What is Horizontal Networks

This chapter analyses the leather goods and leather wear conglomerate of Quisapincha, Province of Tunguragua (Ecuador), in order to establish its contribution to the socio-economic development of the territory and determine whether it can be considered an industrial district in the Marshallian-Becattinian sense, represented by Prato. The main results of the qualitative analysis show that the Quisapincha conglomerate is still in a state of embryonic development of the district model, where there is no industrial atmosphere that allows for collective efficiency. The formation of micro-networks among some of its companies, which could potentially generate a district effect as in the case of Prato, clashes with an almost absent panorama of subcontracting initiatives and adequate institutional support. The economic decline evidenced in recent years could be reversed by encouraging vertical and horizontal integration processes between companies with a potential coordinating agent (the Italian ‘Impannatore'), represented by the firm Curtiembre Quisapincha.