Estrutura de mercado e a conduta de inovação : um estudo em empresas fabricantes de bens de capital na mesorregião região norte central do Paraná

Abstract

A most competitive environment generated from the trade deregulation and liberalization (HERMIDA; XAVIER, 2012), intensified the import of metal-mechanical products. This scenario generated impact and threat a key sector for the economy, job creation and productive restructuring of Paraná (QUANDT, 1997). The increased of competition has given a new competitive environment, where innovation strategy has become central issue in the behavior of competitive companies (FERRAZ; KUPFER; HAGUENAUER, 1996). The innovation strategy, in turn, from the paradigm Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP), is directly related to the market structure. In this sense, given a market structure, companies could opt for a range of possible behaviors, as your goal (MONTORO Filho et al., 1998), linked to business factors and dependent on structural factors. In terms of innovation, the capital goods sector plays an important role as diffuser of technical progress (ALEN; PERSON, 2005), which contributes to increase the competitiveness of companies. Thus, this study aims to describe how it presents the conduct of innovation in business of metal mechanical sector, capital goods manufacturers, located in the Mesoregion North Central Paranaense, against the identified market structure. Identification of the market structure in which these companies operate part of the perception of business owners and managers and was founded by the paradigm (SPC). Therefore, was performed a qualitative, descriptive and normative research, from a cross-section. The primary data collection was conducted through semi-structured interviews with key actors, business owners and managers involved with innovation. The characterization of the market structure presented specificities to different product lines of each company. It was also possible to identify low-scale, partly due to the diversification of products and market size. This characteristic favors the low barriers to entry and increase the number of sellers in specific niches or on the fringe of oligopolistic markets. The characterization of innovations showed concern for companies to innovate, although indicate more incremental innovations in process, and a smaller number of product innovations. As such mostly, imitative, defensive and dependents. Within what is recommended by the SCP, the study indicated a strong influence of elements of market structure in the conduct of innovation, such as the favoring of larger companies, in markets intensive in scale and with low degree of differentiation in products. However, it was observed that business owners and managers, except for companies operating in the core of markets characterized as "Competitive Oligopoly, with medium/high level of entry barriers and high economies of scale," do not consider all elements of the market structure on decision-making about innovation, being the actions most reactive, and, largely motivated by internal factors, such as the need to reduce costs and increase the productivity. The study also showed that such a stance discourage the conduct of innovation and its better alignment with the market structure in which the companies operate.