Maurizio Mistri

Behavioural rules in industrial districts: loyalty, trust, and reputation

The already wide literature on local systems and, in particular, that on industrial districts, has highlighted the role of reputation and trust in the competitiveness of these organizational forms compared to Fordist organization. The work of Becattini (1990), Bellandi (1987), Dei Ottati (1994a, 1994b) can be interpreted in this sense and a similar point is made by Sako (1998; p. 23). Reputation and trust are important parts of what Storper (1997) callsuntraded interdependenciesand of the relational factors of local competitive advantage considered by Amin (1998). Many sociologists and economists utilize the term “trust” in an intuitive way. The common-sense semantics of this term let us conceive a positive relational attitude opposed to distrust. We believe that the concept of trust should be defined in an operational way, as an expectation concerning the convergence between the promised and effective behaviour of an agent. In this paper, the interaction of behavioural rules, reputation, loyalty, and trust will be examined as being framed by a system of norms in the context of industrial districts. Once we have outlined the features of the Marshallian industrial district, we will define the main interacting concepts showing their interdependency.

Innovative processes and procedural rationality. Innovations as outcomes of a sequence of strategic actions

The aim of this paper is to frame the process and/or product innovation phenomenon in the perspective of the relationship between economic decisions and cognition. The author believes that the best way to interpret this relationship is to make use of Herbert Simon’s procedural rationality approach. In fact, this approach is framed within the more general approach of bounded rationality that is here used to emphasize how innovations have the task of responding to issues of environmental uncertainty and computational complexity that businesses have to face.

The Istitutional Approach in the Economic Thought of Carlo Cattaneo

The Institutional Approach in the Economic Thought of Carlo Cattaneo - Carlo Cattaneo was one the most eminent thinker of the Italy in the Risorgimento period. His interests were devoted to social sciences with a focus of the economic engineering. This paper is devoted to demonstrate the particular attention of Cattaneo to a particular approach to economics; that is the analysis of Cattaneo to economical facts presents significative conceptual elements of the modern neo-institutional approach. Particularly Cattaneo emphasised the importance of the technological progress, with a particular attention to the role of knowledge and human capital. A significative work of Cattaneo is that one devoted to the analysis of relationship between legal institutions and the professional specializations of Jewes. JEL Classification: B3, B4, B25 Key words: Economic Thought, Carlo Cattaneo