| Clusters |
A grouping
together of firms and institutions which can have vertical and horizontal
linkages. The geographical concentration of clusters is not as important as it
is with industrial districts, but clusters are more concentrated than networks.
Their emphasis is on the development of cooperation among firms, with the
objective of achieving synergy |
| Constructive Cooperation |
The phrase
"constructive cooperation" was first used by Marshall in his description of
industrial districts. The implication is that economies beyond those expressed
in internal or external economies can be gained from cooperation between firms
in the same industrial district. Within Marshall this cooperation exists
"without any apparent drift to use it as a means of maintaining
prices." |
| DTI |
The UK
government department responsible for trade and industrial matters. |
| DETR |
The UK
government department responsible for the environment, transport and roads in
England. Responsibility for these matters has now been devolved to the
Parliament in Scotland and the Assemblies in Wales and Northern
Ireland. |
| Evolutionary economics |
These are
observed to have grown out of the institutionalist school. There is an
underlying vision of dynamics which is evolutionary, in the biological sense,
in character. The evolutionary concept is a counter-position to that of static
equilibria. The question of incorporating evolutionary dynamics into economics
was raised at the beginning of institutionalism by Veblen and even earlier by
Marshall. |
| Governance |
Governance
refers to the patterns and distribution of the institutionalized capacity to
take and influence decisions with regard to a particular locality. Regional
governance and regional institutions came to the fore in the 1980s in economics
and geography literature, with attention given to dimensions of the long-term
future and development of particular regions and localities. Such dimensions
include the institutional capacity and thickness in an area, the invisible
factors in regional development, networking, and industrial districts.
|
| Industrial Districts |
Typically
the Third Italy is dominated by production occurring in industrial districts.
The districts are geographically defined productive systems, characterized by a
large number of firms that are involved at various stages, and in various ways,
in the production of a homogeneous product. A significant feature of industrial
districts is that a very high proportion of firms within them are small. A
characteristic of the industrial district is that it should be conceived as a
social and economic whole. In industrial districts, social institutions are as
important as economic. |
| Institutional economics |
In
institutional economics, final equilibria outcomes are said to be dependent on
the beliefs of agents and on the nature of institutions. Institutional
economics defines institutions as any shared rule or sets of rules which guide
individual behavior by supplementing the conventional utility maximizing
calculation. Institutional economics reached its high point in the interwar
period in the United States when it became the principal school of economic
thought. New institutionalism, associated with the transaction costs school, is
a latter day development of many ideas of the original institutional approach
founded on a neoclassical view of economic behavior. |
| Industrial atmosphere |
Another
term coined by Marshall to discuss knowledge transfer within an industrial
district. Marshall claimed that ideas, skills and innovation get passed as
though they exist "in the air." |
| Learning Communities |
Industrialized economies are placing an increasing amount of
importance on their knowledge base in order to maintain their competitive edge.
The development and maintenance of an economy's knowledge base requires
learning. In a learning economy the rate of knowledge turnover is high,
learning and forgetting are intense, the diffusion of knowledge is fast and a
substantial part of total knowledge stock is changed every year. Learning
processes have been institutionalized and feed-back loops for knowledge
accumulation have been built in, so that the economy as a whole is learning by
interacting in relation to both production and consumption. |
| Macro-level |
In the
context of this text, the macro-level concerns the relationship between
regionally-based initiatives and the emerging system of governance at the
national, federal or European level. |
| Meso-level |
The
meso-level concerns the role of development agencies and economic actors in the
political make-up of their region, and involves the operation of individual
agencies or networks of development bodies within the region. |
| Micro-level |
Micro-level relationships involve the links between individual
development bodies, firms and other actors and their respective
environments. |
| Networks |
Networks
are the essential means of linking one group of agents to others whom they
affect. They are the intricate links based on trust and reciprocal patterns of
communication and exchange between producers and clients that are necessary to
ensure an economic capability and responsiveness (Grabher, 1993) in support of
business development. |
| Partnerships |
Beyond
simple networks, partnerships require the commitment of the agents to work
fully together to address problems and opportunities. This means they must
accept long term structures that work toward sustained commitment to change and
the achievement of quality. They must also accept an active commitment to
changing the internal operations of each agent and helping other agents to
change to achieve an improved system overall. Hence networking alone is largely
passive, whereas partnerships require active participation (Mackintosh 1992).
|
| QUANGOs |
Semi- or
quasi- autonomous (non-)government agencies. Members of the governing bodies
tend to be appointed from a variety of sources with the remit of overseeing
devolved government spending in many aspects of public life, health, economic
development, and public-private partnerships. |
| Regional development agencies |
An RDA is
a semi-autonomous regionally based body operating at arms length
vis-à-vis its sponsoring political authority. It is a multifunctional
and integrated agency, the level of which may be determined by the range of
policy instruments it uses. It supports mainly indigenous firms by means of
‘soft’ policy instruments. |
| SMEs |
Small and
medium enterprises, usually defined in terms of number of employees. Small
enterprises are recognized as having fewer than 10, 20, 50, 200 or 500 workers;
medium as having more than 10, 20, etc. up to 500. Different agencies and
authorities adopt different thresholds according to the period and the policy
questions and instruments under consideration. Occasionally turnover is used to
define the size of enterprise. |
| Structural Funds |
The
European Union funds assigned to address the structural problems of the regions
and industries of the EU. They are allocated to areas according to a number of
agreed objectives, defined in terms of unemployment, backwardness, declining
industries, sparsity of population, and similar factors. |
| Taylorist |
The US
creed of scientific management, the application of work study and a greater
subdivision of labor as a means of achieving increased efficiency (after
F.W.Taylor). |
| Third
Italy |
A term
coined to differentiate production in north central and northeastern Italy
which is of a different orientation than the developed North and underdeveloped
South. |
| Trust
and Cooperation |
A crucial
aspect of production within the industrial districts of the Third Italy is
attributed to the degree of trust and cooperation which exists between the key
players in the district. Economic gains can be achieved by the promotion of
trust and cooperation between these key players, the firms, the financial
institutions, the labor organizations, and the local authorities.
|
