The study at hand investigates innovation systems at small and medium enterprises (SMEs) focusing on innovation culture, organization and company goals at the early stages of innovation process. Past research studies suggest the early stages of innovation process are critical for the overall innovation ability, however, there is a lack of literature on the specifics of innovation systems at SMEs. Case studies of 3 companies provide an overview of characteristics of innovation systems at a typical SME as well as a solid basis for drawing business implications relevant for establishing or improving its innovation system. Furthermore, the findings reveal that people management at the early stages of innovation process is missing, and that a foreign subsidiary of an international SME is relevant for an effective corporate innovation process. Implications for further research on the topic are also discussed.

Esta pesquisa analisou as relações entre a cultura organizacional e os processos de inovação em empresas de base tecnológica na cidade de São Carlos. Buscou-se identificar e compreender aspectos da cultura organizacional que facilitam ou dificultam os processos de inovação. Utilizou-se estratégia de investigação mista (delineamento quanti-qualitativo). Teve-se como hipóteses que: I) Os processos de inovação, nas empresas estudadas, focalizam mais os aparatos visíveis, como a tecnologia, do que aspectos intangíveis como a cultura da inovação; e II) A busca por inovação aparece mais nas políticas internas de aquisição de tecnologia do que nas políticas de gestão de pessoas. O estudo dividiu-se em duas fases: a primeira fase consistiu em levantamento quantitativo acerca de características da cultura da inovação das empresas de base tecnológica de São Carlos que aceitaram participar do estudo. A amostra foi composta por 15 empresas. A segunda fase compreendeu dois estudos sequenciais quanti-qualitativo. A análise qualitativa foi feita em profundidade, conforme as teorias psicossociológica e psicodinâmica. Instrumentos: entrevistas semi-estruturadas, observações de campo, questionários e escalas específicas para avaliação da cultura organizacional e da cultura da inovação. Os resultados apóiam a primeira hipótese e parcialmente, a segunda. Os dados sugerem que a inovação está positivamente relacionada à existência de cultura organizacional específica. Contudo, para que a inovação ocorra, não é necessário que todos os fatores referidos na literatura estejam presentes na organização; porém, a existência de alguns, como tolerância à ambiguidade e ao erro, trabalho desafiante e em equipe, suporte das lideranças, comunicação clara, coesão e reconhecimento de esforços favoreceram a inovação. / This research bases analyzed the relationship between organizational culture and innovation processes in technology-based companies, in São Carlos city. It aimed to identify and understand deeply some organizational culture aspects that make innovation process easier or harder. Considering the characteristics of the issue under analysis, a mixed investigation strategy was chosed (quanti-qualitative outline), having as hypothesis: I) Innovation processes focus more efforts on visible apparatuses, such as technology, than on intangible aspects, as culture of innovation; and II) The search for innovation is more visible on internal technology acquisition politics than on people management politics. The research was divided in two phases: the first one was consisted by a quantitative about characteristics of innovation culture of technology-based companies that agreed in participate from this research. The sample was composed by 15 companies. The second phase included two sequential quanti-qualitative researches. The qualitative analysis was deeply developed, based on psicossociological and psychodinamic theory. Investigation tools: semi-structured interviews, field observations, questionnaires and specific inventaries that evaluated organizational culture and innovation culture. Results support the first hypothesis and partially the second one. Data suggest that innovation is positively related to the existence of specific organizational culture. However, in order to make innovation processes happen, there is no need implementing in the organizational all the aspects found in literature, but the existence of some of these aspects as tolerance for ambiguity and error, supportive leaderships, clear and open communication, cohesion and recognition for efforts make the innovation process construction easier and more able to happen.

This thesis, conducted at Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs France under the supervision of LCPI Laboratory and Strate Collège, explores the concept of aesthetic experiences in an R&D department.One of the current interests of design research explores the concept of User eXperience (UX) and provides frameworks and methods to observe, describe and generate a rich product experience. Other recent studies focus on the aesthetic experience in organizations. Using an Action-Research approach, we extend the knowledge on aesthetic experiences through a new perspective: rather than looking at the users' experience, we framework the experience of multidisciplinary R&D teams through a qualitative and quantitative study. Our experimentation field consists of multidisciplinary projects from the Applications Research Domain (APPRD) - the multidisciplinary department of Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs. We study the most memorable projects - those that trigger aesthetic experiences in the work experience of research-engineers. Our goal is to understand what is the link between aesthetic experience feelings, design practices and aspects of the innovation culture. Finally, we propose a descriptive framework of aesthetic experience in this context and we show first implications to trigger this type of experience in a multidisciplinary R&D department.

