The present paper was motivated by the recent interest put on the regional context as having a major role
tracing economic agents behaviours and inducing productive activity. Three main goals have been defined:
to emphasise the relation between favourable regional factors for development and firm performance in the
case of the most industrialised Portuguese regions; to distinguish in each region its own propensity for
sustainable development and to evaluate if the region may be considered as intrinsic co-operative or
resistant to co-operation.
