Fontes externas de inovação em serviços de TI 65

Sob a ótica de análise de fontes de inovação, percebe-se na Tabela 6, outras fontes em empresas de serviços, além de P&D, são relacionadas a parcerias externas, com provedores, clientes, empresas de consultorias, institutos de pesquisas e universidades, e até mesmo com competidores. É percebido aqui também uma maior atividade externa, das empresas de computação, com 44% se relacionando a algum parceiro externo, enquanto que em transportes, apenas 24%.

Tabela 6 – Fontes externas de inovação

Fonte: Howells e Tether (2004, p. 32)

Pelos autores Tether et al. (2001, p.30) observa-se, na Tabela 7, uma perspectiva dos elementos mais significativos como fontes de inovação em serviços, de acordo com os países e também em uma visão geral. Interessante notar, pela coluna mais à direita, que as fontes mais relevantes das empresas de serviços são as fontes internas (51%), seguido de inovação advinda de clientes (38%), competidores e fornecedores empatados (cada um com 19%); feiras e exibições (17%), encontros profissionais (15%), consultores (11%), redes de computadores (11%), universidades (4%), institutos de pesquisa (3%) e por fim, patentes com apenas 1%. Esse estudo de

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independently, whilst co-operations may be associated with more substantial, complex or uncertain developments, particularly were these involve changes to the services provided (Tether 2002).

Table 3.4 Engagement in Co-operative Arrangements for Innovation

All Transport Wholesale Financial Technical Computer

Any External Partner 30% 24% 30% 36% 39% 44%

Suppliers _{17% 11%} 17% 16% 17% 22% Customers / Clients _{15% 9%} 13% 13% 21% 20% Competitors _{11% 8%} 10% 10% 9% 15% Consultants _{11% 6%} 9% 16% 8% 13% Research Institutes _{9% 5%} 8% 3% 14% 11% Universities _{8% 5%} 6% 3% 15% 14%

The unsurprising finding that co-operations were more common (at around 40%) amongst firms engaged in the more technologically dynamic activities of computer and technical services lends supports to this interpretation, but unfortunately the questionnaire did not ask the firms directly about the nature or purpose of the collaborations, nor about how significant they were for the firms‟ innovation activities. When assessed by the different types of collaboration partner, suppliers and customers (or clients) were the most widely engaged, but the proportion of firms with these arrangements was perhaps surprisingly small (particularly in light of the Innobarometer findings). Even amongst the technical (and computer) service firms, which tend to be characterised as highly interactive and providers of co-produced innovations, only a fifth of the innovators had engaged in collaborative arrangements for innovation with their customers. Universities and research institutes were the least widely engaged partner types, but some firms did have collaborations with these. Again, such collaborations may be associated with higher-level innovation activities, and consequently the small proportion of firms with these arrangements may understate their true significance (Tether 2002).

Sources of Information for Innovation

The analysis of (formal) co-operative arrangements for innovation suggests these are neither rare nor commonplace amongst innovating service firms. The evidence on the broader importance of various „sources of information‟ for innovation is now examined.21 _{Table 3.5 ranks these sources from highest to lowest in accordance with the}

proportion of firms that indicated they were „very important‟. Also shown is the

21 _{This derives from a question that asked the firms to rank the important of various „sources of} information‟ between 0 – „not relevant‟ and 3 – „very important‟. What constitutes „information‟ for innovation is not clear, and was not specified by the survey, but it was intended to identify the sources of ideas for innovations and how to implement these. The nature of the „information‟ is likely to vary significantly between sources – for example between the technical information found in patents and the market information sought from customers – but unfortunately there is no further classification. Another difficultly is how the question was answered, as the importance of a source may be judged relative to other sources, or in an absolute sense.

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Tether et al. (2001) ao mencionar que a maior parte da inovação vem de dentro da empresa se contrapõe a outros estudos mais recentes que abordam a importância de conexões cada vez maior com as fontes externas da empresa, e mesmo os resultados mais significativos das inovações quando as empresas efetuam conexões externas, como, por exemplo, em Leiponen (2005; 2012), Love & Mansury (2007) e Love et al. (2010).

Tabela 7 – Os elementos mais importantes de fonte de inovação (%)

Fonte: Miles e Tether (2001, p.30).

Ainda, por Freell (2006) em seu trabalho de pesquisa é visto que as inovações obtidas pelas empresas de t-KIBS tem uma relação positiva com as parceiras com universidades, clientes e fornecedores. Confirmando a relação de importância entre cliente fornecedor, Tether e Metcalfe (2004) afirmam que a cooperação com o cliente e fornecedor é a principal fonte de inovação de empresas KIBS, o que os autores definem como sendo a parte soft das fontes de inovação em adição à parte hard que seria a P&D.

Neste contexto, visando a agrupar e validar essas atividades externas de relacionamentos da empresa para a geração da inovação, é proposto que:

30 enterprises, human capital often replaces formalised R&D as the main input factor (alongside investments) for developing and implementing innovations. The know-how of service providers (and manufacturers) is often bound up in the experience and expertise of each enterprise’s employees.

3.2.5 The Sources of Information for Innovation

The firms were asked to rank the significance of ten sources of innovation for their innovation activities – as before they could rank these between 0 – ‘not relevant’, and 3 – ‘very important’. In the analysis below, we consider scores between 1 and 3 to identify relevant sources of information.

