Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

This article aims to analyze the legitimation strategies used by agents of the state field in action in favelas, as a way to bring light to the disputes in the field. Based on Bourdieu’s theoretical perspective and in ethnographic field research in two favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the study conducts a rhetorical analysis on the discourse of the agents of the field, to access their legitimation strategies. The work advances by highlighting the logic behind the agents’ discourses as forces that drive and shape the dynamics of the field.

Innovating is risky: there are many internal or external obstacles to the company and no guarantee of success. This research aimed to analyze the characteristics of companies and innovations and their relations with barriers to innovation in service companies. The study selected Brazilian companies that developed innovation activities between 2009 and 2014. The data on the barriers to innovation were retrieved from the Survey of Technological Innovation (Pintec), conducted by The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). According to the theoretical framework on innovation research in emerging and developed countries, five hypotheses were drafted, and variables were selected to verify the barriers behavior through non-parametric tests. The results for hypothesis 1 indicate that companies controlled by national capital encountered more barriers than foreign companies between 2009 and 2011. Other characteristics did not present significant differences. Companies that simultaneously developed product and process innovations (hypothesis 2), those that have developed completely new innovations (hypothesis 3), and those that have introduced organizational and marketing innovations (hypothesis 4), demonstrated to face more barriers than other companies. The Technology-Based Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (T-KIBS) had greater barriers than other companies (hypothesis 5) between 2012 and 2014. The results suggest that companies need to modify their processes to generate entirely new products, preparing to face more difficulties to launch radical innovations. In addition, it was evident the importance of organizational and marketing innovations in fostering other types of innovation, especially in service companies.

This article examines the innovation policy for the mining sector in Brazil. The specific objectives are to characterize the innovation policy for the sector; identify the priorities of each agent (university, industry, and government) for policy formulation and execution, and to verify, in their perception, the challenges for improvement of the mining policy. The research adopts a qualitative approach, using the Triple Helix model of innovation as the theoretical background. The Brazilian case is analyzed using Sweden as a benchmark. Relevant strategic documents were collected and 18 interviews were conducted in Brazil and Sweden. The agents perceive the innovation policy in Brazil as something ephemeral, reactive and lacking in structure. The comparison between the Swedish and the Brazilian innovation agenda for the sector reveals that the Swedish is much broader, including technological and non-technological innovations. The Swedish agenda emphasizes the need to go beyond a strictly economic concern (business competitiveness and industrial policy) in the mining sector. Swedes highlight not only the environmental dimension but also the social dimension when proposing “socially sustainable mining regions.” In both Brazil and Sweden, the low social acceptance of mining and the lack of long-term continuity of innovation policies are important challenges to be overcome.

Although service innovations present characteristics that make them different from innovation in goods, literature presents traditional innovation management models, such as those following a structured new service development (NSD) process, as valid and applicable to service companies. This article examines this issue in ten Brazilian IT service companies dedicated to software development, system integration, and mobile services development. The results show that reference innovation management models are applicable to service companies, but four other possibilities are also available, and a posteriori innovations can also result from deliberate efforts driven by the firm’s innovation strategy. Innovation management models are unable to capture all diversity that exists in different sectors of activity. Firms that acknowledge service innovation in its multiple dimensions and understand that the traditional innovation process is not the only successful way to develop innovations have a greater set of choices when defining and pursuing their innovation strategies.

This study maps the dimensions and variables that explain the diffusion of innovation in public services and test their applicability in the case of the ENAP Awards. The article presents a literature review that supports a conceptual explanatory theoretical model for innovation diffusion in public services, for future use in an empirical test. The model consists of two dimensions and ten variables. In the dimension organization characteristics, the variables are resource slack, flexibility and decentralization, alignment between high-management, managers, nad leaders, inter and intra-organizational communication, risk-taking capacity, and organizational learning/knowledge. As for the dimension innovation characteristics, the variables are adaptation/reinvention, complexity, relative advantage, and compatibility). The occurrence of these dimensions and their variables were tested through the perception of five members of the external review team of the ENAP Awards (called ‘Specialists’). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the specialists. The research used content analysis and –pre-set categories to examine the interviews and documents related to the Awards. The specialists recognized and typified the dimensions and variables, confirming the applicability of the theoretical dimensions in the public services. However, some variables (such as “Risk-taking Capacity”) manifested differently from the way the original theory introduced them.

