The 2014-2020 European regional development fund on equitable access to employment human capital and regional SME competitiveness in Lezíria do Tejo, Portugal

In the internationalized markets of small and medium enterprises, competitiveness is highly dependent on its human capital accumulation. The scattered distribution of SMEs gives regional capacity building a chance to support rounded investments which increase human capital efficiency and the value of each human resource reaching new conditions for equity conditions for employment. The complex nature of certain variables continues to be widely disputed and in the overarching literature analyses tend to focus on a macro-economic while this research aims to gather understanding from the perspective of Operational Program beneficiaries. Through a focus on equitable access to employment, the objective of this paper is to explain which investments in human capital influence the competitiveness of SMEs in Lezíria do Tejo under the ERDF funded program PROVERE. This research uses a mix-method survey approach to achieve the objective put forth, both quantitative data collected via questionnaire and complimentary qualitative data via interviews are necessary given the nature of the sample. A non-random sampling strategy provided only descriptive statistics which offers a general visualisation of the situation. The complementary semi-structured interviews carried out in this survey provided in-depth accounts which after code saturation improved the eternal validity of the research. With the alignment of economic and social priorities under the program considered, there was an increase in equal gender participations and increase in youth employment. The level of demographic integration within an enterprise is highly dependent on the job description of available positions. There was confusion among respondents related to which program was used to co-finance the investment made showing little experience when applying to OP announcements.