Modelo de capacidade absortiva e inovação na interação U-E

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In an environment marked by rapid change, characterized largely by technological and informational revolution, issues such as innovation are of key importance. By encouraging research and development (R&D), knowledge networks and an entrepreneur’s eye for market opportunities, a country can develop and add value to its production. In dynamic sectors such as high technology, differentiation and innovation come to represent a strong role model and a very effective competitive strategy (PORTER, 1980). Schumpeter (1997) associates innovation to everything that differentiates and adds value to a business, not only the development of new products and processes, but also the exploration of new sources of supply, the restructuring of the organizational goals and activities involved in creating a new market.

In the new social and economic context, as knowledge becomes a source of competitive advantage, the importance of the university as a source of knowledge has grown. The competitiveness of a company can be improved from the moment it begins to use the university as a partner in its business activity, and not merely as a supplier of skilled labor (SEGATTO-MENDES; SBRAGIA, 2002; NEGRI, 2006). The relationship between universities and companies involves, besides the enterprises’ needs of innovation and knowledge, the interest of higher education institutions in obtaining financial resources and playing a greater role in the environment in which they operate, adjusting itself to new market demands. From this perspective, the university is engaged in economic growth, becoming an agent of development and adding technological value to the knowledge generated within it (WOLFFENBUTTEL, 2013).

To have a university as a partner and an ally in the search for innovative solutions, whether in relation to technology, products, the manufacturing process or models, can bring great benefits to a company. Once the relations with the university become stronger, the company acquires a privileged access to science and technology and is able to count on the excellent technical and human resources, university facilities and government resources. So, the firm may improve its image and obtain economic resources (SEGATTO-MENDES; SBRAGIA, 2002). That’s one of the reasons for the innovation to become a motivating factor in the pursuit of university-business/industry cooperation, which includes the issue of the search for new resources, especially knowledge.

The existence of organizations that invest in entrepreneurial action and co-creation of knowledge, either through firms, universities or other potential partners, indicates the need to understand the dimensions of these relationships. Ten years after the definition of absorptive capacity by Cohen and Levinthal (1990), Zahra and George (2002) developed a Model of Realized and Potential Absorptive Capacity (ACAP) by adding propositions and expanding the possibility of understanding the capability of firms to transform knowledge into innovation and competitive advantage in order to explain how this process happens. Due to the different priorities and structure between companies and universities, it is possible to verify that companies take time to adopt new technologies, as much to the products as to the processes (DALKIR, 2011).

In Brazil, few theoretical and empirical studies have attempted to investigate the absorptive capacity of enterprises, especially in cooperative relations, such as the university-industry relationship. Texts of Alvarenga Neto (2008), Moura et al. (2017), Cardoso and Gomes (2011), Cavalcanti, Gomes and Pereira (2001) and Lopes (2013) are some scientific productions that explore this theme.

Even fewer studies were performed in order to understand knowledge transfer while applying the ACAP model. Thus, the research question is: “How does the university-industry relationship influence the absorptive capacity and competitiveness of the related business partners?” To be able to answer this question, multiple-case studies were performed with technology-based firms, incubated at Feevale’s incubator (ITEF).

This paper is divided into 7 sections. Firstly, there is an introduction to the references from the literature. Section 2 addresses the organizational knowledge and the university-enterprise relationship, in section 3 we discuss the ACAP model (ZAHRA; GEORGE, 2002). In section 4 the method and criteria for selection of cases are presented together with the framework that serves as support for the analysis of variables and propositions. The cases are presented in section 5 and analyzed in section 6. Finally, in section 7, the conclusions are drawn.

2 Organizational Knowledge and the University-Industry Relationship

The notions of the information society and knowledge society require that the concept of the university be revised because, while the notion of information society is based on technological advances, the concept of knowledge society includes social and ethical dimensions and related policies (UNESCO, 2005). The university, previously seen only in its educational role and as a supplier of skilled manpower, in which the prime research role involved developing basic research, now finds itself motivated to take the reins of economic development from the transformation of the research into economic activity (WOLFFENBUTTEL, 2013).

