Technological Upgrade in Emerging Markets: The Importance of Interorganizational Cooperation for Product and Process Upgrades

Abstract

Considering the relevance of different market partners and research partners with which companies can cooperate for innovation, we wonder whether cooperation with such partners is essential for the technological upgrade of products and processes. Therefore, as our main aim, we propose to analyze the importance of cooperating with market and research partners to technologically upgrade products and processes in an emerging market. To do this, we used data from the Brazilian national innovation survey stratified by sectors of the economy. The data analysis technique adopted for this study was panel data. Our results add to the existing studies on the importance of considering the effects of different partners on types of upgrades (product and process) that are relevant to a technological upgrade in emerging countries. Furthermore, this research demonstrated which kind of partnership is the most suitable for each type of upgrade.