Interactions and Cooperation in Local Production Systems: An Analysis of Inhibiting Factors Related To Specificities of Small Enterprises

The purpose of this article is to present some organizational and environmental factors that inhibit interactions and cooperation among several types of actors in a local production system (LPS) of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). To this end an exploratory study was carried out in an embryonic LPS of farming machinery and equipment factories located in West Paraná State, Brazil. The assessment of cooperation and interaction relations in the LPS led to the identification of inhibiting factors, which were correlated to specificities of the participating enterprises. Empirical evidence demonstrated that the inhibiting factors that impacted joint interactions and actions the most are of an organizational nature and strongly related to characteristics intrinsic to the size of the enterprises under consideration.