Economic Performance, Inter-Firm Relations and Local Institutional Engineering in a Computational Prototype of Industrial Districts

Industrial districts can be conceived as complex systems characterized by a network of interactions among heterogeneous, localized, functionally integrated, & complementary firms. In a previous paper, we have introduced an industrial district computational prototype, showing that the economic pe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of artificial societies and social simulation 2002-01, Vol.5 (1)
Main Authors: Squazzoni, Flaminio, Boero, Riccardo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Districts
Industrial Enterprises
Industry
Interorganizational Relations
Organizational Effectiveness
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Industrial districts can be conceived as complex systems characterized by a network of interactions among heterogeneous, localized, functionally integrated, & complementary firms. In a previous paper, we have introduced an industrial district computational prototype, showing that the economic performance of an industrial district proceeds to the form through which firms interact & coordinate each other. In this paper, we use such computational framework to experiment different options of "local institutional engineering," trying to understand how specific "supporting institutions" could perform macro-collective activities, such as, ie, technology research, transfer & information, improving the technological adaptation of firms. Is a district more than a simple aggregation of localized firms? What can explain the economic performance of firms localized into the same space? Could some options of "local institutional engineering" improve the performance of a district? Could such options set aside the problem of how firms dynamically interact? These are questions explored in this paper. 13 Figures, 71 References. Adapted from the source document.
ISSN:1460-7425
1460-7425