Table 3.2.9: Relevant Sources of Information for Innovation - All and Large Enterprises (%)

Adjusted A B D DK F FIN IRL L NL NOR P S UK ALL

Within the All 94 89 95 94 80 100 89 88 92 93 82 94 84 91 Enterprise Large 100 99 97 100 94 100 98 100 98 98 83 95 98 97 Competitors All 94 81 85 85 55 90 87 52 63 87 64 84 84 82 Large 90 93 83 94 71 100 98 85 77 87 89 93 88 83 Clients and All 98 90 77 99 72 98 97 74 73 91 75 91 88 81 Customers Large 92 92 74 94 83 97 98 100 78 89 76 93 94 80 Professional All 86 76 83 55 60 80 86 65 70 82 70 66 75 78 Meetings Large 90 90 91 83 66 92 98 94 84 91 93 73 89 87 Fairs and All 78 71 83 68 51 76 80 51 62 73 75 79 74 77 Exhibitions Large 76 64 80 75 51 72 96 55 63 75 72 77 71 73 Suppliers All 61 77 66 81 72 86 90 78 68 83 83 84 83 72 Large 56 91 66 88 71 81 92 85 67 95 95 88 97 73 Computer All 77 71 64 56 55 73 75 45 33 75 48 71 59 61 Networks Large 79 76 76 79 49 89 94 72 46 90 59 72 81 72 Consultants All 54 56 66 49 26 65 71 42 36 68 48 63 58 59 Large 84 86 86 78 54 80 96 78 56 89 93 84 88 80 Universities All 40 34 51 43 22 58 42 26 22 55 27 54 35 43 & HEIs Large 56 65 76 69 21 70 37 32 44 71 40 66 59 63 Research All 30 24 37 33 14 43 37 21 25 51 27 n.a. 46 36 Institutes Large 37 49 50 62 13 45 28 18 44 62 31 n.a. 57 45 Patents All 26 15 31 28 11 29 19 3 11 23 9 28 19 25 Large 23 29 36 41 4 26 18 0 14 29 5 31 22 28

Note: Excludes Utilities. From Eurostat file - C72 - second version

Table 3.2.10: Very Important Sources of Information - All and Large Enterprises (%)

Adjusted A B D DK F FIN IRL L NL NOR P S UK ALL

Within the All 30 42 59 37 49 48 49 71 42 64 40 56 38 51 Enterprise Large 29 49 70 27 59 33 35 95 52 48 56 67 39 60 Clients or All 61 48 28 48 27 43 56 50 12 55 34 57 65 38 Customers Large 57 48 26 42 31 58 73 41 19 44 32 74 50 33 Competitors All 18 14 21 28 9 7 21 23 4 20 19 15 20 19 Large 17 37 25 10 23 15 17 47 6 19 24 27 19 22 Suppliers All 3 22 16 28 23 10 28 41 10 23 26 22 27 19 Large 0 20 8 21 19 14 61 37 10 26 16 18 22 13 Fairs and All 15 9 20 10 5 2 19 19 5 10 26 6 17 17 Exhibitions Large 2 8 12 2 4 0 2 5 4 3 8 3 3 9 Professional All 7 14 22 5 8 3 11 20 6 11 19 4 8 15 Meetings Large 6 8 16 6 8 0 8 27 7 13 7 4 8 12 Consultants All 1 11 13 10 6 2 14 10 2 9 16 8 10 11 Large 8 20 28 14 24 3 6 10 5 13 31 2 12 22 Computer All 11 11 13 12 8 7 20 16 3 14 15 10 9 11 Networks Large 8 14 9 17 5 11 65 18 3 11 6 12 9 9 Universities All 1 2 6 0 2 3 6 8 1 5 5 5 4 4

& HEIs Large 1 8 6 2 3 0 2 0 3 2 6 6 4 5

Research All 1 3 3 1 2 1 2 4 3 2 3 n.a. 7 3

Institutes Large 4 8 2 5 1 0 6 0 3 2 5 n.a. 3 2

Patents All 2 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 1

Large 1 2 1 0 1 0 2 0 1 0 0 1 1 1

Note: Excludes Utilities. From Eurostat file - C71 - second version

We have just seen that roughly half the innovating service firms conducted R&D, yet many more than half the firms recognised sources of information ‘within the enterprise’ as relevant and ‘very important’ for innovation. Indeed, 91% of the firms recognised sources within the firm to be relevant

• Proposição 3: (P3) Quanto maior a cooperação com clientes,

fornecedores, institutos de pesquisa, P&D, e até mesmo competidores, mais inovações são geradas nas empresas de t-KIBS.

Outra forma de aquisição de conhecimentos por empresas de serviços em geral é através da introdução e uso de uma nova tecnologia, como por exemplo, algum software ou hardware, ou um sistema de ICT, conforme Corrocher, Cusmano e Morrison (2009).

Outra constatação da análise dos serviços baseados em conhecimento intensivos (KIBS), realizada por Larsen (2001), mediante estudo de caso em grande empresa de serviços de consultoria dinamarquesa, é que existe uma alta correlação entre internacionalização e inovação. Desta forma, visando respaldar que a internacionalização da empresa leva à inovação, é proposto que:

• Proposição 4: (P4) Quanto maior a internacionalização, isto é, quanto

maior presença da empresa em outros países que não o seu de origem, mais inovações são geradas nas empresas de t-KIBS.