Esta pesquisa analisou as relações entre a cultura organizacional e os processos de inovação em empresas de base tecnológica na cidade de São Carlos. Buscou-se identificar e compreender aspectos da cultura organizacional que facilitam ou dificultam os processos de inovação. Utilizou-se estratégia de investigação mista (delineamento quanti-qualitativo). Teve-se como hipóteses que: I) Os processos de inovação, nas empresas estudadas, focalizam mais os aparatos visíveis, como a tecnologia, do que aspectos intangíveis como a cultura da inovação; e II) A busca por inovação aparece mais nas políticas internas de aquisição de tecnologia do que nas políticas de gestão de pessoas. O estudo dividiu-se em duas fases: a primeira fase consistiu em levantamento quantitativo acerca de características da cultura da inovação das empresas de base tecnológica de São Carlos que aceitaram participar do estudo. A amostra foi composta por 15 empresas. A segunda fase compreendeu dois estudos sequenciais quanti-qualitativo. A análise qualitativa foi feita em profundidade, conforme as teorias psicossociológica e psicodinâmica. Instrumentos: entrevistas semi-estruturadas, observações de campo, questionários e escalas específicas para avaliação da cultura organizacional e da cultura da inovação. Os resultados apóiam a primeira hipótese e parcialmente, a segunda. Os dados sugerem que a inovação está positivamente relacionada à existência de cultura organizacional específica. Contudo, para que a inovação ocorra, não é necessário que todos os fatores referidos na literatura estejam presentes na organização; porém, a existência de alguns, como tolerância à ambiguidade e ao erro, trabalho desafiante e em equipe, suporte das lideranças, comunicação clara, coesão e reconhecimento de esforços favoreceram a inovação. / This research bases analyzed the relationship between organizational culture and innovation processes in technology-based companies, in São Carlos city. It aimed to identify and understand deeply some organizational culture aspects that make innovation process easier or harder. Considering the characteristics of the issue under analysis, a mixed investigation strategy was chosed (quanti-qualitative outline), having as hypothesis: I) Innovation processes focus more efforts on visible apparatuses, such as technology, than on intangible aspects, as culture of innovation; and II) The search for innovation is more visible on internal technology acquisition politics than on people management politics. The research was divided in two phases: the first one was consisted by a quantitative about characteristics of innovation culture of technology-based companies that agreed in participate from this research. The sample was composed by 15 companies. The second phase included two sequential quanti-qualitative researches. The qualitative analysis was deeply developed, based on psicossociological and psychodinamic theory. Investigation tools: semi-structured interviews, field observations, questionnaires and specific inventaries that evaluated organizational culture and innovation culture. Results support the first hypothesis and partially the second one. Data suggest that innovation is positively related to the existence of specific organizational culture. However, in order to make innovation processes happen, there is no need implementing in the organizational all the aspects found in literature, but the existence of some of these aspects as tolerance for ambiguity and error, supportive leaderships, clear and open communication, cohesion and recognition for efforts make the innovation process construction easier and more able to happen.

Cette thèse CIFRE, effectuée au Laboratoire LCPI avec les partenaires Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs France et Strate Collège, explore le concept de l'expérience esthétique des concepteurs dans le contexte de l'innovation et du travail pluridisciplinaire.Un des intérêts actuels de la recherche en design se focalise sur l'expérience utilisateur (UX) et propose des modèles et des méthodes pour comprendre ce concept pour la conception. D'autres études récentes portent sur l'expérience esthétique dans les organisations. Au travers d'une approche Recherche-Action, nous prolongeons la connaissance sur l'expérience esthétique avec un changement de perspective, de l'expérience de l'utilisateur vers l'expérience des concepteurs. Dans une étude qualitative et quantitative nous modélisons le concept de l'expérience esthétique dans un département de recherche. Notre terrain est constitué de projets pluridisciplinaires de l'Applications Research Domain (APPRD), le département pluridisciplinaire de Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs. Nous étudions les projets les plus riches, mémorables, transformateurs - ceux qui ont donné lieu à des expériences esthétiques dans le travail des concepteurs, pour comprendre quel est le lien entre ces projets, les pratiques design et la culture d'innovation. Finalement nous proposons un modèle de l'expérience esthétique dans ce contexte et nous montrons de premières implications pour déclencher ce type d'expérience dans un département multidisciplinaire de R&D. / This thesis, conducted at Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs France under the supervision of LCPI Laboratory and Strate Collège, explores the concept of aesthetic experiences in an R&D department.One of the current interests of design research explores the concept of User eXperience (UX) and provides frameworks and methods to observe, describe and generate a rich product experience. Other recent studies focus on the aesthetic experience in organizations. Using an Action-Research approach, we extend the knowledge on aesthetic experiences through a new perspective: rather than looking at the users' experience, we framework the experience of multidisciplinary R&D teams through a qualitative and quantitative study. Our experimentation field consists of multidisciplinary projects from the Applications Research Domain (APPRD) - the multidisciplinary department of Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs. We study the most memorable projects - those that trigger aesthetic experiences in the work experience of research-engineers. Our goal is to understand what is the link between aesthetic experience feelings, design practices and aspects of the innovation culture. Finally, we propose a descriptive framework of aesthetic experience in this context and we show first implications to trigger this type of experience in a multidisciplinary R&D department.

