Oligarchic place leadership and resistance to change in industrial districts

Marco Bellandi, Monica Plechero () and Erica Santini

Working Papers - Economics from Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa

Abstract: The capability of local productive systems to react positively to disruptive challenges, entering new paths of development, depends on the presence of supportive local institutions, organizations and actors. A quite recent literature points out the key support given to path transformation by sets of local actors expressing a place leadership (PL). With a focus on industrial districts (IDs), characterized by a manufacturing specialization and a decentralized business organization based on SMEs, the paper aims at exploring conditions of a PL resisting change. We develop a conceptual frame that enables the identification of three different types of PL: open PL, corporate PL, and oligarchic PL. Specifically, oligarchic PL allows to reflect on models of developments and structural conditions where changes to meet disruptive challenges could be intentionally obstructed. In this regard, the paper provides some considerations and examples on how a model deviating from the canonical ID of local development and expressing an oligarchic PL could drive local productive systems through lock-in conditions.

Keywords: Industrial District; Place Leadership; Lock-in Conditions; ID’ Life Cycle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L60 O14 O30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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