Resumo

Innovation policies have been a well-studied area in recent decades, exploring how innovative and entrepreneurship policies can promote economic development (AUDRETSCH; LINK, 2012; BAJMÓCY; GÉBERT, 2014; PATANAKUL; PINTO, 2014; SILVA; SERIO; BEZERRA, 2019). Innovation policies can be considered macro-level efforts to develop institutions, human resources, technologies, and other resources related to the development of Science, Technology, and Innovation (S,T&I). These policies aim to promote innovation and leverage the performance of public and private institutions.

This study seeks to compare the influence of innovation policies at the level of KIE firms, seeking to understand their impact on the development of dynamic capabilities, and at the level of the innovation ecosystem, by comparing, at a regional level, the policies of Twente region and Ceará. This research aims to explore and understand the differences of regional innovation policies of regions of Brazil and Netherlands, guided by this research question: how regional innovation and entrepreneurship policies of a developing country differ from those of a developed country?

Shane (2009) argues that many public policies directed towards entrepreneurship do not have the correct planning regarding the public policies directed at entrepreneurship. They do not have a focused and specific direction. Many policies are based on stimulating the creation of new companies, facilitating credit, and opening new businesses. These measures are important; however, the author argues that public policies should focus on companies that are more likely to have success and, in fact, generate economic development and create employment and income for society.

In the Netherlands, the data collection was executed in the Twente region. The Twente region is in the eastern side of the Netherlands, used to be known, in the past, by its textile industry. Nowadays, the region is known by its rich ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship, holding a collaborative and multi-cultural hub of scientific research, innovation and entrepreneurship. In the state of Ceará, the study was executed in a regional innovation program called Economic Clusters of Innovation Program (ECIP). The objectives of the ECIP are to strengthen regional economic development.

From the interviews and using content analysis based on Strauss (2003), we developed codes for first and second order, aiming to find relation between the speech of the interviewees and the literature. We used Microsoft Excel to classify the quotes according to the themes of the quote and used AI tools as ChatGPT to help with data triangulation, according to themes that we chose.

It was noticed that the policies studied were aimed at different profiles of entrepreneurs and KIE firms: i) the potential entrepreneur, who is looking to start a new business and is usually in the ideation and proof-of-concept phase of the product; ii) the entrepreneur in the initial stage of development, who already has a minimum viable product, and who is looking to mature the product and start the first sales; iii) the KIE firm in early stages, which already has a business model and a validated product, and which is seeking to consolidate its presence in the market.

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