European Commission Policies to support European competitiveness: Contributions from Collaborative Networked Organizations´ implementation

The purpose of the present work is to support policy makers to design new actions to boost the competitiveness of networked organizations, in particular SMEs cluster and communities of professional people. Focus of the present work is the evaluation of the contribution of Collaborative Networked Organizations (CNOs) on European competitiveness and on other relevant Policies of the European Commission. CNOs are potentially relevant economic actors, suitable for increasing European competitiveness, as they are flexible and dynamic and can play a significant role to produce innovative products and services as well as wealth. CNOs are complex working systems, which need to be supported at overall Policy level to become a significant player on the market. This paper analyzes the potential contribution to the achievements of the objectives of related EC Policies that the implementation of CNO´s paradigms can provide. Furthermore, some recommendations to Policy Makers are presented, with the objective of facilitating the shaping of actions/programes to increase European competitiveness from EC policy makers. The overall objective of this work is to provide a common ground for discussion between researchers in the fields of collaborative networks, industrial practitioners, stakeholders and policy makers and to support the latter in designing/reshaping effective actions to support CNOs to become one of the major factors to sustain the competitiveness throughout the European Union with respect to international, global competition.