This paper analyses the capabilities developed by micro and small companies inserted in techno-productive networks in the eletrometal-mechanic productive arrangements of the region of Joinville, located in the northeast of the State of Santa Catarina. This arrangement is characterized by a strongly diversified and heterogeneous productive structure, with patterns of specialization and complementarities according to the size of establishments and along different activities. The analysis of the labor division in the arrangement and of the specializations by size of the companies, combined with the market interactions and the types of sub contraction, will help to comprehend how micro and small companies insert themselves in the arrangement and technological capabilities they develop. The study is based on the neo-schumpeterian theoretical framework and has as its main objective the analysis of the different technological capabilities developed by these types of firms, according to their pattern of insertion in the local productive structure. For this purpose a survey with 83 companies of different sizes was made. An important finding was the existence of several kinds of techno-productive networks, which vary according to the forms of governance, the productive and technological characteristics and the nature of the learning processes. Such specificities affect, with different intensities, the possibilities of technological capacity building, which were also influenced by the relations with agents outside the arrangement.
electrometal-mechanic industry of Joinville; small and medium enterprises - SMES; techno-productive cooperation networks
