Presentazione di PowerPoint

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THE EMERGENCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF AN ITALIAN
INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT THE CASE OF PRATO Gabi Dei
Ottati University of Firenze and Polo
Universitario of Prato IDELE Seminar Bologna, 27
April 2006
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Industrial Districts Defined

• Active coexistence open community of people and a
  population of firms in a locality
• A cluster specialised SMEs in a particular
  production process
• Community of people and formal and informal
  institutions are the key

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History

• Began in Italy in 1960 in Third Italy
• Economists notice and discuss in the 1970s why
  so many successful small firms
• Debates in the 1980s
• Captured by Michael Porter in the 1990s
• A lesson for the IDELE process!

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Industrial Districts

• Competitiveness from creativity and flexibility
• Flexibility and creativity comes from social
  integration of key players
• Principal actors
• Workers, sub-contractors, employers
• The idea of social pact

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EMERGENCE OF THE PRATO INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT
From imperfect fordism to industrial district
(1945 1952)

• The making of millions 1945-47
• high domestic and foreign demand of textiles
• proliferation of SME specialized either in
  manufacturing or trading
• Recovery of vertically integrated wool mills
• Vertically integrated mills crisis 1948-52
• Closure of Prato foreign markets
  (S.Africa,India), end of state orders
• Dismissals and diffusion of self employment
• Collective action
• Prato committee and general commitment to our
  industry
• Weavers trade union and fair competition in
  local markets

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GREAT DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT
(1953-1082)

• High foreign (Europe, USA) and domestic demand
• changing and differentiated demand for
  textiles
• Increasing division of labour between district
  firms
• outburst of entrepreneurship, multiplication of
  specialised.SME
• localised external economies of specialization,
  learning and creativity
• Flexible integration of localised division of
  labour
• local markets for specialised inputs and relative
  competitive prices
• informal (implicit rules of behaviour) and
  formal (business
• associations, local government,technical
  school) district institutions
• Collective action sustaining local development
• Concerted action to reproduce the district
  milieu
• Local collective bargaining of employment and
  supplier relations
• Production of local collective goods for firms
  and families (roads, industrial areas,
  centralised purification plants, social services,
  )

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TEXTILE DISTRICT OF PRATO 1951-1981 13
Municipalities
Years 1951 1961
1971 1981 Textile Firms
830 7.601 10.695 14.689
Italy 2.1 17.1
21.7 24.5 Text. Workers
21,572 41,590 49,969 61,119
Italy 3.3 6.9
9.2 12.3 Population
172,470 212,119 264,237
303,539 Textile Exports Billion constant lire
105 217 409

23 Italy
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RESTRUCTURING AND RECOVERY IN THE 80s 90s From
the woollen district to the fashion district
(1983-2001)

• Responses to drop in woollen demand and
  globalisation
• Product differentiation and quality upgrading in
  textiles
• Development of subsidiary industries and
  services
• Changes in the division of labour inside-outside
  district
• Reduction of firms in standard
  processes/products and focus on activities with
  higher value added
• Outsourcing outside district of standard
  components, new inputs
• Outburst of firms in clothing (new chinese
  immigrants)
• Changes in business relations
• formation of teams and groups of enterprises
• from quasi automatic integration to a more
  conscious coordination

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Prato industrial district 1991 2001 (12
Municipalities)
Prato TC Exports 1,534 Million (1995)
2,005 Million (2004)
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LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE PRATO CASE

• The emergence of an industrial district is
  neither planned,
• nor spontaneous and it requires some specific
  local factors
• some agglomeration of SME and production
  knowledge
• diffused work culture, selfhelp and mutual help
• collective action (conscious governance) to
  sustain the start up and regular functioning of
  district vital processes localized division of
  labour and its integration, lerning and
  innovation.

Consequently, appropriate policies can help the
formation of industial distrcts in areas having
a minimum of pre-requisites