Innovation is universities’ response to an increasingly more complex, dynamic and competitive context in which knowledge underpins the process of innovation (REZENDE, 2014). In this context, the construction of knowledge, characterized by the constant transformation of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, offers benefits based on the cooperation between the participants within a knowledge network, which may include universities, businesses and government. The relationship among these actors is increasingly important in building knowledge (BOLISANI et al., 2018).

The benefits of university-industry cooperation can be summarized, from universities’ point of view as the opportunity to attract additional resources to develop basic and applied research as well as to provide education linked to technological advances (LOPES, 2013). For the company, in turn, it represents the chance to develop technology with less financial investment, in less time and with a lower risk. This may be considered relevant because companies are facing several difficulties to obtain financial resources in order to invest in technological development (CARDOSO; GOMES, 2011). For the third partner—the government—, it means an opportunity to promote national growth with lower investment in infrastructure in order to provide capacity for research and development (COSTA; CUNHA, 2000). These three are the main contributions of the university’s interaction with companies from the perspective of competitiveness to support research and development of firms and their capacity for technological innovation (OLIVEIRA; CALDEIRA; ROMÃO, 2012).

In his Triple Helix model, Etzkowitz (2003) describes the relationships between universities, industry and government in trying to integrate science, technology and government, which contradicts the traditional approach where the flow of knowledge is seen to take place in a single track from basic research to innovation. The new model is based on a spiral, where the industry knowledge flows to the academic institution and vice versa (DALKIR, 2011; ARGOTE; MIRON-SPEKTOR, 2011). For Etzkowitz (2003), the triple helix is a key component for innovation strategies in the twenty-first century and the interaction among these three actors has an important role in innovation and wealth creation.

Plonski (1994) suggests that universities see cooperation as a way of overcoming the inadequacy of traditional sources of funding while maintaining the desired levels of education and research. As for the firms, they see cooperation as capable of providing a solution to the difficulty of coping alone with the multidimensional challenges of innovation, beyond the traditional interest in gaining privileged access to the recruitment of young talent. From the government’s point of view, cooperation is strategically important for the economic and social viability of regions and nations in the new economic paradigm. As the generation of wealth becomes more connected to the ability to generate new knowledge, the role in basic research and the academic institutions’ privileged view of the state of the art has become relevant to business, and the effects of these changes are felt in universities around the world (STAL, 1994; MOURA et al., 2017).

From the point of view of the dynamic capabilities of a firm, this is considered a place where knowledge is generated, processed and utilized (TEECE; PISANO; SHUEN, 1997). Gold, Malhotra and Segars (2001) conceptualized such capabilities as the organizational capacity to process knowledge, also known as absorptive capacity of organizational knowledge (COHEN; LEVINTHAL, 1990). A firm’s ability to acquire and harness knowledge effectively is critical to its innovation activities and performance.

The absorptive capacity (ACAP) is the firm’s ability to value, assimilate and apply new knowledge (COHEN; LEVINTHAL, 1990) and consists of a set of routines and organizational processes through which firms produce a dynamic organizational capability. The authors point out that organizations with higher levels of absorptive capacity tend to be more proactive by exploring opportunities in the environment, regardless of current performance. On the other hand, organizations that have a modest absorptive capacity will tend to be reactive, in search of new alternatives in response to the failure of some performance criteria.

The ACAP combines four capabilities of knowledge that lead the firm to create and develop the knowledge necessary to build other organizational capabilities, which are the basis for a competitive advantage, while the capabilities are both different and complementary in influencing the results of the organization. The capabilities are divided into potential absorptive capacity (PACAP)—composed of acquisition and assimilation—and realized absorptive capacity (RACAP), consisting of processing and exploration, (ZAHRA; GEORGE, 2002). In contributing with studies on the absorptive capacity and the actual potential, Jones (2006) highlights the importance of the management’s previous experience as an internal trigger for the absorption of new knowledge and skills in finding solutions to processes and products.

The firm’s ability to identify and obtain externally generated knowledge is critical to its operations (ZAHRA; GEORGE, 2002), which requires a concerted effort and a high degree of experience in recognizing and capturing new knowledge (NONAKA; TAKEUCHI, 1997). Several terms have been used to describe these processes: acquisition, search, generation, creation, capture and collaboration, and all have one thing in common: the accumulation of knowledge (GOLD; MALHOTRA; SEGARS, 2001). The effort spent on routines for the acquisition of knowledge has three attributes that can influence ACAP: intensity, speed, and direction.

