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SME’s SUPPORT and REGIONAL POLICY in the EU
The Norte-Litoral Portuguese Experience
Introduction
This paper draws on the portuguese experience of SME Community Initiative (SME-CI),
focusing on the competitive strategies of the firms localised in the northern coast, the Norte-
Litoral sub-region.
Most probably, the present Community Support Framework (2000-2006) to Portugal is the
last one of this size before the enlargement of EU to East. Therefore it is important to take
into account the experience acquired with the previous instruments of policy. On the other
hand, SME are at the crossroad of different policies (industrial, technology innovation,
regional, employment). In a time of great changes, it is important to observe the way small
firms face structural funds, in a region of diffuse industrialisation of southern Europe, and is
also of most importance to reflect upon public policies addressed to them.
In the first part we discuss the theoretical framework, with particular attention to the
progressive emergence of the complex systems paradigm which can be usefully applied both
to the firm and the region. The second part develops the empirical analysis of the applications
of industrial SME of Norte-Litoral to study the emergent strategies of investment projects
effectively supported. In the last point we highlight the main conclusions and point out a few
basic suggestions for the reshaping of regional policy.
1. THE ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK
The growing importance of SME in contemporary economic science, both in industrial and
regional economics, have been a subject of a large research, sometimes without an explicit
reference to the theoretical assumptions made about the firm. In fact, underlying studies and
policy proposals there is always a specific theory about the firm and the region.
In this paper we attempted to review the most relevant theories on the firm and tried to
demonstrate how the conceptual framework has been evolving toward a new paradigm that
also sheds light upon the understanding of the region.