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Industrial Districts (industrial + district)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	100%

Selected Abstracts

Tracing business and environmental effects of environmental management systems,a study of networking small and medium-sized enterprises using a joint environmental management system

BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Issue 3 2003
Jonas Ammenberg
In Hackefors Industrial District in Sweden, 26 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have formed an environmental network and implemented a joint environmental management system (EMS) according to ISO 14001. Based on interviews with the environmental co-ordinators at these enterprises, the effects on business and environmental efforts and impacts are analysed. It can be concluded that the joint EMS has resulted in better relations with important stakeholders, such as existing and potential customers. For example, three-fifths said that their EMS had made it easier to receive a contract for the sale of products and services. Several environmental improvements have been observed and are presented in the paper, many of which are considered as consequences of the EMSs. Moreover, based on observations during the study, this paper discusses how boundaries and screening affect the connection between EMSs and environmental performance. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment [source]

Spatial Agglomeration, Technological Innovations, and Firm Productivity: Evidence from Italian Industrial Districts

GROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 3 2008
GIULIO CAINELLI
ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact on firms' productivity of innovative activities and agglomeration effects among firms belonging to Marshallian industrial districts and the possible joint effect of these two forces. We study a sample of 2,821 firms active in the Italian manufacturing industry in the period 1992,1995. Our analysis uses an original data set based on three different Istituto Nazionale di Statistica statistical sources,Community Innovation Survey, Archivio Statistico delle Imprese Attive (Italian Business Register), and Sistema dei Conti delle Imprese (Italian Structural Business Statistics),to estimate an "augmented" Cobb-Douglas production function to account for the impact of technological innovations and district-specific agglomeration effects on a firm's productivity growth. Our data set allows us to distinguish between product and process innovations, thus, through econometric analysis, we hope to achieve a better understanding of which of these two types of innovative activities benefits most from participation in an industrial district. Our empirical results show that belonging to an industrial district and making product innovations are key factors in the productivity growth of firms and that product innovations appear to have a greater effect on the economic performance of district rather than non-district firms. [source]

Knowledge, Market Structure, and Economic Coordination: Dynamics of Industrial Districts

GROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 3 2002
Ron A. Boschma
The industrial rise of the Third Italy has been characterized by the growth of dynamic networks of flexible small and medium,sized enterprises (SMEs) that are spatially concentrated in specialized industrial districts. This network type of coordination has been associated with horizontal, trust,based relations rather than vertical relations of power and dependency between local organizations. This would lower transaction costs (essential for local systems with an extreme division of labor), facilitate the transmission and exchange of (tacit) knowledge (and thus, learning and innovation), encourage cooperation mechanisms (such as the establishment of research centers), and stimulate political,institutional performance (e.g. through regulation of potential social conflicts). From an evolutionary perspective, the focus is on the dynamics of industrial districts drawing from current experiences in Italy. In this respect, this paper concentrates on two main features of industrial districts that have largely contributed to their economic success in the past, that is, their network organization and the collective learning process. The evolution of industrial districts is described in terms of organizational adjustments to structural change. The way in which the size distribution of firms has changed is discussed (in particular the role of large companies), how the (power) relationships between local organizations have evolved, what are the current sources and mechanisms of learning, and to what extent institutional lock,in has set in. Finally, a number of trajectories districts may go through in the near future are presented. [source]

Spatial Agglomeration, Technological Innovations, and Firm Productivity: Evidence from Italian Industrial Districts

Local discourse and global competition: production experiences in family workshops of the Brianza

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 4 2003
Simone Ghezzi
One of the most important consequences of post-Fordist global restructuring has been the ,deterritorialization' of capital and its increasing geographic expansion. Another and quite different view emphasizes the fact that capitalist activity can be organized by means of localized or territorially based systems of specialized production. In this article my purpose is to show how these two disciplinary discourses are actually not mutually exclusive. Developed local economies are not immune from concerns of deterritorialization, nor should their economic achievement gloss over the glitches that are emerging at the local level due to stiffer global competition. These two aspects become immediately apparent as I illustrate the local discourse that emerges among workshop owners within an industrial district of the Brianza in the Italian region of Lombardy. After a discussion about the origin and the characteristics of this regional economy, I illustrate by way of ethnographic examples how innovation and competitiveness within and outside this industrial district mask forms of exploitation and contradictions amidst family-run workshops. In discursive terms, exploitation is articulated in various ways, but two in particular seem to be most recurrent in the narrative of small entrepreneurs of this region. One is the ideology of ,hard work' and the other, more recently heard of, is the ideology of ,high quality product'. In the brief concluding section I will stress the point that these two discourses emerging from exploitative social relations of production are to be viewed as responses to the concerns regarding the possible deterritorialization of some factories and the increasing competition with crossboundary markets. L'une des plus importantes conséquences de la restructuration mondiale post-fordiste a été la ,déterritorialisation' du capital et son expansion géographique croissante. Une autre opinion, tout à fait différente, avance que l'activité capitaliste peut s'organiser grâce à des systèmes localisés,ou liés à un territoire,de production spécialisée. Cet article a pour but de démontrer que ces deux discours disciplinaires ne sont, en fait, pas mutuellement exclusifs. Les économies locales développées ne sont pas à l'abri de problémes de déterritorialisation, pas plus que leurs résultats économiques ne doivent dissimuler les complications locales qui naissent d'une concurrence mondiale plus dure. Ces deux aspects se dégagent immédiatement du discours local émanant d'artisans du district industriel italien de Brianza en Lombardie. Après avoir présenté l'origine et les caractéristiques de cette économie régionale, l'article illustre par des exemples éthnographiques les façons dont innovation et compétitivité internes et externes à ce district masquent des formes d'exploitation et des contradictions au sein d'entreprises familiales. Logiquement, l'exploitation s'articule de manières diverses, mais deux d'entre eles semblent revenir très souvent dans le récit des petits entrepreneurs locaux. L'une tient à l'idéologie du ,dur labeur' et l'autre, plus récente, à celle du ,produit de qualité supérieure'. Une courte conclusion souligne que ces deux discours issus de relations sociales d'exploitation industrielle doivent être considérés comme des réactions aux préoccupations liées à la déterritorialisation de certaines usines et à la concurrence accrue avec des marchés transfrontaliers. [source]

