IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/esg/wpierm/0903.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Industrial district effects and innovation in the Tuscan shipbuilding industry

Author

Listed:
  • Luciana Lazzeretti

    (Department of Bussines Economics, University of Florence)

  • Francesco Capone

    (Department of Bussines Economics, University of Florence)

Abstract

The aim of the present work is to investigate innovative processes within a geographical cluster, and thus contribute to the debate on the effects of industrial clusters on innovation capacity. In particular, we would like to ascertain whether the advantages of industrial districts in promoting innovation, as already revealed by literature (diffusion of knowledge, social capital and trust, efficient networking), are also keys to success in the Tuscan shipbuilding industry of pleasure and sporting boats. First, we verify the existence of clusters of shipbuilding in Tuscany, using a specific methodology. Next, in the identified clusters, we analyse three innovative networks financed in a policy to support innovation, and examine whether the typical features of a cluster for promoting innovation are at work, using a questionnaire administered to 71 actors. Finally, we develop a performance analysis of the cluster firms and ascertain whether their different behaviours also lead to different performances. The analysis results show that our case records effects of industrial clustering on innovation capacity, such as the important role given to trust and social capital, the significant worth put in interfirm relations and in each partner’s specific competencies, or even the distinctive performance of firms belonging to a cluster.

Suggested Citation

  • Luciana Lazzeretti & Francesco Capone, 2009. "Industrial district effects and innovation in the Tuscan shipbuilding industry," Institut Metròpoli Working Paper in economics 0903, Institut Metròpoli.
    • Handle: RePEc:esg:wpierm:0903
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://iermb.uab.es/RePEc/doc/wpierm0903.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2009
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lorenz, Edward, 1999. "Trust, Contract and Economic Cooperation," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 23(3), pages 301-315, May.
    2. Richard Blundel & Michael Thatcher, 2005. "Contrasting local responses to globalization: the case of volume yacht manufacturing in Europe," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(6), pages 405-429, November.
    3. Francesco Capone & Rafael Boix, 2008. "Sources of growth and competitiveness of local tourist production systems: an application to Italy (1991–2001)," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 42(1), pages 209-224, March.
    4. Lisa De Propris, 2005. "Mapping local production systems in the UK: Methodology and application," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(2), pages 197-211.
    5. P. W. de Langen, 2002. "Clustering and performance: the case of maritime clustering in The Netherlands," Maritime Policy & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 209-221.
    6. Asheim, Bjorn T & Isaksen, Arne, 2002. "Regional Innovation Systems: The Integration of Local 'Sticky' and Global 'Ubiquitous' Knowledge," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 77-86, January.
    7. Edward L. Glaeser & Glenn Ellison, 1999. "The Geographic Concentration of Industry: Does Natural Advantage Explain Agglomeration?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 311-316, May.
    8. Marco Bellandi, 1992. "The incentives to decentralized industrial creativity in local Systems of small firms," Revue d'Économie Industrielle, Programme National Persée, vol. 59(1), pages 99-110.
    9. Audretsch, David B & Feldman, Maryann P, 1996. "R&D Spillovers and the Geography of Innovation and Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 630-640, June.
    10. Cooke, Philip, 2001. "Regional Innovation Systems, Clusters, and the Knowledge Economy," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 10(4), pages 945-974, December.
    11. Leonardo Becchetti & Andrea De Panizza & Filippo Oropallo, 2007. "Role of Industrial District Externalities in Export and Value-added Performance: Evidence from the Population of Italian Firms," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(5), pages 601-621.
    12. Donna Marie DeCarolis & David L. Deeds, 1999. "The impact of stocks and flows of organizational knowledge on firm performance: an empirical investigation of the biotechnology industry," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(10), pages 953-968, October.
    13. Alessandro Muscio, 2006. "Patterns of Innovation in Industrial Districts: An Empirical Analysis," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 291-312.
    14. Geoffrey G. Bell, 2005. "Clusters, networks, and firm innovativeness," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 287-295, March.
    15. Edward Lorenz, 1988. "Neither Friends nor Strangers," Post-Print halshs-00483728, HAL.
    16. Rafael Boix & Vittorio Galleto, 2005. "Sistemas Locales de Trabajo y Distritos Industriales Marshallianos en España," Working Papers wpdea0514, Department of Applied Economics at Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona.
    17. Cristina Boari & Andrea Lipparini, 1999. "Networks within Industrial Districts: Organising Knowledge Creation and Transfer by Means of Moderate Hierarchies," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 3(4), pages 339-360, December.