The intensity and speed of the firm’s effort to identify and gather knowledge can determine the quality of its ability to acquire knowledge. The direction of the accumulation of knowledge can influence the path the firm follows in order to obtain external knowledge (ZAHRA; GEORGE, 2002). Assimilation refers to the routines and processes of the firm, which permit the analysis, processing, interpretation and understanding of the information obtained from external sources, whereas understanding is particularly difficult when the value of knowledge depends on the existence of complementary assets that may or may not be available to the firm. In this sense, understanding promotes knowledge assimilation, which allows the firm to process and internalize the knowledge generated externally (ZAHRA; GEORGE, 2002)

Transformation denotes the firm’s ability to develop and refine the routines that facilitate combining the knowledge that already exists in the firm with the newly acquired and assimilated knowledge. This is accomplished by adding or deleting information, or even interpreting the same knowledge in a different way. The firm’s ability to recognize two sets of seemingly incongruous information and then to combine them to reach a new scheme represents the processing capacity and enables new insights, makes recognition opportunities easier and, at the same time, changes the way the firm sees itself and perceives the competitive environment (ZAHRA; GEORGE, 2002).

Exploration refers to the routine-based organizational capacity that allows firms to refine, expand and leverage existing competences so as to enable the creation of new ones by incorporating and transforming knowledge acquired in operations (ZAHRA; GEORGE, 2002). According to Gold, Malhotra and Segars (2001), the application-guided processes are those oriented towards using knowledge, and the mechanisms suited for this begin with storage and retrieval that allow the company to access knowledge quickly. Although firms may be able to explore knowledge accidentally, the result of systematic exploration routines is the continuous creation of new goods, systems, processes, technologies or organizational forms (ZAHRA; GEORGE, 2002).

The ACAP model from Zahra and George (2002), as shown in Figure 1, includes, besides these four dimensions, antecedents, moderators and outcomes of absorptive capacity. The external sources and complementarity of the firm’s knowledge and experience are part of the antecedents of ACAP, which significantly influence the PACAP. The sources of knowledge and complementarity include: acquisitions; purchases through licensing agreements and contracts; inter-organizational relationships, such as R&D consortiums; alliances and joint ventures. The experiences relate to past success, environment examination, benchmarking, customer interaction, learning by doing, organizational memory and path dependency.

Figure 1
Model of Absorptive Capacity

Zahra and George (2002, p. 192).

With regard to moderators, the triggers mediate the impact of knowledge sources and experience in the development of absorptive capacity. They are events that lead the firm to respond to specific stimuli such as internal organizational crises, or external stimuli such as radical innovations, technological changes or regulatory changes. When the triggers are broad in terms of their scope and potential impact, or are persistent, there is a greater tendency for firms to seek external knowledge, while the intensity of the triggers will influence the investment in developing the PACAP.

The social integration mechanisms represent a second group of administrators that suggest sharing relevant knowledge among firm members and can help overcome barriers to this process. While informal mechanisms (e.g. social networks) facilitate the exchange of ideas, formal ones (e.g. the use of coordinators) are more systematic in promoting the flow of information and knowledge within the firm (ZAHRA; GEORGE, 2002).

Among the most cited mechanisms to promote integration are rules and standards, flowcharts, routines and group problem-solving and decision-making (GOLD; MALHOTRA; SEGARS, 2001). Another moderating factor is appropriability, i.e., the industrial and institutional dynamics that affect the firm’s ability to create not only advantages and benefits out of new products or processes while considering the degree of legal protection manifested in records and patents but also isolating mechanisms to protect knowledge (ZAHRA; GEORGE, 2002).

The RACAP influences not only the firm’s performance through product and process innovation but also the consequent competitive advantage, while the PACAP contributes to the firm’s ability to renew its knowledge base and the skills necessary to compete in dynamic markets with lower costs. Thus, the firms that use resources and capabilities flexibly can reconfigure them and capitalize on them in the emerging strategic opportunities so as to create competitive advantage (ZAHRA; GEORGE, 2002).

