Estratégia tecnológica e desempenho inovador: análise das pequenas e médias empresas produtoras de equipamentos médico-hospitalares de São Carlos e Ribeirão Preto.
Resumo
The goal of this thesis is to
identify innovation performances and technology strategies (TSs) adopted by medical
equipment firms (those that are technology-based firms (TBFs) or not), located in São
Carlos and Ribeirão Preto. Two hypotheses were delineated: (1) the medical equipment
firms located in São Carlos and Ribeirão Preto that reached higher innovation
performances in the last three years, differ from the ones that reached lower innovation
performances in the dimensions of their technology strategies; and (2) the medical
equipment technology-based firms located in São Carlos and Ribeirão Preto differ from
the ones which are not considered as technology-based firms in the dimensions of their
technology strategies. In order to analyze those hypotheses, data about TBF status, TS,
and innovation performance were collected from thirty nine medical equipment
producers located in São Carlos and Ribeirão Preto. An structured questionnaire was
utilized for this purpose. The analysis of this information shows that the technology
strategies adopted by the medical equipment firms that reached higher innovation
performances are different in many aspects from the ones adopted by those that reached
lower innovation performances. There are also differences between the TSs adopted by
the medical equipment technology-based firms and the TSs adopted by those which are
not considered as technology-based firms. Regarding the firms which reached higher
and lower innovation, some indications were obtained that larger investments in
internal activities of research and development and in external sources of technology,
larger dedication to technology forecasting, and development of a wide portfolio of
product and process technologies have allowed the firms to reach larger innovation
performances. Regarding TBFs and Not-TBFs, it was observed that the TBFs have
worked for the enlargement of their innovation and acquisition capacities of product
technologies. Examples of their efforts: (1) large investments in internal R&D activities
destined to innovations in product; (2) the number of engineers and scientists allocated
to these activities; (3) the amount of key product technologies that those firms have; and
(4) their large dedication to technology forecasting, etc. On the other hand, there were
indications that N-TBFs (when they carry out some technological effort) dedicate
themselves to the enlargement of their operation and adaptation capacities to operate
their facilities more efficiently.