    18. Bennett Harrison, 2007. "Industrial Districts: Old Wine in New Bottles? (Volume 26, Number 5, 1992)," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(sup1), pages 107-121.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. J. Francisco Rangel-Preciado & Francisco M. Parejo-Moruno & Esteban Cruz-Hidalgo & Francisco J. Castellano-Álvarez, 2021. "Rural Districts and Business Agglomerations in Low-Density Business Environments. The Case of Extremadura (Spain)," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-18, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fiorenza Belussi & Silvia R. Sedita, 2012. "Industrial Districts as Open Learning Systems: Combining Emergent and Deliberate Knowledge Structures," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(2), pages 165-184, April.
    2. Brache, Jose & Felzensztein, Christian, 2019. "Geographical co-location on Chilean SME's export performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 310-321.
    3. Rafael Boix & Joan Trullén, 2009. "Industrial Districts, Innovation and I-district Effect: Territory or Industrial Specialization?," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(10), pages 1707-1729, February.
    4. Ron Boschma & Anne L. J. ter Wal, 2007. "Knowledge Networks and Innovative Performance in an Industrial District: The Case of a Footwear District in the South of Italy," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(2), pages 177-199.
    5. Javier Martínez-del-Río & José Céspedes-Lorente, 2014. "Competitiveness and Legitimation: The Logic of Companies going Green in Geographical Clusters," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 120(1), pages 131-146, March.
    6. María José Ruiz-Ortega & Gloria Parra-Requena & Pedro Manuel García-Villaverde, 2016. "Do Territorial Agglomerations Still Provide Competitive Advantages? A Study of Social Capital, Innovation, and Knowledge," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 39(3), pages 259-290, July.
    7. Jofre-Monseny, Jordi & Marín-López, Raquel & Viladecans-Marsal, Elisabet, 2011. "The mechanisms of agglomeration: Evidence from the effect of inter-industry relations on the location of new firms," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 61-74.
    8. Camisón, César & Forés, Beatriz, 2011. "Knowledge creation and absorptive capacity: The effect of intra-district shared competences," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 66-86, March.
    9. Grillitsch, Markus & Nilsson , Magnus, 2013. "Technological competencies and firm performance: Analyzing the importance of internal and external competencies," Papers in Innovation Studies 2013/24, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    10. Wonsang Ryu & Thomas H. Brush & Joonhyung Bae, 2023. "How agglomeration affects alliance governance and innovation performance: The role of cluster size," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(1), pages 297-310, January.
    11. Rosenfeld, Martin T. W. & Hornych, Christoph, 2021. "Wie vernetzt sind die privaten Firmen in Mitteldeutschland? Räumliche Muster der Kooperation im Rahmen "Formeller Unternehmensnetzwerke" (FUN)," Arbeitsberichte der ARL: Aufsätze, in: Rosenfeld, Martin T. W. & Stefansky, Andreas (ed.), "Metropolregion Mitteldeutschland" aus raumwissenschaftlicher Sicht, volume 30, pages 96-126, ARL – Akademie für Raumentwicklung in der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.
    12. Hamidi, Shima & Zandiatashbar, Ahoura & Bonakdar, Ahmad, 2019. "The relationship between regional compactness and regional innovation capacity (RIC): Empirical evidence from a national study," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 394-402.
    13. Rakas, Marija & Hain, Daniel S., 2019. "The state of innovation system research: What happens beneath the surface?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
    14. Muscio, Alessandro & Quaglione, Davide & Scarpinato, Michele, 2012. "The effects of universities' proximity to industrial districts on university–industry collaboration," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 639-650.
    15. Grillitsch, Markus, 2014. "Institutional Change and Economic Evolution in Regions," Papers in Innovation Studies 2014/1, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    16. Ana Paula Faria & Natália Barbosa & Vasco Eiriz, 2013. "Firms’ innovation across regions: an exploratory study," NIPE Working Papers 12/2013, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    17. Markus Grillitsch, 2014. "Regional Transformation: Institutional Change and Economic Evolution in Regions," ERSA conference papers ersa14p1481, European Regional Science Association.
    18. Ana Paula Faria & Natália Barbosa & Vasco Eiriz, 2015. "Firm Innovation and Co-Location in Portugal," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(4), pages 574-592, December.
    19. Chaminade, Cristina, 2012. "Exploring the role of regional innovation systems and institutions in global innovation networks," Papers in Innovation Studies 2011/15, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    20. Basant, Rakesh & Chandra, Pankaj & Upadhyayula, Rajesh, 2011. "Knowledge Flows and Capability Building in the Indian IT Sector: A Comparative Analysis of Cluster and Non-Cluster Locations," IIMA Working Papers WP2011-10-02, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    geographical clusters; industrial districts; innovation; technological transfer; shipbuilding industry;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
    • L62 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Automobiles; Other Transportation Equipment; Related Parts and Equipment

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:esg:wpierm:0903. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Vittorio Galleto (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iesrmes.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.