Bourdieu Off-Broadway: Managing Distinction on a Shopping Block in the East Village

CITY & COMMUNITY, Issue 2 2004
Sharon Zukin
The economic and social vitality of East Ninth Street, in the East Village of Lower Manhattan, testifies to the area's long-standing reputation for cutting-edge culture and the street's astounding high density of unusual stores. Like a regional industrial district, the block between First and Second Avenues works as a specialized agglomeration of small producers, who are dependent on both supportive local suppliers and populations and customers from abroad, and who are linked in networks of mutually beneficial relations. This concentration succeeds not only because of the aesthetic distinction managed by store and building owners, but also because of the cultural diversity sought by a local yet cosmopolitan clientele, the material diversity of the old buildings, and the sociability of old and new residents. Far from destroying a community by commercial gentrification, East Ninth Street suggests that a retail concentration of designer stores may be a territory of innovation in the urban economy, producing both a marketable and a sociable neighborhood node. [source]

Externalities, Learning and Governance: New Perspectives on Local Economic Development

DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 2 2001
Bert Helmsing
In spite of growing mobility of production and production factors, economic development is increasingly localized in economic agglomerations. This article reviews three partially overlapping perspectives on local economic development, which derive from three factors intensifying the localized nature of economic development: externalities, learning and governance. Externalities play a central role in the new geographical economics of Krugman and in new economic geography of clusters and industrial districts. The dynamics of local economic development are increasingly associated with evolutionary economic thinking in general and with collective learning in particular. Inter-firm and extra-firm organization has experienced considerable innovation in the last few decades. New institutional devices are based on the notions of commodity chain, cluster and milieu. These innovations introduce new issues of economic governance both at the level of industry and of territory. [source]

Spatial Agglomeration, Technological Innovations, and Firm Productivity: Evidence from Italian Industrial Districts

Knowledge, Market Structure, and Economic Coordination: Dynamics of Industrial Districts

Cultural Districts, Property Rights and Sustainable Economic Growth

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2002
Walter Santagata
The purpose of this article is to analyse the economic properties as well as the institutions governing the start-up and evolution of cultural districts. The first part of the article reviews the relationships between culture, viewed as an idiosyncratic good, and the theory of industrial districts. The second part comprises a critical discussion of four models of cultural districts: the industrial cultural district (mainly based on positive externalities, localized culture and traditions in ,arts and crafts'); the institutional cultural district (chiefly relying on the assignment of property rights); the museums cultural district (based on network externalities and the search for optimal size); and the metropolitan cultural district (based on communication technologies, performing arts and electronic trade). The assignment of intellectual property rights to local idiosyncratic cultural goods seems to be the most significant way to differentiate among cultural districts. The final section discusses a possible convergence of all district models towards the institutional district, based on the creation of a system of property rights as a means to protect localized production. Cet article tente d'analyser les propriétés économiques et les institutions qui régissent la création et l'évolution de districts culturels. La première partie étudie les relations entre la culture , vue comme un bien idiosyncrasique , et la théorie des districts industriels. La deuxième partie est un débat critique sur quatre modèles de districts culturels: le district culturel industriel (basé essentiellement sur des externalités positives, des cultures et traditions artisanales locales), le district culturel institutionnel (s'appuyant principalement sur l'attribution de droits de propriété), le district culturel des musées (fondé sur des effets d'entraînement en réseau et la recherche d'une taille optimale), et le district culturel métropolitain (basé sur les technologies de communication, des représentations artistiques et le commerce électronique). L'attribution de droits de propriété intellectuelle sur des biens culturels idiosyncrasiques locaux semble être la meilleure manière de différencier les districts culturels. La dernière partie de l'article examine une convergence possible de tous les modèles de district vers le district institutionnel, en s'appuyant sur la création d'un système de droits de propriété comme moyen de protection d'une production locale. [source]

Localised knowledge spillovers vs. innovative milieux: Knowledge "tacitness" reconsidered

PAPERS IN REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2001
Stefano Breschi
Innovative milieux; regional systems; nkowledge spillovers; externalities; industrial districts Abstract. This article provides a critical discussion of the recent econometric literature on "localised knowledge spillovers" and the related notion of tacit knowledge. The basic claim of the article is that the increasing, and more or less automatic reliance of industrial geographers upon such econometric evidence and theoretical concepts to support their work on industrial districts, hi-tech agglomerations and, more broadly, local innovation systems is not well placed and risks to generate conceptual confusion and to distort research agendas. Following some recent advances in the economics of knowledge, the article also suggests that more research efforts should instead be devoted to exploring how knowledge is actually transmitted, among whom, at what distance, and on the basis of which codebooks. [source]