Filippo Randelli

The Role of Leading Firms in the Evolution of SME Clusters: Evidence from the Leather Products Cluster in Florence

Abstract Clusters that emerged in the past have changed during the latest decades, so that today the research challenge in economic geography is on their evolution over time. The aim of this paper is to update the evolutionary path of SME Italian clusters, which faced the economic crisis are undergoing a process of decline in the number of firms. Furthermore, changes in the techno-economic landscape and in the competitive environment have generated new challenges. In this context, some leading firms, able to connect local resources (and firms) to global networks, have emerged over time and today they act as a gatekeeper. The focus will be on local networks interacting with leading firms and particular attention will be devoted to the pattern of co-evolution and to the geographical dimension of this co-evolutionary process. To empirically verify if other firms in the cluster may co-evolve with the leading firm over time, a deep analysis of the Gucci network in the leather products cluster in Florence will be carried out.

Dynamics of Industrial Districts and Business Groups: The Case of the Marche Region

Italian industrial districts are undergoing fundamental changes due to globalization. Taking a firm perspective, we argue that the analysis of firm strategies, in particular the rise of business groups, is key to understand the organizational adjustments industrial districts have recently gone through. Due to the typical family structure of industrial district firms in the Marche region, as in other fragmented Italian districts, the organizational form adopted by firms to manage growth is that of the business group. We evaluate the empirical relevance of business groups in the Marche region, and we describe different transition strategies that turned firms into business groups.

A Conceptual Framework for Tourism Transition Areas Based on Territorial Capital: a Case Study of Vinci

The purpose of this paper is to review past literature on destination competitiveness policy, vision, identity and image and to offer a conceptual framework that relates to the concept of the territorial capital as the key component in the establishment of a shared and integrated vision for tourist destinations. The framework is tested on the case of Vinci, Tuscany, and the findings are based on a focus group and a SWOT analysis. The results reveal that the level of awareness policy makers and other primary stakeholders have in recognizing and adopting the territorial capital concept for the development of a shared, integrated and sustainable strategic vision is absent. The major contribution of this work is inter-disciplinary since, to our knowledge, is the first attempt to analyse an in-transition tourist area through the role of a geographical concept, the territorial capital, and to link it to destination policy and strategic management terms, such as vision, identity, and image.