Marco Bellandi

Innovation and Change in the Marshallian Industrial District

Abstract One of the relatively neglected aspects of studies of industrial districts is that of processes of innovation and structured change. In the paper, a preliminary theorization is offered, with evidence from a case in Tuscany. The paper concludes that creative capacities embedded at the local level may be valuable in this respect.

Local development and embedded large firms

A classification of potential ties between large firms and local economies is proposed, first, by working on various sections of literature concerning multinational enterprises, subsidiaries and regional development. Then, building on a model of a dynamic local economy, i.e. the vital industrial district, a framework is sketched in which different combinations of linkages are put in relation to different pools and degrees of strength of social capital and other local factors. The main object of this paper is to present that framework and illustrate a proposition nested in it. The proposition is that involvement in knowledge exchange and institutional building, identifying ‘developmental embeddedness’, is more probable where and when the local factors are neither ‘too weak’ nor ‘too strong’, and contextual policies fostering the developmental role of large firm units are present.

Italian Industrial Districts: An Industrial Economics Interpretation

The Italian debate on industrial districts suggests that local development can be based on small and medium-sized firms, provided they work in teams and are embedded in a local system of social relations. If the availability of local public goods complements the private supply of local specialized services and goods, Marshallian external economies are engendered. When inner social and economic relations boost the supply of local public goods, and are reproduced by the consistent economic behaviour of local (economic and political) agents, they become local factors of economic development, or, in other words, the districts social capital. These propositions are considered within a three-layered framework comprising structure, conduct and performance. The relations among these levels allow joint consideration of three different processes of economic selection: competitive, strategic, evolutionary. This complexity is necessary if the conditions that foster significant Marshallian external economies are to be represented correctly.

Place-renewing leadership:trajectories of change for mature manufacturing regions in Europe

The forces of globalisation now impacting on local economies pose threats to the existing paradigm of competences and routines, yet simultaneously offer opportunities to integrate new knowledge and learning. This is particularly pertinent with respect to Europes ‘mature regions’, which are undergoing a major economic restructuring by trying to shift from traditional manufacturing activities to hybrid activities that comprise a combination of manufacturing and a higher component of intangible inputs and related knowledge service activities. The objective of the article is to discuss the concept of ‘place leadership’ by looking at how the embedded skills, knowledge and cumulated learning of a place can be used by its institutional infrastructure to identify sustainable growth trajectories. In other words, its aim is to explore how the economic, social, institutional and cultural aspects of places shape the opportunities for upgrading and renovation drawing upon their historical specialisation. The conceptual contribution of the article draws on two case studies, in the West Midlands, UK and in Prato, Tuscany, where we study the processes of decision-making, forms of leadership and ultimately the nature of local leadership.

The case of specialized towns in Guangdong, China

The illustration of some preliminary results of an ongoing research on the industry in Guangdong, China, is the core of this article. In particular focus is on the so called ‘specialized towns’ and the industries that characterize them as complex actors of Chinese industrial development. The evidence on these specialized towns is quite interesting as such, being not yet well acknowledged in the international literature. However, it is also believed that an investigation of these realities may contribute to the understanding of new engines of industrial development in the context of contemporary global economic relations—what is called the ‘new industry’. Furthermore, some light is shed on the nature of the competitive challenge that China poses to traditional European industry: it is not only cheap labour, cheap land, dumping, and the like. In the new emerging China government visions, policies and industrial organization architecture seem to play a central role. In this context, the authors conclude proposing a framework of questions relevant to some of the most industrialized areas of Europe, that is the Italian regions characterized by a great diffusion of industrial districts.

An Analysis of Regional Policies Promoting Networks for Innovation

The diffusion of system-based innovation policies calls for the development of an appropriate evaluation framework. Such a frame requires a careful definition of the unit of analysis and evaluation, since evaluation based on the sum of individual additional results cannot assess appropriately the emergence of system effects. Moreover, it requires experimenting with new tools for measuring the relational effects of the new policies. The paper aims to contribute to this challenge, proposing an analysis of the inner structure and the organization of regional innovation systems in terms of network relations, and considering its results for their potential contribution to the evaluation of innovation policies in a systemic perspective. The empirical application focuses on a set of policies implemented by the Tuscany Region in Italy. It highlights that the same policy intervention may lead to the emergence of different relational architectures connecting the world of research and that of production, depending on the different relational context (technological/sectoral and territorial) in which they are grounded. These two aspects—the structure of the relations and the context in which they develop—must be carefully combined in order to identify the effects of policies aimed at promoting innovation.

