THE TEACHING OF "INNOVATION" IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION, ACCOUNTING, TOURISM AND TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY IN BRAZILIAN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

Abstract

The contemporary literature in Business Administration emphasizes the relevance of teaching innovation to future business administration professionals, in order to provide them with capacity to manage technological change environments. Aiming to contribute to this debate this article presents an exploratory study addressed to identify if Higher Education Institutions certified by CAPES in Brazil, in Business Administration – at undergraduate and technological levels - Accounting and Tourism offer courses that include Innovation as a discipline or a topic within a discipline. Methodological procedures include a comparison among the programme contents and related references. To reach a reliable database, through data mining techniques, data collection was based on Higher Education Institutions websites, and the e-MEC Database. The theoretical foundations are based on the concept of Economics Sciences, in special on the Theory of Endogenous Growth and Schumpeterian concepts of innovation-based industrial economy. As a result, it was observed the existence of a gap between perceived urgence of teaching innovation to the future Business Administration professionals and the contents of Management Sciences Programmes. The collected data makes possible to assume that teaching innovation is not a priority in Business Administration and in Management Sciences, which leads to the conclusion that is the lack of contents related to innovation process and innovation management that creates a gap in the managerial skills, making it difficult to the future Business Administration professionals to apply Management Theories in innovative business environments.