Innovation is a necessity for organizations long term survival in today's rapidly changing society. Many organizations struggle with their innovation management and a prerequisite to succeed with innovation is considered to be, creating and maintaining an innovation. Large established organizations are by many seen as one of the greatest sources of innovation. They have several advantages when it comes to innovation; like a large set of resources and an extensive network. On the other hand many large organizations face difficulties with flexibility and bureaucracy and are being outperformed by small startup organizations. The purpose of the thesis was to investigate a large established Swedish high-technology organization’s innovation culture and give suggestions for how it could be improved in order to support the capability of generating ideas. The investigation was performed at Saab Naval Operations. To find improvements, the current culture and the desired culture that supports innovation were identified. Finally necessary changes were identified to be able to achieve the desired culture. Semi structured interviews were held to understand the prevailing problems today and the desired future state. Additionally a climate questionnaire was sent out to all coworkers at Naval Operations to reveal the current state from coworker’s perspectives. The analysis of the qualitative and quantitative results together provided an overall understanding of the existing culture. Workshops were held to determine the changes needed to reach the desired culture. Finally an action-plan with four improvement areas was identified. The empirical, qualitative and quantitative studies were distributed into the improvement areas. The factors identified are considered as a good starting to positively contribute to an innovative culture though the list is not considered as complete. The improvement areas were; Leadership for innovation, Idea Management, Understanding and Knowledge Transfer. These improvement areas were considered to be of great importance in order to positively contribute to the innovative culture where a variety of ideas emerges from everyone at Saab Naval Operations. / För organisationers långsiktiga överlevnad i dagens snabbt föränderliga samhälle är innovation en nödvändighet. Trots detta har många organisationer svårigheter med att hantera sitt innovationsarbete. En förutsättning för att lyckas med innovation anses vara att skapa och upprätthålla en innovationskultur. Många anser att stora etablerade organisationer är en av de största källorna till innovation. De har många fördelar, så som en stor andel resurser och ett omfattande nätverk. Å andra sidan får många stora organisationer svårigheter med flexibilitet och byråkrati och blir därför överträffade av små start-up organisationer. Syftet med denna uppsats var att undersöka ett stort etablerat svenskt högteknologiskt företags innovationskultur och föreslå förbättringsåtgärder för att främja förmågan att generera idéer. Undersökningen genomfördes på Saab Naval Operations i Järfälla. För att finna förbättrings-åtgärder utreddes först hur den existerande kulturen som stödjer innovation såg ut, därefter identifierades den önskade kulturen. Slutligen identifierades de förändringar som kunna möjliggöra den önskade kulturen. Semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes för att förstå problemen och det önskade framtida tillståndet. En klimatenkät skickades ut till medarbetarena på Saab Naval Operations för att identifiera deras uppfattning av klimatet. De kvalitativa och kvantitativa resultaten gav tillsammans en övergripande förståelse av den befintliga kulturen. Workshops hölls för att finna förslag till åtgärder som skulle hjälpa att nå den önskade kulturen. Slutligen togs en handlingsplan med fyra förbättringsområden fram.Resultatet utmynnade i fyra förbättringsområdena. De identifierade faktorerna anses vara en bra utgångspunkt för att förbättra innovationskulturen. Förbättringsområdena som identifierades är: Ledarskap för innovation, Idéhantering, Domänkunskap och Kunskapsöverföring. Dessa anses vara av stor betydelse för att positivt bidra till en innovationskultur där en mångfald av idéer uppstår, från alla på Saab Naval Operations.

