A influência do ambiente de incubação no processo de compartilhamento de conhecimento tácito: estudo de caso da Farol Incubadora de Empresas

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is an important starting point for the development of a society. But, for this to really happen, it is necessary to create forms of support for those who want to undertake. One of these forms is the business incubator, which aims to provide financial subsidies, training and managerial support to new entrepreneurs, with the purpose of preparing them to continue the business and become self-sustainable. A factor that contributes to this process is the sharing of knowledge, because through coexistence and the exchange of experience, it is possible to generate knowledge, which can be transformed into a competitive advantage. Thus, with this research, it was intended to identify how the characteristics of social relationships, such as density and centrality, contribute to the sharing of tacit knowledge between companies inserted in an incubator that operates in Alto Paranaíba and Noroeste Mineiro. The object of this study was the Farol Incubadora de Empresas, which is located in the city of Patos de Minas, in the state of Minas Gerais. The research had a qualitative and quantitative nature: qualitative, in data collection and content analysis, and quantitative, in the treatment of data and indicators of social networks. To carry out the research, the triangulation strategy was used to obtain the data, because documentary research, in-depth interviews and participant observation were used in order to obtain information to answer the question that will guide this work. Ten individuals who were members of the business incubator were interviewed, observing the incubation environment during the month of September 2019 and documents provided by the incubator were consulted. To analyze the collected data, content analysis and social network analysis were used. Content analysis was performed with the aid of the MaxQDA software. The data relating to the dynamics of social relationships were generated by the software Ucinet® and Netdraw®, which were responsible for creating the diagrams of the networks and calculating the indicators. With the results obtained, it was possible to better understand how the incubation environment contributes to knowledge sharing and how this generates competitive advantage for the incubated companies.