According to different bodies of economic literature a wide range of changes have occurred within the firm in the last decades. They have encompassed at least three firm's spheres of activity: firm organization, technological innovation and the industrial relations system. Some authors studied the interactions among changes in the different spheres of activity in order to understand the shift in the way production is organized.
The main objective of this applied work is finding associations among components belonging to the three firm's spheres of activity that give insights on the structure of modes of production in the local industrial system of Reggio Emilia. The modes can be defined flexible if changes in firm organization occur in a systemic way, innovative if technological innovations and organizational changes are adopted in a complementary way, participative if the interaction between union representatives and the management is more participative rather than adversarial.
The results stemming from the implementation of two multivariate statistical techniques, Principal Component Analysis and Cluster Analysis, provide insights on the existence of at least two modes of production organization. The first is characterized by a systemic adoption of different practices belonging to the three spheres of activity. The second shows changes that do not encompass firm organization, technological innovation and industrial relations spheres at the same time, but mainly involve organizational aspects linked to numerical flexibility.