Innovation has become increasingly important for organizations to sustain their competitive advantage. Among the factors frequently put forward as drivers of innovation are for instance innovation strategies, -processes, -tools, and –methods. Alongside these traditional managerial means, there is also explicit focus on innovation climate and –culture. Organizational culture has been proposed as a key factor in explaining innovation in firms, in particular in the light of high-performing and innovative firms such as Google and Apple. There is growing evidence implying that cultures supporting new-product development processes can foster innovative behaviors (Jassawalla and Sashittal, 2002). This supportive organizational culture can be defined as an innovation culture. Nevertheless, despite its apparent importance there is limited research investigating the relationship between innovation performance and organizational culture (McLean, 2005). This study aims to describe an innovation culture and the potential inter-relations there are between innovation culture and innovation performance. The study based on an extensive literature study within the area of organizational culture from where an analytical framework was developed including the following cultural factors, which are proclaimed to stimulate innovation; challenging work, collaboration, competition, empowerment, encourage change, freedom, innovation support, open communication, organizational encouragement and risk-taking. Moreover, a framework for measuring innovation performance was developed where the innovation performance was divided into four dimensions in the innovation process; Ideation, Ideation Output, Implementation and Output. The study uses both qualitative and quantitative methods for collecting data in terms of 38 interviews and 510 useful survey answers from 13 organizations. Results from the interviews were summarized and analyzed within-case and cross-case, while the survey results were analyzed with a regression analysis for uncovering potential relations between the cultural factors and innovation performance. Main findings from the study are the outcome from the regression analysis confirming five of the ten cultural factors to be significant for innovation performance; competition, encourage change , innovation support, organizational encouragement and risk-taking. Further the study confirms a few specific factors of the innovation culture that have higher impact on the innovation performance in specific dimensions than others. By clarifying inter-relationships between innovation performance in specific dimensions and different aspects of innovation culture, an identification of a deficient innovation performance dimension opens up for changes in the innovation culture, enabling to deploy supportive processes, procedures and roles to reach concrete output. Keywords: organizational culture, innovation culture, innovation performance / Innovation har blivit allt viktigare för att bibehålla företags konkurrenskraft. Bland de faktorer som ofta framförts som drivkraft för innovation återfinns till exempel innovationsstrategier, -processer, -verktyg och -metoder. Vid sidan av dessa traditionella metoder finns det också ett uttalat fokus på innovationsklimat och -kultur. Organisationskultur har fastslagits som en viktig faktor för att förklara innovation i företag, i synnerhet hos högpresterande och innovativa företag som Google och Apple. Det finns allt fler bevis som pekar på att företagskultur som stöder nya produktutvecklingsprocesser kan främja innovativa beteenden (Jassawalla och Sashittal, 2002). Denna stödjande organisationskultur kan definieras som en innovationskultur . Trots sin uppenbara betydelse finns det dock förhållandevis lite forskning som undersöker sambandet mellan innovation och organisationskultur (McLean, 2005). Denna studie syftar till att beskriva en innovationskultur, samt hitta de inbördes relationer finns mellan innovationskultur och innovation. Baserat på en omfattande litteraturstudie inom organisationskultur utvecklades ett analytiskt ramverk. Följande kulturella faktorer som påstås stimulera innovation inkluderades; utmanande arbete, samarbete, tävling, egenmakt, uppmuntran till förändring, frihet, innovationssupport, organisatorisk uppmuntran, öppen kommunikation, och risktagande. Dessutom utvecklades ett ramverk för att mäta innovationsprestanda där den delades upp enligt fyra faser i innovationsprocessen; Ideation, Ideation output, Implementation och Output. Studien är en fallstudie och använder sig av både kvalitativa och kvantitativa metoder för insamling av data i form av 38 intervjuer och 620 enkätsvar från 13 olika företag. Resultaten från intervjuerna sammanfattades och analyserades within-case och cross-case. Resultat från enkäten analyserades med en regressionsanalys för att hitta eventuella relationer mellan de kulturella faktorerna och innovationsprestandan. Betydande resultat från studien är bland annat resultatet från regressionsanalysen som bekräftar fem av de tio kulturella faktorer signifikanta för innovationsarbetet; tävling, uppmuntran till förändring, innovationssupport, organisatorisk uppmuntran och risktagande. Vidare bekräftar studien att vissa faktorer inom innovationskultur har större påverkan på innovationsprestandan i specifika faser än andra. Genom att klargöra sambanden mellan innovationsprestanda i specifika faser och olika aspekter av innovationskulturen, kan en identifiering av en bristfällig innovationsprestanda i en av faserna öppna upp för förändringar i innovationskulturen. Detta möjliggör implementering av stödjande processer, rutiner och roller för att nå konkreta resultat. Nyckelord: företagskultur, innovationskultur, innovationsprestanda

