Title: Italian industrial districts: crisis or evolution?

Authors: Elio Iannuzzi; Massimiliano Berardi

Addresses: Department of Business Studies, Via Ponte Don Melillo, 84084 Fisciano (SA), Italy. ' Department of Business Studies, Via Ponte Don Melillo, 84084 Fisciano (SA), Italy

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 R&D, strategic planning, financing, marketing, etc.; 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.

Keywords: industrial districts; entrepreneurship; complexity; Italy; corporate governance; collective governance.

DOI: 10.1504/WREMSD.2012.044485

World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development, 2012 Vol.8 No.1, pp.23 - 36

Published online: 18 Sep 2014 *

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