Open Innovation in Portugal

Abstract

The empirical studies in the area of Open Innovation (OI) reveal that there is a significant bias in favour of countries on the technological frontier. The present study aims to bridge this gap by examining firms in Portugal, a country at an intermediate stage of technological development. Based on 70 innovative firms, we found that whatever perspective of the OI model is considered, firms tend, on average, to share a relatively closed innovation model when compared with firms located in countries where technological development is advanced. About a quarter of the surveyed firms implemented the OI model in their innovation strategy/business, this being much more widely disseminated regarding the absorption of external knowledge/technology, with almost 40% of firms surveyed acknowledging its use in comparison with the perspective of transfer of knowledge/technology to other organisations - less than 10% provide their 'surplus technology' to other organisations. This result may indicate