Renewal and Sources of Technological Knowledge in the Materials Sector of the Sorocaba Transport between 2004 and 2006

Abstract

The relationship between the employment of information and knowledge for renewal according to the Neo-Schumpeterian approach is provided. Since analysis is restricted to the municipality of Sorocaba SP Brazil, interviews and questionnaires were applied to a non-randomized sample of ten industrial firms specialized in transport materials in the city. Descriptive statistics and Mann-Whitney U Test were employed for data analysis. External sources most employed consisted of clients and consumers, manufacturers of machines, equipments, materials, components and/or software, coupled to test and/or certificate institutions. Internal sources of the most common technological knowledge are the production, sales and marketing departments. Results show that the greater the use of technological knowledge sources, the higher the innovation capacity, and vice-versa. Such relationship not only exists in all investigated transport material sectors but innovation is substantially upgraded.