To provide empirical evidence of the situation in Brazil, this study has focused on multiple-case studies. Performing in-depth analysis of each case, multiple-case studies are considered more representative than a single case (YIN, 2005). The companies that were used as units of analysis were chosen based based on their potential to contribute to the subject under study. The criteria that defined the units of analysis are the following: (i) being a Brazilian company involved in developing technologies, (ii) having an innovative product resulting from university-industry partnership in the marketing stage.

The research followed a protocol that specifies the sequence of procedures or tasks to be completed to meet the proposed purposes, to answer the research questions and to relate the data to the propositions. The main conceptual elements that were raised in the theoretical review were grouped into sets of interrelated items forming the initial research protocol.

The primary data source was generated through in-depth interviews, held with managers of each company, in which a semi-structured script was used along with an analysis of the documents, contracts and company web-sites. The interviews were recorded and the data from the registered documents and information were systematized while considering the categories and variables defined in the ACAP model. In order to present each case study more clearly, it was decided to apply the ACAP model and the propositions put forward by Zahra and George (2002).

Data analysis was performed based on the ACAP model and the following categories were examined: sources of knowledge and complementary knowledge, experience, activation triggers, mechanisms of social cohesion, maintenance of competitive advantage and the rules of appropriation, related to the propositions suggested by the authors, as in Figure 2.

Figure 2—ACAP Analytical Model

Figure 2
ACAP Analytical Model

Zahra and George (2002).

To carry out the analysis, data were organized according to categories and variables contained in the ACAP model: sources of knowledge and complementary knowledge, experience, activation triggers, social integration mechanisms, sustaining competitive advantage and the property rules of ownership regime. Figure 3 presents a summary of the main evidence regarding the potential absorptive capacity (PACAP) and the realized absorptive capacity (RACAP) observed in the cases studied.

In relation to sources of knowledge, all the companies acquired it from the university-industry relationship, which was shown to be a diverse and complementary external source to the existing knowledge. Moreover, all the companies sought diverse and complementary knowledge/expertise in other interorganizational relationships with institutions and companies, mainly in a formal way. Exposure to such varied sources of knowledge provided companies with the opportunity to develop their capacities to acquire and assimilate knowledge, i.e., their PACAP, which can be seen in the continuous search for outside expertise and constant development of innovations.

The experiences and background of companies, especially in their contact with Feevale were very important and influenced the development of PACAP. In all three cases, systems were implanted to scan the environment, formulate projects, define what knowledge businesses need and where to get it. It was clear that the companies developed the “habit” of forming networks and partnerships in order to innovate.

For the three companies, the triggers that inspired the search for knowledge were: lack of infrastructure and insufficient market and technical expertise, though all three identified market opportunities and lack of innovation on the part of their competitors. Two companies, Máquinas CNC and Astech Brasil, were also influenced by the pre-existing university-industry relationship, a factor that influenced the development of the ability to acquire and assimilate knowledge. In all cases, the source of the trigger influenced the search for external knowledge, though it was not possible to verify the influence on the intensity of investment in developing the skills for the acquisition and assimilation of knowledge.

With respect to the social integration mechanisms, formal instruments can be seen to exist in all cases, such as action and business plans as well as computerized systems. The latter include the library used by Máquinas CNC, which stimulates knowledge sharing. In this case, the possibility of assimilating and transforming the knowledge is performed essentially by the team of that company.

In addition to these formal mechanisms, all the companies highlighted the existence and the need for the team to get together socially, usually in the form of meetings. In the case of Tecnodare IT, integration favored the creation of social ties, which accelerated the assimilation and improvement in knowledge transformation. It is noteworthy that, in the case of Astech Brasil, the environment within the incubator is considered a mechanism for integration and knowledge transmission. In all cases, the knowledge developed in previous projects can be seen to represent the ingredient for generating new product projects. Also, the experience of using formal mechanisms is an advance or a result of the university-industry relationship, which reduces the distance between PACAP and RACAP.

