70

Recently, the so-called “world of finance” has gained relevance in the business environment, where the financialization process takes place. Thus, the main research question addressed through case studies carried out in five companies in Brazil was “what are the impacts of financialization on firms and their innovation management process?”, with the following objectives: (1) understanding the impacts of financialization on firms; and (2) exploring its impacts on their innovation management process. The main conclusions regarding financialization are related to cultural aspects, owners’ mentality, short-termism, need for flexibility and liquidity, shadow banking use and conservatism in financial leverage decisions. On the other hand, conclusions related to innovation management concern risk tolerance, the subtleness of the interaction between finance and innovation, applied financial tools, the relative long-termism of innovation, and funding through dividends. Also, industry characteristics behave as key conditional factors of decisions in both fields.JEL Codes: G32, O32, O31