Persistência da inovação empresarial: explorando os sistemas institucionais à luz das variedades de capitalismo

Abstract

The economics of innovation is a theoretical field in which, a priori, economic development is viewed as the result of adequate know-how, innovation and entrepreneurship operating within an institutional environment. Thus, in light of Institutional Theory and within the national business systems approach, certain characteristics can be used to model countries with regard to the labor system, industrial relationships, governance, relationships with workers, and relationships between firms, with direct impact on corporate decision making. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of institutional systems in different countries on the persistence of corporate innovation using the Varieties of Capitalism approach. To do so, we assumed that institutional systems and their respective varieties of capitalism influence the persistence of radical innovation and incremental innovation in firms. Our sample consisted of 4363 firms from 33 countries traded on NYSE for which information was available on the platform Compustat®, representing five varieties of capitalism. Country-specific information on institutional systems was retrieved from the Global Competitiveness Report (GCR). The study period covered 11 fiscal years, from 2007 to 2017. Varieties of capitalism were identified using the methodology of Witt et al. (2018). Our results show a predominance of liberal capitalism in the sampled countries. In general, the institutional charateristics of the varieties of capitalism differed significantly. When comparing the persistence of radical innovation in countries with different varieties of capitalism, the test of differences between means yielded significant results, indicating an institutional difference for the persistence of radical innovation and incremental innovation. As for the influence of institutional systems on the persistence of innovation, the systems of Education, Corporate Governance and Employees were significant for the persistence of radical innovation. However, varieties of capitalism had little effect on the persistence of incremental innovation and investments inferior to those of radical innovation, and were non-significant for institutional systems. Following the analysis of institutional systems, Government moderated by institutional systems was found to impact the persistence of radical innovation and incremental innovation. The study contributes to the field i) enriching the literature on persistence of innovation by evaluating the relevance of institutional systems for innovation in countries with different varieties of capitalism (ii) broadens the study of varieties of capitalism by analyzing countries with Emerging and Peripheral European economies and, and iii) contributes adopting a proxy based on corporate accounting figures to quantify the persistence of innovation.