Cooperation or firm-based innovation? Evidence from the Portuguese economy

Abstract

In this work our aim is to identify the sectors of the Portuguese economy that most engage in cooperation to develop innovation and which sources and/or agents are most used, by sector and type of innovation (with incidence in product and process innovation). To attain these goals, it is structured as follows: next section makes a literature review on the assets and agents of cooperation for innovation; third section describes the research framework (instrument, sampling and frequencies) for appraising the nature of the innovation process in terms of cooperation or firm-based innovation by type of innovation (product/process); then fourth section differentiates these results by sector outlining which cooperation sources/agents are most used (scope) and relative intensity (scale); finally fifth section concludes and refers future directions of research.