La vigilancia tecnológica y la cooperación para el desarrollo de la innovaciónuna aproximación empírica

Abstract

Innovation management in organizations has become a strategic activity for the development of sustainable competitive advantages. Through it, companies can introduce changes in their products, processes and services to improve efficiency and facilitate their long term survival. However, successful development of innovations is not a simple task. The emergence of standards such as UNE 166006, designed to ensure appropriate management of innovation in companies, may facilitate this objective. The main objective of the research is therefore to analyze how the technological watch system proposed in UNE 166.006 can help companies to manage both internal and internal collaboration in new product development, as well as to improve innovation capacity through technical and scientific information on the technological capabilities that manage the organization and the emerging and potential technologies detected. To achieve this purpose, an empirical study has been developed using a telephone survey, after analyzing the theoretical foundations that have studied the relationships of this study. The study population consists of Spanish industrial companies with more than 50 workers. The empirical analysis has been developed using the PLS technique (Partial Least Squares). The results obtained, with a final sample of 203 companies, reveal that the standard UNE 166.006 has a positive effect on internal and external collaboration and improves incremental and radical innovation. The results show that both internal and external collaboration facilitates incremental innovations is carried out effectively and frequently. However, radical innovation is obtained mainly through collaboration with external agents. In general, we conclude that, in order to achieve an effective cooperation and a high performance in innovation, and thus to improve financial performance, companies may implement a technological watch system based on UNE 166.006. These results are of interest for companies that focus on the development of both incremental and radical product innovations under a cooperative open innovation approach.