Regarding the competitive advantage of companies, in all cases, the path towards new knowledge, coupled with the ability to assimilate and transform that knowledge into products, is observed to be a decisive factor in differentiating these companies from others. Such an ability is directly linked either with partnership networks, sometimes with other companies, such as in the case of Máquinas CNC, or with keeping the university-industry relationship, especially in exploring new research projects submitted to funding agencies, as in the case of Astech Brasil. All companies stress their difference from others in the sectors where they operate, especially with respect to innovation capacity as opposed to a strategy of copying.

It can be seen that the strategy adopted by the companies confirms the proposition that achieving and sustaining competitive advantage is directly related to RACAP through innovation and product development, as well as to PACAP, through flexibility in the reconfiguration of basic resources.

All companies stress the existence of strong ownership regimes in sectors where they operate. Thus, it is essential to protect the knowledge developed. In the case of Tecnodare IT, besides registering the industrial property, isolation mechanisms are used, such as the in-house production of the processor itself, which is also encrypted, as they believe that appropriability is of great importance to competitive advantage and contributes to the decision to invest in innovation and to seek external expertise. Máquinas CNC also uses confidentiality clauses with its employees and formal contracts with their partners. Astech Brasil believes that the protection of knowledge facilitates and encourages the development of new technologies, because some customers prefer to buy protected technology, favoring the maintenance of its competitive advantage in relation to other companies. However, the managers of two companies considered that, whatever the ownership regime, being in constant pursuit of new knowledge and developing innovation ensures that the company is always ahead of its competitors.

Figure 3—Presentation of data

Figure 3
Presentation of data

the authors.

This study has achieved the aims of investigating the relationship between the absorptive capacity of enterprises and their competitiveness in a university-industry relationship, using the ACAP model from Zahra and George (2002). Empirical research conducted in multiple-case studies was used to investigate theoretical propositions that reflect the research question and the reviews made in the literature, in order to contribute to the topic of ACAP and the competitiveness of enterprises

From the data collected, we can infer that the university-industry relationship influences the absorptive capacity and competitiveness of all the businesses. The companies acquired knowledge from the university-industry relationship, which was shown to be an external source of diverse knowledge that complemented the existing knowledge. Exposure to these and other diverse sources of knowledge provided an opportunity to develop their capacities to acquire and assimilate knowledge. Companies whose background and experience are marked by the presence of a university-industry relationship are seen to be in constant pursuit of knowledge and innovation, as well as partnerships and formal relationships. Previous experience and relationship with Feevale were markers for the development of the PACAP because systems were deployed to scan the environment, to develop projects, to define what knowledge businesses need and where to get it.

The data analysis confirms the importance of an activation trigger in the search for knowledge outside the company, since the perception of an opportunity in the security equipment sector was the event that led to the search for a partner company, which in turn led to the merger, as well as incubation in the Feevale incubator, leading the company to acquire new knowledge, successfully develop a new product and influence competitive advantage. The fact that the companies maintain routines and well-defined processes in the search for external knowledge proved decisive to the speed and direction of the acquisition of such knowledge. The processes include incorporating the routines and culture into the company, constantly acquiring new knowledge, developing partnerships and innovating. When managers perceive that sharing knowledge helps to develop new projects, there is an even greater sharing.

Despite strong ownership regimes within the sectors in which the companies operate, as well as records and patents, they also use other protection and isolation mechanisms because they believe this strategy is of great importance to keep competitive advantage and contributes to the decision to invest in innovations and to seek external expertise. However, some managers felt that, whatever the ownership regime, the fact of being in constant pursuit of new knowledge and developing innovation is what guarantees the company is able to maintain a sustainable competitive advantage and take ownership of the due profit.

Regarding the ACAP model (ZAHRA; GEORGE, 2002), the development of absorptive capacity does not always follow the step order proposed by the model. The RACAP also contributed to sustainable competitive advantage, as knowledge transformation and exploration were incorporated into the business routines, making them more flexible and agile in reconfiguring resources.

Perhaps because of the relatively small size of the companies in the sample, the importance of personal skills such as creativity became apparent in the development of the acquisition, assimilation, transformation and exploration skills. The ACAP model hardly contemplated this perspective.

Finally, the study contributes new information to the discussion, allowing other case studies to be carried out based on the logic of both internal and external “replication”, in order to achieve similar results, especially in relation to the type of ACAP. It is also suggested that further work be done in order to measure the contribution of each dimension towards competitive advantage.