The Technological Evolution of Industrial Districts

Fiorenza Belussi, Giorgio Gottardi, and Enzo Rullani This volume collects some papers presented at the Vicenza conference "The Future of Districts", held in June 1999, organised by the Department of Technology and Management of Industrial Systems of the Faculty of Engineering of Padua University, with the collaboration of several engineers, industrial economists, and experts in the issue of technology management. This was the starting point of a long-lasting and painful colIective discussion, the results of which are documented here, during many meetings of this "itinerant" group, including the workshop in Padua, organised by Professor Luciano Pilotti and held in May 2001, "Systems, governance & knowledge within firm networks" at the Department of Economics of the University of Padua, and the recent international research seminar, held in May 2002, in Rome at the Tagliacarne Institute, within the EU sponsored project "Industrial districts' re­ location processes: identifying policies of EU enlargement West-East ID". The reason we decided to organise this book was not only to underline the importance of the industrial district (ID) model as a tool of propulsive local growth in a country like Italy. On the contrary, the idea that moved us was the theoretical dissatisfaction with the way in which the phenomenon of local development and industrial clustering of specific industries was treated in the international approach of the various disciplines.

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List of Contributors. Preface. Part I: Towards a conceptualisation of the industrial district model. 1. From the industrial district to the districtualisation of production activity: some considerations; G. Becattini. 2. Local development in a post-Fordist growth regime; P. Petit. 3. The theory of geographical agglomeration - minimum requirements and a knowledge-based suggestion; P. Maskell. Part II: The generation and acquisition of knowledge: the cognitive approach to the industrial district model. 4. The Industrial District (ID) as a cognitive system; E. Rullani. 5. Why do ICT technologies and the Internet find it hard to spread into industrial districts and favour knowledge exchange? G. Gottardi. 6. Cognitive models, efficiency, and discontinuities in the evolution of Industrial Districts and Local Production Systems; M. Lombardi. 7. Knowledge creation and codification in Italian Industrial Districts; F. Belussi, L. Pilotti. 8. Cognitive economies and the 'nature of the district'; M. Turvani. 9. Paths of local learning and change in vital industrial districts; M. Bellandi. 10. Social identity and identification processes: enriching the theoretical tools to study Industrial Districts; L. Biggiero, A. Sammarra. 11. The industrial district and the 'new' Italian economic geography; F. Sforzi. 12. Behavioural rules in industrial districts: loyalty, trust, and reputation; M. Mistri, S. Solari. Part III: The new design of evolutionary industrial districts: some case studies. 13. Italian industrial districts: performance and evolution; I. Paniccia. 14. Is a district possible in the car industry? The case of the Turin area; R. Bianchi, A. Enrietti. 15. The generation of contextual knowledge through communication processes. The case of the packaging machinery industry in the Bologna district; F. Belussi. 16. The biomedical valley: structural, relational and cognitive aspects; L. Biggiero, A. Sammarra. 17. Sophia-Antipolis is a technopolis phenomenon: is myth becoming reality? M. Quéré. 18. An ecology based interpretation of district 'complexification': the Prato district evolution from 1946 to 1993; L. Lazzeretti, D. Storai. 19. New forms of knowledge creation and diffusion in the industrial district of the provinces of Matera-Bari; V. Albino, G. Schiuma. 20. The chair manufacturing district of Manzano: evolutionary processes and the role of the institutions; R. Grandinetti. 21. The role of academic spin-offs in connecting local knowledge; G. Capaldo, L. Iandoli, M. Raffa, G. Zollo. Index.