Confiança e os relacionamentos interorganizacionais: um estudo no cluster de óticas no município de Imperatriz (MA)

Abstract

The present study aimed to analyze how trust through interorganizational relationships influences the competitiveness of companies operating in the optical cluster of Imperatriz / MA. In Porter's view (1998) a cluster is a concentration of companies of the same segment and region, in order to compete and cooperate against external threats. In this sense, the partnerships between entrepreneurs in the retail sector of optics provide organizational development, in terms of internal and external improvements (cluster). In this way, reliability can strengthen the integration among the members of the optical cluster to provide survival against external threats; form partnerships and increase the competitiveness of the cluster in the region in which it is located. Thus, the entrepreneurs that make up the optical cluster present relationships and partnerships that are influenced by trust. In this sense, an exploratory approach was chosen in this work, and the data collection was done through a closed questionnaire with 15 questions applied to 53 entrepreneurs. Thus, after collecting the quantitative data, these were treated using the statistical software Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 19.0), using the technique of Factorial Analysis (AF). In this sense, this representative model can indicate that the competitiveness interferes within the interorganizational relationships in the cluster, so that its confirmation is only possible through the Confirmatory Exploratory Factor Analysis. This analysis was worked out in the academic research to support the result obtained in the statistical software Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 19.0). The results allow us to observe that the trust and relationships construct maintained a greater number of variables representative of the model, however, the competitiveness construct loses many variables and is represented by a factor. Thus, the constructs well represent the suggested model, that is, it can be tested by means of a confirmatory technique. Therefore, the results reveal and confirm that Confidence through Relationships positively influence the level of competitiveness of the cluster.