|  |  :: CORPORATE ITALY :: INDUSTRIAL DISTRICTS :: |
.jpg)  Between cooperation and competition
The definition of industrial district can be applied to a local production system, which shows well-defined elements:- high concentration of industrial enterprises;
- medium-small dimension of typical enterprise;
- family oriented management;
- influence of local crafts tradition;
- strong productive specialisation;
- common territorial context.
Industrial districts gather great strength from the thick relations network (formal and informal) ina defined area; for example relationships between enterprise and local institutions, whether public or private (administration, banks, etc.), that are often facilitated precisely because of their closeness and “context shared”.
Also, industrial districts are characterised by high versatility and flexibility, owing to the climate production-quality competition that often governs them internally.
Therefore, in two words: cooperation and competition.
Productive specialisation of industrial districts presupposes the presence of highly qualified workmanship. This brings about the need for integration with human resources training areas (university, professional schools, research centres, etc.). To make this relationship stronger enterprises themselves have become investors and financers in contexts of research, as it has been occurring abroad for some years now. All this shows how Italian industrial districts development has followed an independent way during the years, slowly imposing itself on the market (particularly in some niche sectors) and to law-makers’ attention (who have long underestimated the subject).
On the very subject of this latter point, much still remains to be done: only ten regions - Abruzzo, Campania, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Lombardia, Marche, Piemonte, Sardegna, Toscana and Veneto – have passed regulations relative to the pinpointing of competence industrial districts. High versatility of the sector, as mentioned above, certainly does not facilitate authorities and research institutes work, as far as area delimitation is concerned. Currently, in any case, Istat counts 199 industrial districts on the Italian territory.
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