Italian industrial districts: crisis or evolution?

Abstract

Since the 1980s, many Italian industrial districts have pointed out a loss of competitiveness, a slow down of growth and even a lack of resources, which were not entirely due to mere negative market business cycles. The research paper, after a brief introduction concerning the main features of Italian industrial districts, identifies the main reasons of crisis in: corporate governance – on one hand, entrepreneurs are too production-oriented with a short run perspective and undervalue the essential activities of RD on the other, most of Italian districts do not have a collective governance, able to plan, drive and organise the whole system; limited relationships with external systems; low technology and limited innovativeness of the industry sector; inadequate investments in R&D and scarcity of financial sources. Finally, it tries to suggest some measures to overcome the crisis and successfully deal with global competition.