ABSTRACT
Globalization has profoundly changed the organization of economic activities. Studies on international business emphasize the importance of offshoring in order to take advantage of new economic opportunities, in terms of both production costs and new markets. This phenomenon has occurred in industrial districts as well: a number of firms have suffered from global competition, while others have invested abroad in terms both of commercial outlets and offshoring of production. The consequences of this process have been examined extensively in the literature. As the world has undergone a number of years of intense globalization, we aimed at analyzing the results in terms of economic performance of the choices made by district’s firms. Based on an empirical analysis of about 260 Italian district firms, we identified five models of how firms organized (or not) their presence in the global markets as a combination of offshoring and commercial internationalization. We discovered a more nuanced scenario compared to what the literature has suggested. Offshoring does not always pay off as well as local firms (those having no exports or offshoring) present relevant economic performances.
