the costs and increase the quality of natural environment (ambient). The main objectives
are different but all are important to improve the competitiveness.
In what concerns the objectives considered, in average, the improvement of the product
quality is presented as the goal that motivate the bigger percentage of companies to
innovate, following the preoccupation with the enlarge of the variety of products and of
quota of market (this situation come to the results of Conceiçao and Avila (2001). The
lesser motivation of companies to innovate is related with the reduction of the
consumption of energy and resources.
Relative to the clusters previously identified we verify that the cluster 3, in average
values more all intention to innovate. The differences more evident are the motivation to
innovate to enlarge the variety of products and the questions related with the natural
environment (ambient questions) and rules.
C- Financial support for activities of innovation
The less developed regions of EU have benefited from European supports related to the
cohesion funds. However the positive results from such instruments still can not be
identified clearly and there has been a search to select the causes why, in spite of those
efforts, the regions are increasingly?
One obstacle for development of innovations it is the lack of public financial. Thus,
relative to financial support of the Local Administration, of the Central Administration
or the European Union, the great majority of the companies (about 80%) evidenced that,
independently of standard behaviour they represent, did not get financial support for
activities of innovation of the Local and Central Administration. However, the clusters
less involved in activities of innovation are those where there was a greater contributes
of the Central Administration.
15