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how middle managers attempt to enhance internal innovation processes with digital usages. To do so, this research aims to open up an internal innovation process improvement ‘black box’ by looking not only at issues related to digital delivery but also at elements related to innovation culture and leadership. Design/method/approach To fulfill this purpose, this qualitative research develops a case study employing the lenses of middle managers to generate empirical data based on an interpretative approach and an in-depth semi-structured interview methodology. Findings Middle managers' attempt to enhance internal innovation processes with digital usages involves major elements related to influencing people’s mindset, motivating and embracing ideation, as well as collaboration across units leveraged by digital usages. Nonetheless, the core element of the attempt stands for the ability to root the digital tool usages not only at the individual or team level but also at the innovation process level. Contributions This study mainly contributes to theory extension by putting the individual at the heart of the organization's innovativeness culture and enlightening the leadership role of middle managers to influence innovative behaviors to embrace digital tools in the line of the organization’s strategy with major demands for change management. Originality/value By integrating the perspective of middle managers to the conceptual, this case study brings an additional piece to the puzzle of how digital tools nurture the internal innovation processes.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:31:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Wellinton Tesch Sabaini.pdf: 1871998 bytes, checksum: acde27c57cd05c4549ce91b11a737cb6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-12-02 / In the last decade, innovation has been regarded as one of the main strategies of enterprises to obtain competitive advantage, becoming a strategic issue in management. Thus, the term culture of innovation has long been employed in academic and business circles, especially in the sense of being a means propitiate of innovation development. However, a literature search showed that culture of innovation is a complex and recent topic that needs more research, and also identified that there is no specific studies on Brazilian companies small and medium sized businesses. Thus, this research aims to identify the cultural manifestations of industrial innovative small and medium size, it is possible to infer a culture of innovation, which provides product innovation in such firms. We conducted a survey of organizational culture by identifying cultural events proposed by Martin (2002): "cultural forms", "formal practices", "informal practices" and "content themes". These manifestations inferred from innovation culture. Therefore, we carried out a qualitative research, and study method multicase applied in three considered innovative companies that develop and manufacture innovative products, winners of FINEP Innovation Award. We used multiple sources of inferences for data collection: semi-structured interviews, non-participant observation and document analysis. 25 interviews were conducted. The analysis was performed according to the categorization process proposed by Flores (1994), opting for a open categorization, so that the analyzed data revealed manifestations more freely as possible. The results showed that the elements of common culture of innovation and the three companies surveyed that are providing innovation were, especially a "formal and informal learning", formal practices of human resources training and education and "selection and hiring , followed by "employee participation" and "market orientation". Although it is common for the three companies, the survey identified that each company has come a different way to build such elements, i.e. each company has its "ingredient" specific to innovate. Furthermore, research has shown that the performance of the founding leaders was one of the factors that contributed to the development of a culture of innovation. / Na última década, a inovação tem sido considerada como uma das principais estratégias das empresas para a obtenção de vantagem competitiva, se tornando um tema estratégico em administração. Diante disso, o termo cultura de inovação tem sido muito empregado nos meios empresariais e acadêmicos, principalmente no sentido de ser um dos meios propiciadores de desenvolvimento de inovações. No entanto, a pesquisa na literatura mostrou que cultura de inovação é um tema complexo, recente e que carece de mais investigação, bem como permitiu identificar que não há estudos específicos em empresas brasileiras de pequeno e médio porte. Assim, esta pesquisa tem por objetivo identificar as manifestações culturais das empresas industriais inovadoras de pequeno e médio porte, em que é possível inferir uma cultura de inovação, que propicia inovação de produto em tais empresas. Realizou-se a pesquisa de cultura organizacional por meio da identificação das manifestações culturais propostas por Martin (2002): formas culturais , práticas formais , práticas informais e temas de conteúdo . Dessas manifestações inferiu-se a cultura de inovação. Para tanto, realizou-se uma pesquisa qualitativa, tendo como método o estudo de multicasos, aplicado em três empresas consideradas inovadoras, que desenvolvem e fabricam produtos inovadores, ganhadoras do Prêmio FINEP de Inovação. Foram utilizadas múltiplas fontes de inferências para obtenção dos dados: entrevista semi-estruturada, observação não participante e análise de documentos. Foram realizadas 25 entrevistas. A análise dos resultados foi feita de acordo com o processo de categorização proposto por Flores (1994), optando-se por uma categorização aberta, de forma que os dados analisados revelassem as manifestações do modo mais livre possível. Os resultados da pesquisa mostraram que os elementos de cultura de inovação comuns as três empresas pesquisadas e que estão propiciando inovação foram, especialmente, a aprendizagem formal e informal , as práticas formais de recursos humanos de formação e capacitação e de seleção e contratação , seguida da participação dos empregados e da orientação para o mercado . Apesar de serem comuns as três empresas, a pesquisa identificou que cada empresa trilhou um caminho diferente para construir tais elementos, ou seja, cada empresa possui o seu ingrediente específico para inovar. Além disso, a pesquisa mostrou que a atuação dos líderes fundadores foi um dos fatores que mais contribuíram para o desenvolvimento de uma cultura de inovação.

O propósito desta tese é investigar de que forma ocorre a interveniência de quatro fatores críticos no trabalho de equipes de projeto de inovação tecnológica, na medida em que estas criam conhecimento. São admitidos como fatores críticos a competência individual, a competência informacional, a cultura de inovação e a comunicação. Como principal contribuição, objetiva-se propor um modelo de quatro dimensões com as relações resultantes entre o conhecimento criado pelas equipes e os fatores críticos que influenciam a sua criação. Essas dimensões destinam-se a auxiliar o processo de formação de equipes, mais especificamente na escolha dos membros. As equipes de projetos selecionadas para compor o estudo fazem parte do programa Pesquisa em Parceria para Inovação Tecnológica (PITE) da Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP). A escolha do tema se justifica pela carência de pesquisas empíricas com tratamento particular a cada um dos processos de conversão de conhecimento, bem como pelo fato de que a chave para o entendimento de sucessos e falhas na criação de conhecimento por equipes inovadoras está na identificação e avaliação das condições prévias, aqui denominadas fatores críticos, necessárias para que o esforço prospere. Preservando-se o ineditismo característico de teses de doutorado, as equipes do programa PITE da FAPESP são estudadas pela primeira vez, de forma exploratória. Como técnica qualitativa de análise de dados, utiliza-se da análise de conteúdo categorial. Os principais resultados apontaram fortes relacionamentos entre o fator crítico 1 (competência individual) e a externalização do conhecimento; o fator crítico 2 (competência informacional) e a combinação do conhecimento; o fator crítico 3 (cultura de inovação) e a internalização do conhecimento; e o fator crítico 4 (comunicação) e a socialização do conhecimento. Advindos destas relações, foram encontrados doze padrões de comportamento nas equipes estudadas. / The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the intervention of four critical factors in the work of project teams for technological innovation occurs, while they create knowledge. Critical factors admitted are individual competence, informational competence, innovation culture and communication. As the main contribution, the research aims to propose a model of four dimensions of the resulting relationships between the knowledge created by the teams and the critical factors that influence its creation. These dimensions are intended to assist the process of team formation, more specifically in the selection of members. Project teams selected to comprise the study are part of the Research Partnership for Technological Innovation (PITE), from the Foundation for Research Support of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP). The choice of this subject is justified by the lack of empirical research with particular treatment to each of the processes of knowledge conversion, as well as by the fact that the key to understanding the successes and failures in knowledge creation by innovative teams is the identification and evaluation of preconditions, here called the critical factors, necessary for the effort to flourish. As a way to preserve the originality, characteristic of doctoral thesis, the project teams of the program PITE-FAPESP are studied for the first time, in an exploratory approach. As a qualitative technique of data analysis, the categorical content analysis is used. The main results showed strong relationships between the critical factor 1 (individual competence) and externalization of knowledge; the critical factor 2 (information literacy) and the combination of knowledge; the critical factor 3 (innovation culture) and internalization of knowledge; and the critical factor 4 (communication) and socialization of knowledge. Moreover, deriving of these relations, twelve patterns of behavior were found in the studied teams.