Mapping Knowledge Bases in the Portuguese Chemical Industry

This paper examines the innovation processes in the Portuguese chemical industry. By exploring the innovative activities undertaken by a chemical multinational in Portugal, we build a map of the knowledge bases representative of the Portuguese chemical industry. The paper presents a descriptive analysis of the company´s formal innovation process, which includes an internal form and an external form. Within the external mode, we explore in greater detail the design of a specific initiative which can be classified as a kind of corporate entrepreneurship: a competition launched to search for new technological ideas. This research leads to the construction of a map of the knowledge bases. The mapping procedure allows for the identification of the company´s knowledge bases and the knowledge flows established with the local economy. The map obtained shows that the chemical industry is based on widely distributed knowledge bases and that the main knowledge flows established with the surrounding environment are of the embodied form. The analysis of the mapping of knowledge bases indicates that there exists a significant ability in independent R&D units to generate new knowledge in fields related to the chemical industry and that this knowledge can be used to produce new value. In addition, this research shows that the ability to generate value-creating knowledge is concentrated in products, technologies and sub-sectors that are in relatively early stages of their life-cycle. Hence this knowledge does not seem to have an immediate application in the surrounding Portuguese industry, as this is concentrated mostly in products, technologies and sub-sectors that have reached maturity and, in some cases, decline. Due to this asymmetry, disembodied knowledge flows are difficult or impossible to create, and other types of relationship should be pursued. Portuguese chemical companies need to adapt their strategies in order to absorb and incorporate this new knowledge in promo- - ting their innovation activities