Cooperation to innovate in Brazil: differences according to firms’ technological intensity and origin of capital

Abstract

This paper analyses the innovation performance of manufacturing firms in Brazil with the objective of comparing innovating firms that cooperate with those that do not cooperate, according to firms’ technological intensity and origin of capital. The research question is whether cooperation affects a differentiation in the innovation performance of firms according to categories of technological intensity and origin of capital. Evidences were provided by a compilation of original data from Brazilian Innovation Survey (Pintec/IBGE). The results show that cooperation is decisive for the differentiation of firms’ innovation performance, independently of categories of technological intensity. The origin of capital, in turn, has no influence on the differentiation of firms’ innovation performance. Cooperation occurred mainly with clients, suppliers, and with another firm of the same business group in the case of multinationals. This result contrasts with the literature which emphasizes cooperation with universities and research institutes. The paper concludes that cooperation to innovate is positive for firms’ innovation performance, and that to stimulate firm cooperation may increase the innovativeness of Brazilian manufacturing firms.