The Italian industrial districts and the crisis of the cooperative form: Part II

Abstract

Part I of this paper set out the theory of the industrial district and presented the first of three case studies on the Italian districts, questioning the long‐run stability of these social formations qua locally embedded networks of symmetrically powerful small and medium‐sized cooperative competitors, governed by relations of trust and the sharing of information. That first case examined the emergence of lead firms and hierarchical control within the food packaging machinery industry of Emilia‐Romagna. Here, Part II retraces the transformation of the clothing giant, Benetton, from one among many small subcontractors into the apex of a global production and distribution network not unlike such vertical Japanese keiretsu as Toyota. The third case, on the current competitive crisis of the Pratese system of woolen textile production, emphasizes the contingent character of ‘trusting’ relations among small firms, and exposes the contradictions of excessively fragmented production systems during periods of heightened international competition.