Asociatividad para la competitividad: análisis del caso de los programas de desarrollo empresarial sectorial (Prodes) de las pequeñas y medianas empresas (Pymes) del sector confección en Medellín - Valle de Aburrá en el período 1998-2006

Abstract

The textile-confections sectors are one of the most representatives in the World industry. So it is, because its features, especially sensitive to any economic, political, social or cultural change. This sensitivity is specially noticeable in the developing countries that, with lower yield, inferior technology and capacity and a poorer productivity must face a competence more complex every day, and almost inexistent regulation for the foreign product's income and, as a consequence, a helpless internal industry. The objective of this paper is to analyze how one of the associability programs applied in the world and adapted by the association for the Colombian association for the small Industry (ACOPI) for its acronym in Spanish) named Programs for Entrepreneurial sectorial Development (PRODES), has permitted to small and medium size enterprises of the textile-confection sector to defy the market conditions and improve its competitive performance. Associability among enterprises, government, private agents, productive sectors and research groups is a strategy that allows the economic units to make synergies and collective commitments to pursue a common goal.