ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the results of a research on the dynamics of the industrial districts of the Spanish shoe industry. The shutdown of firms and the rise in unemployment in some industrial districts has rekindled an interest in looking into local economic dynamics and studying how the local production systems are adjusting to globalisation and changes in their environment. The Spanish shoe industry faces not only the challenge of the developed European industries, but also countries with low labour costs. The municipalities of Elda and Petrel constitute an urban agglomeration whose population, influenced by the boom of the sixties and seventies, has doubled during the last thirty years, reaching 78,761 inhabitants in 1991. The challenger firm’s face up to the leader by competing in secondary product/market segments through an improved price/quality ratio, by widening its products/services range and through closer contact with customers.
