Local Development and Competitiveness

by Conti, Sergio; Giaccaria, Paolo

• ISBN13: 9780792368298
• ISBN10: 0792368290
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-04-01
• Publisher: Kluwer Academic Pub

Summary

In recent years, the contemporary social sciences have again turned their attention to space and places. The hypothesis is that these are not accidental episodes but a full-blown revolution in the way of viewing economic processes and their links with social and cultural structures. In other words, this new sensitivity to places offers the possibility of rethinking issues typical of economics in a different perspective that might be defined as local development, one of the terms most (ab)used in the contemporary scientific and political debate. In this book the authors will thus try to support more strongly, although in a necessarily simplified manner, the possibility of constructing a theory of local development. The key idea is that there is no single development model operating at a given time and valid for all places, but that it is more correct to talk of multiple development paths that co-exist in the same place at the same time (multiplicity of development paths). The central point is not to identify the succession of distinct hegemonic models (Fordism versus post-Fordism, mass production versus lean production and so on), but to show how the complexity of the contemporary economy demands new concepts to explain its apparent contradictions. In the authors' view, the conception of a theory of local development implies radical rethinking in institutionalist terms of the way of viewing the economy and production, recognising that behind economic development lies a wealth of institutional assets that make the encounter between local and global more open and varied than ever before (institutional biodiversity).

Table of Contents

Illustrations	vii
Preface	ix
PART ONE
Space and technological dynamics	3	(32)
Premise	3	(1)
The illusions of modernity	3	(2)
Technological innovation and evolutionary capitalism	5	(5)
The liner model of the diffusion of technology	10	(3)
Social regulation and the flexible organisation of production	13	(6)
New technologies and location factors	19	(3)
Systems, networks and environment	22	(8)
Communication dynamics	30	(3)
Conclusions	33	(2)
Enterprise organisation, hierarchies, networks and competitive environments	35	(30)
Premise	35	(1)
Hierarchical organisation	36	(9)
The firm as an open system	45	(5)
Strategic action and competitive environments	50	(4)
From hierarchies to networks	54	(8)
Conclusions	62	(3)
The plural economy	65	(24)
Premise	65	(2)
The origins of industrial dualism	67	(1)
The small enterprise in the contemporary economy	68	(5)
Theoretical syncretism	73	(11)
The local synthesis: a geographical revenge	84	(3)
Conclusions	87	(2)
Regional development and policies. The legacy of functionalism	89	(18)
Premise	89	(1)
Economic development and regional imbalances	89	(6)
Functionalism and functional systems	95	(3)
Growth and functional integration	98	(4)
The world of tradition and the discovery of novelities	102	(3)
Conclusions	105	(2)
The language of systems	107	(26)
Premise	107	(1)
Visions and strategies of an alternative development	107	(6)
The systemic approach	113	(6)
The region as a complex system	119	(6)
Two levels of the system	125	(2)
Conclusions	127	(6)
PART TWO
Competitiveness and development: from enterprise to place	133	(24)
Premise	133	(1)
Company competitiveness: a starting point	133	(2)
From internal relations to external relations	135	(8)
The cluster as the subject of economic activity: external economies and joint action	143	(3)
Territory and economic agency	146	(3)
Economic development and local development	149	(4)
Conclusions	153	(4)
Time, scales and local systems. Theoretical foundations	157	(30)
Premise	157	(1)
Individual, society and local system	157	(2)
The simplification of reality: abstract relational spaces, periods and scales	159	(3)
The end of certainties	162	(5)
The local scale and the complexity of reality	167	(7)
Scale and system: the identification of the local system	174	(2)
Scale, system, competitiveness and development	176	(7)
Conclusions	183	(4)
The relational economy: networks, space and knowledge	187	(30)
Premise	187	(1)
Identity, organisation and structure: the local road to development	187	(3)
The local value production system	190	(5)
The organisation of production networks	195	(6)
Interpreting the local in the global	201	(7)
The learning economy	208	(5)
Conclusions	213	(4)
The local value production system: empirical evidence	217	(28)
Premise	217	(1)
Spatial strategies and re-organisational strategies	218	(2)
The eighties: the great rationalisation	220	(5)
In search of a new image of Turin's industry	225	(2)
The survey	227	(8)
Post-Fordist Mesosystem and Local Value Production System: a new dualism	235	(6)
Conclusions	241	(4)
CONCLUSIONS
A story still to be told	245	(10)
What is local development?	245	(2)
Questions open	247	(8)
Bibliography	255	(18)
Index	273