The linkage between economic growth and technological innovation has been studied for more than a century. Several empirical works have shown the robust and positive relation between growth and innovation at macroeconomic level and the relation between firm economic performance and innovation at microeconomic level. Less attention has been placed on such linkages in a period of economic crisis. On the basis of microeconomic studies on the firms' behavior in terms of innovation activities the present work provide an empirical analysis for a local production system (Ferrara) aimed at showing the presence of linkages between innovation activity in different spheres (technological innovation, organizational innovation, innovation in information and communication technology and innovative training processes) and firm economic performance during a recession phase of the business cycle. In details, we test whether the innovation activity carried on in a period preceding the crisis and contemporary to the crisis itself is able to guarantee higher economic performance during the economic crisis. The results show that those firms more involved in innovation activities are less severely hit by the crisis, adopt pro-active behaviours and perform better than the other. Such a result is mainly due to the crucial role of complementarities and synergies between innovations belonging to the different spheres of activity.