Recent Research: Are Leading Firms Team Players?

Large industrial or technology firms are often sought by economic development recruiters to serve as anchors for cluster development. Once an anchor is attracted, policymakers often nurture local industrial districts as ways to promote transmission of technical know-how and deepen industrial relationships. Does the strategy work?

Not always, according to a recent working paper by Andrea Morrison of Universita del Piemonte Orientale, Gatekeepers of Knowledge within Industrial Districts: Who They Are, How They Interact.

Based on interviews with two leading firms in the Italian furniture district of Murge, Morrison concludes that employees and executives with two top firms glean significant technical knowledge from research groups within the area’s science parks, regional universities, and service centers. However, individuals within these companies do not share this knowledge widely with firms within the industrial district, Morrison finds. Only a handful of clients and suppliers gain from the compiled external knowledge of these industry leaders.

Morrison uses the data from interviews and a handful of surveys to construct a network analysis. She identifies a few key individuals, or gatekeepers, of knowledge flow and traces the flow of external knowledge into and out of these gatekeepers.

Morrison cautions policymakers about supporting programs focused on individual leaders as “engines of growth.” Leaders with the strongest external networks may bring the best suppliers and subcontractors within their own production chain rather than sharing their know-how with other firms within the industrial district. These leaders may run the most efficient companies and supply chains, but they do not contribute significantly to a more competitive industrial district.

Gatekeepers of Knowledge within Industrial Districts: Who They Are, How They Interact is available at:

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cri:cespri:wp163&r=all