A competitividade e o processo de inovação: um estudo em empresas do Pólo Petroquímico do Sul

Abstract

It is possible to say that Brazilian petrochemical companies, after the privatization process and market opening to foreign products, conducted by the Brazilian government during the ninety’s, found themselves in a fierce competitive scenario, that carried them into significant institutional changes. Petrochemical companies became encouraged to look for a way of staying alive in such international competition. Sinceproduction capacities of Brazilian petrochemical plants are lower than foreign competitions, making difficult competition based on cost strategies, upgrades in products become primordial to competitiveness. This fact indicates how important is the innovation process in the companies to keep them surviving in the new market. The present study tried to analyze how the Petrochemical Industry Economy, specially the South Petrochemical Pole, could fit into the necessary institutional changes, and to verify how the companies of this Industrial Complex proceed with generation, implementation and diffusion