Tipologia de classificação de sistemas territoriais: aplicação às regiões Nuts III portuguesas

O presente artigo baseia-se no recente interesse colocado no papel dos contextos regionais enquanto palcos de actuação dos agentes económicas e da actividade produtiva. A análise empírica realizada baseia-se na selecção de um conjunto de indicadores (Indicadores de Desenvolvimento Local) que permitiu classificar as regiões portuguesas simultaneamente pela sua estrutura produtiva e pelo seu nível de atractividade local. Esta dupla classificação esteve na origem da construção de uma tipologia aplicada às 28 regiões Nuts III de Portugal Continental. A comparação dos resultados com o comportamento destas regiões em termos da performance das suas PME´s (nicho empresarial particularmente dependente da sua envolvente externa) revelou uma clara associação entre as melhores performances e melhores condições de atractividade local.O principal objectivo do trabalho é discutir a hipótese de o território, nas suas várias vertentes, ser factor essencial na criação de condições para a incubação de empresas com comportamentos competitivos. Sobretudo para as pequenas empresas, cuja abertura ao ambiente envolvente é superior, a existência de condições atractivas ao nível local pode ser determinante. Depois de revistas as posições de diversos autores que justificam o interesse colocado na análise da capacidade endógena das regiões, o estudo avança para a sugestão de instrumentos empíricos que permitam analisar quantitativamente os raciocínios expostos

Technological adjustments in textiles, clothes and leather industries: an alternative pathway for competitiveness

Labour-intensive industries, located in medium/high-cost areas are presently facing increasing low-cost competition and outsourcing with tremendous consequences at the regional employment level. The ability to react and technologically adjust to the challenges of these harder market conditions is what determines whether a region is a producer of high value-added goods or just a merely subcontractor. In fact, alternative employment opportunities may arise from complementary areas linked to technological innovations and although one can expect further job decline in manufacturing productive units, it is also expectable that more qualified jobs may be created in complementary areas, such as design, marketing, retail and management. The first objective of the present research is to characterise the process of adoption of new technologies in textile, clothes and leather (TCL) sectors from a group of Southern European regions, characterised by their economic vulnerability and dependence on these sectors. The results revealed that we are in the presence of a process: a) developed internally; b) supplier dominated and c) motivated by the international market. The second objective is to observe the impacts of technical change on local employment structures, namely regarding employment levels and skills. The results indicate that firms investing in new plant and equipment and firms investing in the development of new products are more likely to be increasing employment than the others. Also, firms hiring in these sectors, look for adequate qualifications, in particular regarding the ability to work with internet and marketing technology tools. We conclude that alternative pathways for competitiveness in these industries can be found through higher productivity levels driven from a much reduced workforce, if greater proportion of their turnover could be invested in technology and employment qualification

Driving forces for innovation: are they measurable?

This paper outlines a synthetic framework based on the concept of the learning process as a driver to redress stakeholders’ attitudes and strategic choices. The discussion is focused on the advantages that may result from institutional proximity, knowledge diffusion and coordination for the specific building up of a territorial knowledge base and the consequent achievement of sustainable regional development. This theoretical framework is applied to an empirical exercise identifying a number of variables supposed to be able to characterise firms and regional performances towards different forms of innovation. Modelling techniques are used to demonstrate that firms’ capacity to innovate is a complex attribute whose determinants change. The results permit to conclude causal links that may be useful for a better understanding of innovation and as support instruments for policy-makers which intend to search for specificities in the regional development process

How do small firms from European rural regions learn and innovate?

Contrarily to big firms, small firms interact intensively with the territory in which they located, as a signal of their embeddedness. The particular tight links they develop with their external environment reduce uncertainty risks. In general, for them, geographical and sociological proximities constitute the main sources of assets and information determining their perspectives and strategic choices. The present study uses a set of enquires, developed within the framework of a European research project, with the purpose of modelling the determinants of innovation in a bi-univocal relationship of interdependencies between small firms and their environmental contexts. We dealt mainly with lagging regions and a panel of 323 firms from the agro-food sector, located in 11 different European rural regions from six different countries. Using a set of variables able to characterise the innovative processes and through the application of k-mean clusters statistical analysis, it was possible to detect behavioural patterns towards innovation among those firms. Non-innovators, pioneer innovators and follower innovators were the identified patterns. Using cross tabs analysis between those patterns and a set of attributes dealing with the importance of human capital, the profile of each group were drawn

Regional, national and international networks: the suitability of different competitive strategies for different geographic profiles

