INSTITUTIONS AND COMPETITIVENESS IN THE VALE DO SINOS FOOTWEAR INDUSTRIAL CLUSTER

Abstract

Brazilian economic activities that are labor intensive as the one of footwear, furniture, and clothes, go by strong competitive pressures, due to the presence in their markets of Asian competitors with more favorable productive atmosphere to the competitiveness. To compete in prices becomes more and more problematic and there is the need to transit for other attributes of competitiveness. In economic activities populated by small and medium enterprises, the presence of institutions that supply appropriate real services to new competitive attributes is fundamental for the survival of those companies. Research accomplished in 2006 with institutions and small firms of the footwear industy of Vale do Sinos, in the south of Brazil, display that the articulation among those agents in that direction is still relatively limited. The degree of business association is low, particularly among small companies. In turn, the big enterprises present larger autonomy degree to establish own strategies of adjustment to the new situation.