Publics Laboratories) or Other Sources (Conferences, meetings and publications, fairs
and exhibition, etc.)
Relative to the previously identified profiles, we can evidence that the main sources of
information of the companies to innovate are the internal sources of information to the
company and the sources of market. The institutional sources (public institutions of
R&D and of Superior Education) assume a reduced value for the 3 groups. This
situation discloses to the absence of one strong links between the knowledge producers
and the company.
However, this position of the companies does not verify only in the Beira Interior.
According Conceiçao and Avila (2001, p.90) the institutional sources (among others)
are considered the sources of information less used by the Portuguese companies (in
accordance with CIS II) (sources who more than 70% of the companies had said not to
have used). Thus, the sources for the development of innovations essentially result of
the relationship of the company with customers and suppliers, assuming the information
one character more tacit and less codified.
The innovation sources, in the clusters 1 and 3 (with bigger involvement in activities of
innovation) that register some differences. For cluster 3 is more important all sources of
information that to cluster 1. In cluster 3 the main and more important source of
innovation is the company, while in cluster 1 main source of information are the
customers. Still relatively to the institutional sources, in average the cluster more
innovative that valorised more these sources of innovation. Moreover, cluster 3 values
more the sources of information (the other sources) proceeding from the scientific and
professional conferences, meetings and publications, where the information has one
more codified character, and the companies of consulting then cluster 1.
B- The Impact of Innovation
The degree of impact of the innovations introduced is important to evaluate the
objectives of companies toward innovate. The company can innovate to expand the
variety of products, the quota of market, to improve the quality of products or to reduce
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