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Old and New Forms of Clustering and Production Networks in Changing Technological Regimes

Contrasting Evidence from Taiwan and Italy

Paolo Guerrieri is Director of the Centre of International Economics (CIDEI) and Professor of Economics, Department of Public Economics, University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, Via del Castro Laurenziano, 9 I-00161, Roma, Italy Tel: +39-06-4976-6345, E-mail: paolo.guerrieri{at}uniromal.it

Carlo Pietrobelli

Professor Carlo Pietrobelli is Professor of International Economics and Director of the Research Centre on the Economics of Institutions (CREI), at the University of Rome 3, Department of Law and Economics, Via Ostiense 161, 00154, Rome, Italy, Phone: +39-06-4402547 or +39-06-57067476, Fax +39-06-57067511, Email: c.pietrobelli{at}uniroma3.it; www.pietrobelli.tk

The selected evidence discussed in this paper suggests three interrelated propositions. First, there is no one best model for organising an industrial district or an industrial cluster, since a diversity of institutional arrangements is possible and each has proved successful in different circumstances. Second, clusters are not cast in iron, but they evolve over time. Third, globalisation reshapes the upgrading options for SME-based clusters, by providing a variety of international knowledge linkages. In a nutshell, globalisation changes both the concept of proximity and the scope of competition: a necessary prerequisite for competitive survival is the capacity to foster the co-evolution of local and global linkages and networks, and to develop new interactive modes of knowledge creation. This paper presents original evidence on Taiwanese and Italian SME-based clusters. A key explanation of the success of SMEs competing in globalised high-tech industries, supported by our survey evidence, is the co-evolution of domestic and international knowledge linkages.

Science Technology & Society, Vol. 11, No. 1, 9-38 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/097172180501100102


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