Local Networks in Global Markets

Abstract

Competitiveness might be defined as the success with which firms and regions compete with one another over market shares and resources. Clusters are innovative, firm, organizational forms (networks of firms, services and institutions linked in a production value chain) in way to improve regional competitiveness in flexible, highly demanding and unpredictable markets. Since the early eighties, the “region” was rediscovered and a burgeoning literature from Californian, Italian and French scholars in sociology, economics and geography offered a wide range of perspectives on the relevance of the territory and the region to economic and social life.