Arranjos produtivos locais - APL como fator de ampliação da capacidade competitiva das micro e pequenas empresas

Abstract

Globalization makes the competitive environment change constantly, every day increasing the competition level. This scenario mainly threatens micro and small businesses survival, which, because of a number of intrinsic factors to them, are less competitive and more vulnerable. To try to overcome these difficulties, many of these micro and small businesses associate themselves to cooperation networks, known as Local Productive Arrangements - LPA. So, the purpose of this study is to identify which are the main competitive disadvantages of the MSBs, and how the participation of a LPA r can help to reduce or eliminate these disadvantages.