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A Schumpeterian approach to innovation clustering in a low-tech technology in a peripheral region: The case of garments in Mezzogiorno
Francesco Quatraro
Departimento di Economia 'S. Cognetti de Martiis', Università degli Studi di Torino, Torino, Italy
Abstract
This paper examines the characteristics of innovation in a low-tech industry in a peripheral region. Its theoretical framework draws mainly upon the Schumpeterian hypothesis concerning the links between innovation and firm size, merged with the recent contributions on economics of knowledge production and on the path-dependence approach.
The methodology used, involved both quantitative and qualitative analysis, coupling the use of correspondence analysis and appreciative theorizing. Consistent with industrial district literature, informal knowledge accumulation proved to be crucial. Here innovation mainly emerges from the exploitation of knowledge coming from linkages with final markets, rather than from local interactions with subcontractors.
Size matters, and only larger firms appear successful in taking advantage of positive feedback from network externalities.
Keywords
industrial districts, innovation, Schumpeterian legacy, path dependence, final markets, firm size, informal knowledge accumulation
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