Industrial clusters and globalization an open challenge
by Paola Govoni
CLEAN-TECH
Well-known Technologies
Emerging Technologies
Towards Clean-Tech
A true 'global' view was given by Prof. Michael Best who – as a 'field research economist' – visited plants and industrial clusters in different countries worldwide, in order to understand the dynamics of economic development and industrial competitive advantages, technological patterns and regional innovation systems, developing a 'capability and innovation' perspective on industrial growth and path.
Business models change from one place to the other and they are expected to fill the local conditions, requirements and attitudes. Different countries may identify strategic sectors (knowledge intensive industries, manufacturing industry, medical research, biotechnologies, intensive agriculture, tourism) where to invest in and attract foreign investments too.
Business models are changing all the time: High-Tech fuelled the development in the '80s and '90s on a world scale, ICT was a major driving force in the last decade and Clean-Tech is the future. In fact, in the light of some major 'inconvenient truths' of the world we live in (keywords: energy, food, climate, water) investments in clean technologies are overall increasing.
Speaking of economic governance models, Michael Best also outlined intractable sectors (energy, urban transportation, food, depletable resources) to economic mandarinates.
Small is beautiful?
Key issues linked to companies' size, the way they grow and compete were also examined at the workshop. According to prof. Giorgio Barba Navaretti, 'there are successful firms and unsuccessful ones and the characteristics of firms that successfully operate in the international market are remarkably similar across industries and countries'.
Global competition is increasingly taking place through the international fragmentation of production. Consequently, the traditional identification between 'industries' and 'competitive advantage' is blurred.
Successful firms show similarities, they grow fast and export more. Superstar exporting companies have many things and strategies in common, no matter which sector they belong.
'Small is beautiful' can be partly true, but the risk of this approach is to loose the idea to be part of a global development environment.
Three Italian case studies
Further key elements for discussion were provided by the presentation of three Italian case studies:
- the case of Italian automotive sector gives micro-evidence that the firms located in the province of Turin have a clear localisation advantage, a sort of an 'industrial district' effect, and that the individual firm's characteristics play a significant role.
- the case of Natuzzi and the Bari-Matera upholstered furniture industrial district focuses on the strategies adopted by the Natuzzi Group, world leader of the upholstery furniture sector located in the Bari-Matera district, to face the increasing global competition through a productive internationalisation carried out since 2000 in China, Brazil and Romania to produce middle-low end products. By improving the competitiveness of the price-sensitive segment, the strategy contributed to the successful expansion of the Goup until 2002. However, products for the high range, manufactured in Italy, record decreasing sales especially on the US market, despite the company's efforts in R&D, marketing and investments in information technology. Due to Natuzzi's considerable weight in the district, the Group's performance impacts on the subcontracting firms' network, where a restructuring process is underway, posing questions about the evolution of the district as a whole.
- the case of the household district of Jesi-Fabriano focuses on the internationalisation process and the strategies chosen by local enterprises to effectively approach far away markets and shows how the internationalisation approach is gradually modifying the organizational structure of the local production system and is having consequences on the relationships among players along the whole chain, as well as on the models of internal enterprise management.
Possible future strategies for the Jesi-Fabriano District
Source: CSIL processing of interviews to local players