On entrepreneur ship, region and the constitution of scale and scope economies

Abstract This paper proposes a framework of analysis in which: (1) the constitution of new sources of economies of scale or scope is supported by systemic entrepreneurship; (2) the realization of such economies by incremental entrepreneurship takes the form of external economies, or alternatively of internal economies, together with the prevalence of different combinations of organizations, technologies and regional characters; and (3) the manifestation in the form of external economies is sustained by market rules and focused public intervention, which complement the working of markets, and which can be embedded in regional (or local) relations. Further and more specific conclusions will be referred to in the case of external economies within production systems which are assuming or are reproducing the techno‐organizational characters of flexible specialization. The standard case of the industrial district with final markets largely characterized by differentiated and variable markets falls within such a...

District internationalisation and trans-local development

The fast rise of ‘made in China’ in international markets has raised concern among industrial districts in Italy and elsewhere. The challenge comes from a rich variety of factors of development, including local entrepreneurial and public resources. Building on results of fieldwork research on specialised towns and industrial clusters in Guangdong (China), and on investigations of Italian industrial districts, we consider the classification, along various axes, of both the business reactions from agents of districts facing the challenge and their systemic outcomes in terms of local developmental capacities. In particular, delocalisation and relocalisation outcomes are distinguished. The latter offer positive collective prospects, and are related to district internationalisation strategies and actions, targeting localities and clusters which could develop district-like processes. These relations have a core represented by trans-local public goods. Long-term cluster-to-cluster investments in production and trade joint projects may arise together with and around such a core. They help the growth and variation of division of labour at a trans-local scale. Some general requirements and dynamic aspects in the governance of such public goods are suggested and discussed, with illustration from an Italian-Chinese case of trans-local and cluster-to-cluster strategies.

Resilience and the role of arts and culture-based activities in mature industrial districts

ABSTRACT In this paper, we build on the results of previous research on how industrial districts (IDs) well-endowed with innovation capabilities fall into decline, and sometimes react against it. Major challenges may bring about deep crises. In particular, mature IDs stuck into the cognitive core and the institutional frames, which have featured their past growth, have often weak or slow reactions to such crises, demonstrating lack of adaptability and low resilience. However, lock-ins can be avoided or overcome by the activation and integration of a multiplicity of secondary know-how nuclei. The present paper combines some conceptualizations on such ID dynamics with the roles of their cultural backgrounds, and the possible activation of place-based arts and culture-based activities.

Small Firms and Industrial Districts

Industrial districts (IDs) are dense centres of life and work, characterised by one or a few related localised industries tightly intertwined with the local society and the local institutional setup (Becattini et al., 2009). The agglomeration of firms, and thereby industries, in specific places when it coincides with the concentration and integration of related specialisations, may generate positive external economies. The persistent variety of localised industries illustrates the widespread importance of such advantages over times and across places. Nevertheless, the same variety suggests that the “agglomeration of firms” is not a sufficient condition to guarantee sustainable beneficial effects. Instead, it requires complex mechanism that involves a broad set of local public and private agents. IDs illustrate, in general terms, that sustainable competitive strengths and collective advantages are associated with the overlap of an industrial agglomeration with a local society. In particular, this overlap has an autonomous meaning when local social-cultural and institutional relations exceed the possibility of control by a few powerful economic agents, and ensure an aggregate stability and a sense of identity. Drawing on their localised strengths, IDs are adapting to confront the open space of the current global networks. This mechanism is exemplified at best by IDs which are characterised by the evolving populations of locally embedded small-sized firms together with a local society. In line with this, we would argue that IDs thrive on small firms, namely they grow thanks to the dynamism and interaction of small firms.