Dissertation: The institutional intervention as determinant of innovation: the naval industry and Offshore in Brazil

From the economic perspective, it is understood that while the society creates institutions spontaneously, based on the behavior of individuals, institutions can also be imposed by society’s needs. Institutions play a key role in enabling the realization of the dynamic potential of national economies. However, that is the challenge behind the re-emerging structuring where policy makers and firms have been struggling to create the institutional conditions to allow the industry to flourish, evolve and innovate. Institutions are able to help boost such endeavors whenever the right policies are based on science and technology and market actions. The present study uses the concepts of institutional economics theory and innovation to analyze the main features of institutional intervention capable of stimulating innovation. Institutions mean a set of constraints, built by individuals to structure social interactions (economic and political), while innovation is understood as a new combination of factors to achieve economic results. Thus, innovation is a social construct, because it reflects the needs of society, as well as an institutional concept for it has to be accepted, recognized and purchased by the market. However, when the innovation does not arise spontaneously in certain institutional board it is necessary to create interventional methods to stimulate it. The lack of spontaneity of industry can lead to distortions, barriers and unanticipated costs, so the need for interventions. The recent history of re-emerging shipbuilding and offshore in Brazil illustrates that case, where we can recognize a distortion of the institutional framework from the creation of rules and laws that serve as a filter for the industry development. The presence of an institutional board formalized in excess and the big presence of the institutional interventions that stimulate the actions of the market in detriment of the science and technology is the result of a variance between institutionalized standards and rules. In other words, this industry suffer the actions of the institutional stuck.

Author: Avila, Ariane Mello Silva

Advisor: Zawislak, Paulo Antonio

Level: Master’s Degree

Published Study: http://hdl.handle.net/10183/127251