Challenges for Innovation in Small Businesses: The Local Innovation Agent Program in Brazil

The Local Innovation Agent Program (ALI-Agentes Locais de Inovação) in Brazil is a national action that has invested billions of reais in the last decade supporting small businesses to face the various barriers to innovate. Thus, this article aims to identify the perception of micro and small companies in Brasília-DF about the challenges to innovate while participating in the ALI Program. To this end, the present work made use of the descriptive methodology and the qualitative analysis method. As for the means, it used bibliographic research, case study and field research, as described by Vergara (2007). The results showed the perception of two different audiences, first, of the Local Innovation Agents, who helped to identify the stages with the greatest degree of difficulty; second, from the participating entrepreneurs themselves, who contributed, with their perceptions of difficulties, positive points and learnings when applying the ALI methodology for the innovation of their businesses.