Nowadays, technology is no longer seen as exogenous, occurring inside the enterprise, but as a systemic and interactive phenomenon characterized by varied modes of cooperation and interaction among different types of actors. In Brazil, amid the actions seeking to promote innovation and technological development is the advancement of technology-based enterprises (TBEs), in particular of those in incubator environments. Thus, bearing in mind the interactive nature of innovation, the context of TBEs, and their importance to technological development, the purpose of this article is to evaluate, in light of the new innovation paradigm: (i) the degree of importance assigned to interactions and cooperation relationships by these enterprises during their incubation phase; and (ii) the trend of this behavior in the post-incubation period. Results show that, despite TBEs displaying more interaction and a positive trend with respect to the development of joint actions in the post-incubation period, these aspects are of low intensity during their incubation, i.e., incubated TBEs display yet incipient concepts about the interactive model of innovation.
technology-based enterprises; incubators; cooperation; interaction; technology innovation
