Thus, the principal source of data resulted from an inquiry carried out with the different
companies of these 3 regions that had been developed in order to attain the objectives:
to analyze the participation of local companies to promote and increase the innovation
and competitiveness and to evaluate the territorial dynamics of innovation as a function
of the companies behaviours.
The inquiries, of companies were directed to the managers. The inquiries had been sent
personally, for anticipated marking, by postal and by e-mail. The information was
initially recollected through the months of January, February, March and April of 2003.
3.1- The Sample
In selecting the universe of this study, were considered all sectors and the companies
could present any legal form, with headquarters in Beira Interior Norte, Beira Interior
Sul and Cova da Beira and we considered only the companies with more than 10
employees4.
The small companies frequently manifest more innovative initiatives, since they shows
greater ability face new challenges without facing as many bureaucratic blockages
(Vaz and Cesario, 2003) and it is this segment of companies that could be most
connected to other local actors and just as it depends on its local environment.
Moreover, the development of new technologies is more adapted to small companies,
where there is little bureaucracy, it is also this segment of companies that has led to the
creation of employment (about 66% in the E.U, 54% in the U.S.A., 74% in Japan,
according to Vaz and Cesario 2003) and contributed to increase production.
4 After this first selection, we verified that, in the Portuguese sub-regions, of a total of 5559 companies of
Beira Interior of which 2119 were part of the BIN, 1500 of BIS and 1940 of the CB supplied for the INE -
Portugal 2002, if found 237 companies in the BIN, 193 companies of the BIS and 269 companies of the
CB. In the impossibility of collect all the cases of universe of the companies (699 of Beira Interior) due to
time and of resources, we analyzing a sample was made of 120 companies that represents about 17% of
the cases of the universe and take in account the minimum dimension of a sample, to effect a multiple
regression N = 30 cases, (Hill, M.M., Hill, 2002, p.252), for each NUTS III. The 120 companies of Beira
Interior (BIN+BIS +CB) had been proportionally distributed to the number of companies of each NUTS
III in study.