As empresas olham além de seus muros para inovar?

This paper analyses the influence of universities, research institutes, laboratories, consultancies, suppliers and clients on the innovation processes held at firms. These external actors tend to outline networks considered essential for learning and innovation processes. Changes in the systems of production during the last 30 years made information flows and knowledge diffusion stand out as core factors for competitiveness. The main hypothesis of this paper is that the innovative performance of Brazilian manufacturing firms is related to the levels of interaction that companies develop with such external actors. Analysis based on interviews with entrepreneurs and CEOs of 106 Brazilian companies – from the Research of Entrepreneurs Attitudes for Development and Innovation (PAEDI) – show a relationship between innovative attitude and interactional level: firms with higher levels of interaction with “external actors” tend to be the ones who area more innovative