Firms and innovation system supporting organisations: A brief empirical scrutiny of their knowledge-centred links in a developing area in Brazil

Abstract

Despite the profusion of studies on innovation systems, there still is a scarcity of empirical treatment of this issue in the context of developing countries. This article examines the interactions between firm-level technological capabilities and supporting organisations of the innovation system drawing on a sample of forty-six firms and twenty-nine innovation system supporting organisations in northern Brazil. The study has found different types and levels of production-based and innovative capabilities in association with a large variety of knowledge-centred links established by firms with supporting organisations of the local innovation system. On the one hand such findings contribute to adding some new empirical evidence to the study of innovation systems in developing locations. On the other hand they contradict common perspectives that hold that such systems hardly exist in developing contexts. Indeed, such evidence provides a realistic view of the current nature of the interactions of different components of a local innovation system in a developing area such as this examined here. Such realistic view is crucial to design, redesign, and implement innovation policies.