way in which they manage their technological capabilities to play an even more active and complementary role in agricultural innovation and productivity growth in developing economies. © 2016 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois