ABSTRACT
As globalization deepens, a major question concerns how places will be incorporated into this emerging global economic system. Current thinking envisages 'success' at the local level being built through clustering, embeddedness, learning and innovation, which will create the productivity advantages capable of keeping places internationally competitive. Central to this line of reasoning is an implied dynamic - if the appropriate micro-processes are operating in a particular place at a particular time (Thrift's 1996, 'time-space') then they will bulk themselves up to create a trajectory of path-dependent growth in historical time. This approach to understanding local economic growth is, however, stronger on rhetoric than empiricism. This chapter explores empirical evidence on the changing nature of embedded inter-firm relationships for one industry in one locality - the electronics industry in South Hampshire in the UK - to reflect on the usefulness of this implied dynamic in explaining local economic growth.
