Dynamics of accumulation of capability for innovation: evidence from software firms in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo

Abstract

There still is a scarcity of studies examining the dynamics of the accumulation of innovative capabilities. This paper examines such issue in eight software companies in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, finding that: there were inter and intra-company differences in terms of speeds of capability accumulation for specific technological functions; younger companies have accumulated capabilities more rapidly; speeds of capability tended to decrease as companies accumulated more innovative levels of capabilities, offering a prospect for the acceleration of the innovation process. Such evidence is to deepen our understanding of the firm-level technological accumulation process,= and provide some notion of the time needed to obtain the benefits from efforts on learning and innovative capability building.