Meanings of Fostering Innovation in a Field Under Construction

The purpose of the paper is to understand the fostering innovation as a field based on the meanings that public and private actors attribute to this construction. The paper has as its backdrop the SENAI Innovation Institutes, an initiative project of Brazilian industry, and the laws and government policies orientated to the issue. Innovation is beyond the companies and develops through an extensive network of contributors, and the trade issue is only one of its faces (Arbix, 2010). This enables us to permeate the theory of fields, which covers the meso level of social orders, in other words, are strategic action fields constituting the basic structure of the organizational and political life (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012). It is an arena in which actors (individuals, groups, organizations, industries and nation states) compete to obtain advantages (Fligstein, 2002). Thus, the guiding aspect of the study is the logic of how the Brazilian State and other actors have maintained and changed the fostering perspectives to innovation in Brazil, starting from an initial question: What Brazilian logic is this one that understands the importance of having a "strong" State with characteristics of a patrimonial capitalism in fostering innovation, and that part of the institutional change in the field is given mainly by the relations between the State and other "powerful" actors? Authors have sought to demonstrate how the State can act to improve the functioning of markets (Evans, 2008). In the Developmental State, institutions make a difference in economic development (Chang & Evans, 2000). The paper also seeks to answer other questions: How these actors are acting in the relations between them to build the meanings of fostering innovation, taking into account the cultural nature and the intervention of the actors’ agency? What institutional conditions of Brazil give rise to different actors' categories? For theoretical framework, we use the theory of fields of economic sociology. Beyond a documental analysis of the legal and institutional framework about innovation in Brazil since 1980, are also evidenced the meanings contained in the State and business institutions discourses obtained through semi-structured interviews with leaders of public and private organizations direct and indirectly involved with the SENAI Innovation Institutes. Ultimately, the reflections on the relationship between the actors and the socioeconomic institutions and the meanings of fostering innovation will permit to comprehend the implications in the construction of the innovation field in Brazil.

References

Arbix, G. (2010). Estratégias de inovação para o desenvolvimento. Tempo Social - Revista de Sociologia da USP, 22(2), 167-185.

Fligstein, N., & McAdam, D. (2012). Theory of Fields. Oxford University Press.

Fligstein, N. (2002). Markets as Politics: A Political-Cultural Approach to Market Institutions. In Biggart, N. W. Readings in Economic Sociology. BackWell Publishers.

Evans, P. (2008). In Search of The 21st Century Developmental State. Working Paper n. 4.
The Centre of Political Economy. Brighton, University of Sussex.

Chang, H-J.; Evans, P. (2000). The Role of Institutions in Economic Change. Paper prepared for the meeting of the “Other Canon” group Venice, Italy.