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The objective of this article is to contribute to the discussion about information and knowledge in the economy and society of Latin America focusing on the use and the diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the Argentinean manufacturing industry. The article relates the use and diffusion of ICT to the performance of the firms (their capacity to innovate, to organize creatively and to compete).

The paper has three central aims:(i) to present an empirical map of the use and the diffusion of these technologies in the manufacturing industry,(ii) to link that diffusion with improvements of the endogenous capacities of the firms and (iii) to make a contribution to the theoretical discussion about the links between the information and the knowledge economies. The central argument of the paper is that the incorporation and use of these technologies should be analyzed not in isolation but rather in the context of the capacities previously reached by the firms. The paper is based on a field survey of 246 manufacturing firms, undertaken between July and September, 2002. The firms surveyed are located in the Northern portion of Metropolitan Buenos Aires (206), in Córdoba (25), and in Rafaela (15).