Relationship Between Innovation and Performance in Private Companies: Systematic Literature Review

This article conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) on the relationship between innovation and performance in private companies. The research corpus was based on research protocol systematization. Dissemination of knowledge was examined in two stages: the summary of general corpus characteristics, and the content analysis performed according to the categories that emerged via the study's themes. Relationships among authors, co-citations, keywords, and centrality statistics were identified through algorithms for optimizing standard graph layout. This study discusses the results of this relationship for improving the competitiveness of enterprises. The relationships among the authors of the corpus constitute relationships between isolated groups with little connectivity, low density, and a formation of distinct communities. The categories of analysis emerged in the study themes, as well as the techniques adopted to measure the relationships between innovation and private company performance. In the analyzed studies, innovation initiatives converge. Overall, they contribute to improvements in company performance. In the scientific field, initiatives for developing innovations have enhanced the performance of private companies. A key theoretical contribution of this article is in identifying the research corpus on the relationship between innovation and performance in private companies. The practical contribution of this study lies in offering evidence produced by studies that can help decision making regarding the creation of strategies and policies focused on competitiveness. The differences in the evidence found in the literature highlight the importance of the outcome of this study and indicate the need for future research in an effort to better understand the phenomenon.