Learning, cooperation and innovation within local innovation and production systems: Evidences for the economy of Santa Catarina state of Brazil

The analysis developed aims at identifying patterns regarding the innovative dynamics ofenterprises which comprise Local Innovation and Production Systems (LIPS) in the State of SantaCatarina (South of Brazil), with basis on a set of 298 interviews made with enterprises from fiveLIPS involving the following activities: electrical and metal-mechanical industry, in the region ofJoinville; furniture and wood, in the regions West and Itaguaçu Valley; plastics industry in thesouthern region of the state (around Criciuma City); fishing in the estuary of Itajai River. From anevolutionary theoretical perspective, methodological procedures were adopted for buildingindicators that allow for identifying clusters of enterprises that share common patterns of learning,cooperation and innovation in the scope of the LIPS surveyed. The patterns of innovative effort,external learning-cooperation and innovative performance are discussed with basis on the results ofcluster analysis techniques applied to groups of enterprises in the sample, which share similarcharacteristics regarding chosen factors. Subsequently, a model for categorizing new enterprisesaccording to identified patterns is suggested. The analysis enabled us to identify three clusters withsimilar patterns regarding the characteristics of innovative performance, innovative efforts andexternal learning based on cooperative actions. The suggested model for classification obtained apercentage of accuracy of 96.31%. It is suggested that the innovative dynamics of each LIPS wouldbe strongly influenced by the relative participation of the enterprises in each of these clusters.