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- Regional, national and international networks: the suitability of different competitive strategies for different geographic profilesPublication . Cesário, M.; Noronha, Teresa deThe 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.
- Interaction between innovation in small firms and their environments: modelling entrepreneurial patternsPublication . Noronha, Teresa de; Cesário, M.; Fernandes, L.Small food firms make up an important sector in the European economy and are particularly significant in rural areas where they are potential sources of employment and growth. Despite this, their behaviour as regards innovation has been relatively little studied to date. This exploratory investigation finds different types of innovative behaviours among small agro-food firms in peripheral regions and identifies some of the factors with which they are associated. The research reported here is based on a sample of 323 small and very small food and drink (hereafter “food”) firms drawn from 11 regions in six European countries. The food industry is generally regarded as a mature, low-technology industry, but this study identifies different clusters of small food firms according to innovative behaviours. It finds that, although a substantial number of firms may be defined as non-innovators, by far the largest cluster of food firms is involved in multiple forms of innovative activity. Recent studies have demonstrated the complexity of the determinants of technological progress. This may be modelled as a learning process in which small innovative firms tend to draw on internal and external sources of expertise and are both influenced by and influence the broader socio-economic environment in which they operate. This study uses cluster analyses to identify four types of innovative behaviours and examines the factors influencing these. It takes first steps to incorporate both measures of innovative capacity at the firm level as well as of the local development environment in order to explore links between the innovative capacity of small food firms and the characteristics of their regional contexts.
- Padrões comportamentais dos empresários portugueses face à inovação: o caso das PMEs do sector agro–alimentar localizadas no Alentejo Central e OestePublication . Noronha, Teresa de; Cesário, M.Muitos têm sido os autores a desenvolver uma argumentação sobre a influência dos comportamentos empresariais no meio e vice-versa.
- Regional, national and international networks: the suitability of different competitive strategies for different geographic profilesPublication . Cesário, M.; Noronha, Teresa deThe aim of this paper is to conduct an exploratory investigation on the type of competitive strategies that are likely to be associated with different networking profiles. We focus our attention on response strategies related to investments and technological adjustments, and how they vary according to different spatial scales of firms' networks. We report the results of the application of a common questionnaire to a sample of 165 SMEs from labour-intensive sectors belonging to southern Europe. Using cluster analysis, the firms were grouped according to the use of regional, national and international geographic scales for supply, distribution and sales networks. For each group, response strategies were analysed. Our results allow us to observe that there is a relation between the capacity to improve the geographic scale of networking and the capacity to strategically react to changing market conditions.
- Technological adjustments in textile, clothes and leather industries: an alternative pathway for competitivenessPublication . Cesário, M.; Noronha, Teresa deThe importance of the textile, clothing and leather (TCL) sectors in Europe is obvious. As an industry based predominantly on small and medium-sized enterprises(SME) with an annual turnover of more than €230 billion produced by around 273 000 enterprises, these sectors employ more than 3 million people in the European Union (EU)-27. The liberalization process following the signing of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement has increased import penetration in these sectors, with the EU industry experiencing serious difficulties in competing with foreign operators working with lower labour costs and less stringent social and environmental regulations (COM, 2004). These new economic conditions have been forcing a restructuring in these industries. The ability to react and to adjust technologically to the challenges of these harder market conditions is what determines whether a region is a producer of high-value- added goods or a mere subcontractor. Although delocalization is a common threat, industrial agglomerations in low-cost countries are related to inferior working conditions, while in economically advanced countries the expansion of more skilled forms of work in the fashion-intensive production centres could compensate the further job loss. 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, the creation of high-qualification jobs in complementary areas, such as design, marketing, retail and management, may also be expected (Scott, 2006). The first objective of the present research is to describe the process of adoption of new technologies in the TCL sectors from a group of southern European regions. The way technological capabilities depend on localized assets is debated, and the evolutionary economics perspective is used to understand how regions are able to adapt to change, given their history. As argued by Bristow (2010), regional economic resilience is best understood when it is related to place-specific assets. The second objective is to observe the impacts of technological adjustment strategies on local labour demand. Manufacturing activities, like TCL, that are very susceptible to offshoring to low-wage countries, rely on the low level of territorialization and the low level of transaction costs(Storper, 1999, 2000). This situation allows low-wage product competition, and, when measured in terms of its impact on labour markets in developed countries, it creates low-wage competition for about 5 per cent of its workforce (Revenga, 1992). On this issue, we argue that technological adjustment strategies in the TCL sectors are decisive for regional employment and income perspectives because they provide alternative pathways for competitiveness in regions where low-cost strategies are not able to supply competitive advantages.
- Factores determinantes de inovação nas pequenas empresas : uma aplicação ao sector agro-alimentar em PortugalPublication . Noronha, Teresa de; Cesário, M.Este trabalho desenvolve instrumentos para pesquisar, ao nível regional, sinais determinantes de inovação em pequenas empresas localizadas em zonas desfavorecidas da União Europeia. Foram criados indicadores de performance inovadora para diagnosticar factores internos e externos determinantes da inovação em empresas portuguesas do Ribatejo Oeste e do Alentejo. Foi utilizada uma amostra aleatória de 52 empresas do sector agro-alimentar, com dimensão inferior a 50 trabalhadores, à qual foi aplicado um inquérito composto por 90 questões fechadas. Tais questões focaram grupos de determinantes possíveis de inovação, tais como: as características do empresário, a história e perfil da empresa, a força de trabalho e sua formação, os tipos de produtos e processos utilizados, as relações inter-empresariais e os apoios públicos fornecidos. Através das correlações de Spearman encontrámos relações de causa - efeito entre determinantes e performance inovadora.
- Behavioural patterns towards innovation: the case of European rural regionsPublication . Noronha, Teresa de; Cesário, M.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?Publication . Cesário, M.; Noronha, Teresa deNotwithstanding 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 attractability to business: an empirical application to Souther Euroupean regionsPublication . Noronha, Teresa de; Barbosa, Ana B.; Cesário, M.; Guerreiro, A.The main objective of this paper is to analyse the entrepreneurial attractivity capacity of a range of South European regions. The methodology is based on multivariate statistical analyses in order to evaluate quantitatively the existence of appropriate conditions in the allocation of dynamic enterprises.
- Territorial systems in the rural areas of the European UnionPublication . Noronha, Teresa de; Cesário, M.The emergence of dynamic forms of interdependent adjustment demands new local development processes in terms of socio-economic change: regional activities have been rearranged not only by globalisation but also by a new financial and political logic that reduces territorial and consumer's specificities. Many different factors contribute to regional dynamism; they are mostly correlated to entrepreneurial activity. In this paper we try to observe the set of characteristics able to create adequate environments for the entrepreneurial activity of innovative firms.
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