Políticas públicas de incentivo à inovação e suas repercussões nas médias indústrias do segmento metalmecânico do município de Santa Rosa

Abstract

The subject-matter of this research is centered on the development, public policies and innovation triad and their relations in companies in the metal-mechanical segment of city of Santa Rosa, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The objective of this research was to analyze public policies to encourage innovation in Brazil for medium-sized industries in order to identify their repercussions in the metal-mechanical segment of Santa Rosa. In order to achieve the general objective, the specific objectives were focused on knowing public policies to encourage innovation for medium-sized industries in Brazil, map the profile of metal mechanical segment in the municipality of Santa Rosa, analyze how companies know, access and use public policies and understand the influence of public policies on the dynamics of local-regional development. The methodology used has a qualitative focus with an exploratory scope from the perspective of the participants of the scenario in a critical dialectic approach to explain the contradictions of the context. Five semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers of medium-sized metal-mechanical industries located in the industrial area of Santa Rosa. Starting from the hypothesis that public policies have negligible influence on medium-sized enterprises in the metal-mechanical segment of Santa Rosa, it was confirmed that in fact companies know insufficient and the application of public policies as tools can boost their enterprises and in addition they do not have clear the concept of innovation and its various forms of application within companies. The survey also points out that, although the vision of innovation as a competitive differential for enterprises is unanimous, 4 of the 5 respondents never receive any type of benefit from public incentive policies. All the managers interviewed yearn for better and facilitated public policies that can encourage them to invest and develop their companies, because they are not familiar with it. Bases on what was previously done in the region in 1930s regarding incentives to industrialization and in 1940s to 1970s during the so-called “pig cycle”, it is expected that, in short to medium while, Santa Rosa will be again precursor to actions that foster the local-regional development in a sustainable way.