Efforts to build a culture of innovation in the Brazilian energy sector

Abstract

Innovation and innovation management are essential topics for any organizational system nowadays. Public services, commercial and industrial corporations are pressured to study, plan and promote innovations as strategic pillars for their activities and reputation in their competitive scenario. This paper analyzes the efforts on building and improving cultural factors that can foster innovation and innovation management in a critical, competitive and technology-driven sector of electrical power production in Brazil, examining records from ANEEL, its regulatory agency. From these records, values and facts concerning Brazilian program for investment in innovation were evaluated, together with related projects data, showing results that indicated: (a) Investments were conducted in mandatory fashion, not following strategic policies; (b) Expressive amount of investments were also done in the basic and applied research, not offering fair perspectives on more qualified or value-aggregated innovations and; (c) This investment program, executed by the regulatory agency, is opportune to sponsor innovation in this important economic sector. Methodological aspects, such as indexes choice, comparisons and analysis applied in this paper can also build a basis for other studies around the same context, allowing further comparisons to other sectors – such as those in this value-aggregated chain or even with other countries, with perspectives of richer results that can provide another level of innovation investments programs comprehension.