Clusters, Adaptation and Extroversion

Over recent decades, clusters like industrial districts have increasingly attracted attention in economic debate. The study of clusters, particularly in the Italian literature, highlights the inadequacy of the mainstream body of explanation to provide a theory of the emergence and transformation over time of these clusters. Evolutionary theory seems to provide an adequate framework for the study of clusters. The paper applies an evolutionary perspective to the study of clusters by analysing an empirical case-study on the accordion cluster of Marche (Italy). The study of development of this cluster as an evolutionary self-organizing process will be proposed. The main concern of the paper is to highlight how the cluster analysed undertook the structural transformation which led its production from a very traditional style of manufacture to a technologically intensive one. The focus will be on the degree of continuity and complementarity between the capabilities, skills and knowledge accumulated or the trajectory exploited within the cluster over time and the new trajectory explored. By doing so, the paper analyses a particular transformation phase of the cluster under observation, that is the phase which led the cluster to a transformation in the composition of its production activity. Across this phase the paper identifies some key actors whose presence affected the possibility for the cluster to undertake the transformation. The relevance of these actors is related to their role within the internal production chain as well as to their external networking.

[1]  Ernst Helmstädter,et al.  The economics of knowledge sharing :a new institutional approach , 2003 .

[2]  W. Diebold,et al.  The Borderless World , 1990 .

[3]  Frances Cairncross.  The death of distance : how the communications revolution will change our lives , 1997 .

[4]  H. Simon,et al.  Rationality in Psychology and Economics , 1986 .

[5]  Ulrich Witt,et al.  Changing cognitive frames - changing organizational forms: an entrepreneurial theory of organizational development , 2000 .

[6]  Edward J. Malecki,et al.  Making Connections: Technological Learning and Regional Economic Change , 1999 .

[7]  Sergio Conti,et al.  The Industrial Enterprise and Its Environment: Spatial Perspectives , 1995 .

[8]  Franco Malerba,et al.  Knowledge, innovative activities and industrial evolution , 2000 .

[9]  Salvatore Rizzello.  The economics of the mind , 1999 .

[10]  P. David.  Clio and the Economics of QWERTY , 1985 .

[11]  M. Feldman,et al.  R&D spillovers and the ge-ography of innovation and production , 1996 .

[12]  Werner Sengenberger,et al.  Industrial districts and local economic regeneration , 1993 .

[13]  Mark S. Granovetter.  The Strength of Weak Ties , 1973, American Journal of Sociology.

[14]  Ash Amin,et al.  Beyond market and hierarchy : interactive governance and social complexity , 1997 .

[15]  Rui Baptista,et al.  Do innovations diffuse faster within geographical clusters , 2000 .

[16]  J. Foster.  The analytical foundations of evolutionary economics: From biological analogy to economic self-organization , 1997 .

[17]  B. Kogut,et al.  The Exploration of Technological Diversity and the Geographic Localization of Innovation , 1997 .

[18]  J. Metcalfe.  Evolutionary Economics and Creative Destruction , 2002 .

[19]  Cristiano Antonelli,et al.  The Microeconomics of Technological Systems , 2001 .

[20]  Gianni Lorenzoni,et al.  The firms that feed industrial districts: A return to the Italian source , 1999 .

[21]  G. Dosi,et al.  Technical Change and Economic Theory , 1989 .

[22]  AnnaLee Saxenian,et al.  The Silicon Valley-Hsinchu Connection: Technical Communities and Industrial Upgrading , 2001 .

[23]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON LEARNING AND INNOVATION , 1990 .

[24]  Roberta Rabellotti,et al.  The Internal Heterogeneity of Industrial Districts in Italy, Brazil and Mexico , 1999 .

[25]  Ash Amin,et al.  Globalization, Institutions, and Regional Development in Europe , 1995 .

[26]  Masahisa Fujita,et al.  ON THE SELF-ORGANIZATION AND EVOLUTION OF ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY† , 1996 .

[27]  A. Malmberg,et al.  The Elusive Concept of Localization Economies: Towards a Knowledge-Based Theory of Spatial Clustering , 2002 .

[28]  Thomas Brenner,et al.  Cooperation, Networks and Institutions in Regional Innovation Systems , 2003 .

[29]  Paula E. Stephan,et al.  Company-Scientist Locational Links: The Case of Biotechnology , 1996 .

[30]  John R. Anderson.  Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications , 1980 .

[31]  John R. Anderson.  The Architecture of Cognition , 1983 .

[32]  Jean Tirole,et al.  The theory of the firm , 1989 .

[33]  S. Winter,et al.  An evolutionary theory of economic change , 1983 .

[34]  Sean Digiovanna.  Industrial Districts and Regional Economic Development: A Regulation Approach∗ , 1996 .

[35]  Jean-Michel Dalle,et al.  Marshallian Externalities And The Emergence And Spatial Stability Of Technological Enclaves , 1998 .

[36]  John Foster,et al.  Detecting self-organisational change in economic processes exhibiting logistic growth , 1999 .

[37]  G. Becattini,et al.  Industrial districts and inter-firm co-operation in Italy , 1990 .

[38]  Peter Maskell,et al.  The Industrial Dynamics of the New Digital Economy , 2003 .

[39]  Ulrich Witt,et al.  "Lock-in" vs. "critical masses" -- Industrial change under network externalities , 1997 .

[40]  U. Witt.  Self-organization and economics—what is new? , 1997 .

[41]  Roberto Camagni,et al.  Innovation Networks , 1991 .

[42]  H. Simon,et al.  Theories of Decision-Making in Economics and Behavioural Science , 1966 .

[43]  Maryann P. Feldman,et al.  The Geographic Sources of Innovation: Technological Infrastructure and Product Innovation in the United States , 1994 .

[44]  Roderick Martin,et al.  Technology, globalization and economic performance , 1997 .

[45]  John Foster,et al.  Frontiers of Evolutionary Economics: Competition, Self-Organization and Innovation Policy , 2001 .

[46]  Brian J. Loasby,et al.  Time, knowledge and evolutionary dynamics: why connections matter , 2001 .

[47]  Harvey Molotch,et al.  The Regional World , 1998 .

[48]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  Innovation and Learning: The Two Faces of R&D , 1989 .

[49]  R. Boschma,et al.  Evolutionary economics and economic geography , 1999 .

[50]  Gernot Grabher.  The embedded firm : on the socioeconomics of industrial networks , 1995 .

[51]  Maryann P. Feldman.  The geography of innovation , 1994 .