Industrial district
As industrial district (engl .: industrial district ) refers to a special form of regional production networks, which on a common market are aligned. The term describes forms of intra-regional cooperation between mostly small and medium-sized companies in an industry , which are characterized, among other things, by similar needs (raw materials, etc.), a similar technology and workforce structure, sociocultural ties and cross-company division of labor . Today this often includes the organization of joint training and further education institutions.
Theory and research history
The concept is first found in the work The Pure Theory of Domestic Value (written between 1873 and 1877) by the British economist Alfred Marshall , who further specified it in his main work Principles of Economics (1920). The term was further developed by the authors of the Cambridge School of Economics from a marginal utility theoretical perspective, who analyzed the effect of natural location advantages and examined industries according to their degree of centralization (settlement in a few locations) or dispersion (spatial dispersion). Michael Porter gives the concept another twist when he says that global competitive advantages are mostly local.
The first systematic study of locational factors and the formation of an industrial district was the work of Sydney Chapman on the cotton industry in Lancashire , in which the availability of hydropower played a major role. In contrast, the full tree industry around Glasgow was dependent on steam power from the start.
The concept of the industrial district is closely related to that of the cluster , which is used far more frequently today, but not only denotes a collection of companies with a similar factor structure, but also a variety of horizontal and vertical forms of cooperation. If the formation of an industrial district is primarily based on the availability of highly qualified workers such as B. in Silicon Valley , one speaks of a creative milieu .
literature
- Jörg Maier, Rainer Beck: General industrial geography. Stuttgart 2000.
- Elmar Kulke: Economic Geography. Paderborn 2009.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Fiorenza Belussi, Katia Caldari: At the origin of the industrial district: Alfred Marshall and the Cambridge school. In: Cambridge Journal of Economics 33 (2009) 2, pp. 335-355.
- ^ Michael Porter: Clusters and the New Economics of Competition. In: Harvard Business Review, November / December 1998, pp. 77-90.
- ^ Sydney J. Chapman: The Lancashire Cotton Industry. A Study in Economic Development. Manchester University Press 1904.