The continuous capacity of firms to learn is seen by many scholars as the critical solution in order to avoid firms from becoming locked into obsolete technological and competitive trajectories. This is a very common tendency, particularly in peripheral areas and/or labour-intensive industries. Networks are often seen as the channel to overcome the risk that firms may become rigid. By accessing other markets, assets and technologies, firms free themselves from their own limitations while following the technological trajectories of their competitors. In this paper, we approach the issue with respect to the relation between the competitive strategies of small firms and their networking profile. We report the results of the application of a common questionnaire to a sample of 165 SMEs from labour-intensive sectors belonging to the following southern European areas: North (Portugal), Valencia (Spain), Macedonia (Greece) and South Italy (Italy). Using multivariate statistical analysis, the firms were grouped according to the use of regional, national and international geographic scales for supply, distribution and sales networks. For each one of them, competitive strategies related with market, investments, technology and training were analysed. Our results allow us to observe that competitive strategies vary across the three groups, indicating that there is a relation between the capacity to improve the geographic scale of networking and the capacity to strategically react to market changing conditions. While the related literature confirms the advantages of networking for the competitiveness of firms, we conclude that not all firms have the ability to develop international or even national contacts. Firms with restricted backward and forward linkages are also the ones with lower technological, training and innovative performances. Another important and related insight regards the requirements of going global: the network scaling-up is related more with quality production, than with scale economies. The exploitation of marketing networks depends heavily on the openness towards new opportunities which, in turn, depends on the knowledge stock of firms (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990) and on the empowerment of employees to pursue it (Lechner & Dowling, 2003). The resource-base of firms is both an input for and an output of networking activity, and that can be either a vicious or a virtuous cycle

The effects of globalisation on the performance of labour-intensive industries from southern Europe: the role of localised capabilities

This paper focus on the examination of the competitive positioning of textiles, clothes and leather (TCL) sectors, in the actual context of integration within Europe. The first aim of the paper is to empirically confirm the relation between the strong competition from emerging market economies and the regional job loss in these sectors. Secondly, we argue that localised capabilities are important factors for the economic resilience of TCL firms in the global economy. Using clustering analysis, a set of 13 Southern European Nuts 2 regions was selected because of their strong specialization on TCL industries. For the selected regions, data on the evolution of TCL trade balance was compared with performance indicators (firm density, employment and investment per capita in TCL). The results allow to examine the relationship between the liberalisation process and the evolution of job loss and disinvestment, in regions whose economic tissues are not able to provide employment alternatives

Behavioural patterns towards innovation: the case of European rural regions

Contrarily to big firms, small firms interact intensively with the territory in which they locate, as a signal of their embeddedness. The particular tight links they develop with their external environment reduce uncertainty risks. In general, for them, geographical and sociological proximities constitute the main sources of assets and information determining their perspectives and strategic choices. The present study uses a set of enquires, developed within the framework of a European research project, with the purpose of modelling the determinants of innovation in a bi-univocal relationship of interdependencies between small firms and their environmental contexts. We dealt mainly with lagging regions and a panel of 323 firms from the agro-food sector, located in 11 different European rural regions from six different countries. Using a set of variables able to characterise the innovative processes and through the application of k-mean clusters statistical analysis, it was possible to detect behavioural patterns towards innovation among those firms. Non-innovators, pioneer innovators and follower innovators were the identified patterns. Using cross tabs analysis between those patterns and a set of attributes dealing with the importance of human capital, the profile of each group were drawn

Relocation in labour-intensive sectors from Southern Europe: a threat or a forward looking strategy?

Notwithstanding the present context of economic globalisation, we admit the role of territorial agglomerations for the competitiveness of regions and firms and we ask about the impact of firms’ technological adjustment strategies to the territories themselves, namely in terms of regional employment and income perspectives? In order to empirically test if technical changes are associated with the variation of employment levels and skills, a survey application to a sample of 167 SMEs from textile, clothes and leather (TCL) sectors located in Southern Europe is used. Using statistical procedures, the importance of several predictor variables to the variation of firms’ employment was evaluated. The results confirm that technical change is both skill-biased as well as positively associated with employment growth. Firms investing in new plant and equipment and firms investing in the development of new products are more likely to increase employment than the others. Also, firms hiring in these sectors, look for adequate qualifications, in particular regarding the ability to work with internet tools. We argue that delocalisation can be transformed in a positive strategic reality if TCL firms are able to lower production costs and logistics in order to make the necessary technological investments

Regional competitiveness, technological adjustments and employment

Economic globalisation is leading firms to face an increasingly openness to rival producers, whatever their original location of production. Not only firms but also industries and regions are now much more vulnerable to price and quality competition. Camagni (2002) suggests that regions compete on the basis of absolute competitive advantages, arising when a region possess superior technological, social, infrastructural or institutional assets, which are external to firms but of their benefit