This study aims to explain how the symbolic consumption of the Ubuntu operating system is used for the representation of self in interactions in the Ubuntu virtual community from Brazil. We adopted the Goffmanian concept of self, the netnography of communication as the research method, and case study as a research strategy. The paralinguistic, the extralinguistic, and the definition of “I” are aspects used in virtual interactions. They have the linguistic function of corroborating and praising the statements of migration of Windows users to Ubuntu, emphasizing the distinctive features of the concept of Ubuntu, highlighting its expression of shared feelings of love and freedom, as ways of projecting the self of humanity to each other. In the case of the operating system, this characteristic is represented through the provision of support among users at the forum of the virtual community.

Frugal innovation has recently become a relevant topic in social and academic discourse. The real challenge for this new manifestation of innovation is the introduction of something new or different with the use of few resources. Frugal innovations have generally been associated with emerging economies where large consumer groups are at the bottom of the pyramid with unmet needs. However, there is growing evidence that this phenomenon is also becoming relevant in industrialized nations, potentially affecting the long-term competitiveness of domestic enterprises, not only abroad but also locally. Consequently, frugal innovation scholars have begun to investigate attempts to systematize this emerging field of research and promote the development of this debate. This theoretical study presents the origin and evolution of the frugal innovation approach and its current characterization in the literature; discusses future perspectives on the topic; and suggests that future works invest in empirical research, enriching existing debates on frugal innovation, especially from the lens of local economic development, through financial results and economic returns. It also reinforces the need to develop frugal innovation measurement instruments.

The changes in the perception about the role of organizations reinforce the notion that creating value for society is as important as generating profit for shareholders. Against this backdrop, this study assumes that innovation ecosystems, because they are based on the interconnection and interrelation of a network of actors to generate innovation, have an important role in balancing profit generation and the creation of value for society. The research question: how can the articulation of an innovation ecosystem generate shared value for all those involved? led to a participatory action research exploring an initiative gathering a German multinational company located in the southern region of Brazil, a public school, a university, the local government, and the community. The initiative producing this interaction was called project “Arcos.” It aimed to connect the company’s managers and university and school students, who formed an innovation ecosystem to create shared value and address local social problems. The study presents a framework with the main benefits perceived by the network of actors, as well as propositions about innovation ecosystems and shared value creation.

This study aims to analyze the current academic literature on Smart Cities and the Internet of Things using bibliometric analysis and quantitative content analysis. It primarily consists of extracting data from the web-of-science: citations, languages, countries, most prolific authors, the most relevant works, keywords, institutions, conferences, and journals. Results confirm that the most preeminent literature on Smart Cities and the Internet of Things focuses on developed countries with a long tradition of innovation and IT research showing a similar pattern. From this analysis, limitations and opportunities for future studies are observed. A research agenda and suggestions for new theoretical questions were developed for scholars of Smart Cities and the Internet of Things.

The university-business-government interactions in Brazil reflect the orientation of public policies and models adopted by the National Innovation System, in which the university becomes an important social actor in economic development. When considering the university’s role and its relationship with the state and the market, this study analyzes how the configuration of a Triple Helix model occurs in the university-business-government relationship. The qualitative approach uses a case study of an international educational cooperation program for knowledge transfer. Data collection occurred through documents and in-depth interviews that were analyzed using content analysis. The results demonstrate that the configuration of the Triple Helix is laissez-faire. However, it presents an imbalance in the participation of the actors involved. The state government offered support and was limited to regulate and establish the intermediation between the university and the company in an institutional way. The company starred the relationship, taking responsibility for most of the actions that should have been taken by the other actors. The university sought to balance its social and economic purposes by implementing Entrepreneurial University principles in its structure and by managing intercultural obstacles to articulate other partnerships. Among the actions taken are the creation of a research and extension program and a doctoral course focused on the naval industry. This shows that this kind of interaction can promote promote innovation, although incrementally, in the long run.