ABSTRACT
Over the last fifteen years, a growing literature has emphasized the importance of knowledge and learning for national and local development (Lundvall, 1993; Audretsch and Feldman, 1996; Arnin and Cohendet, 1999). Initially, the discussion focused on the knowledge acquisition and learning process of individual firms. Recently, however, interest has shifted towards understanding collective learning, the reproduction of tacit knowledge (Mascietelli, 1999; Lei, 1997) and the capacity to combine the diverse types of knowledge efficiently (Nelson and Winter, 1982). Moreover, it is widely recognized that learning and innovative activities are profoundly affected by socio-economic context and the nature of personal interaction, that is, space matters (Audretsch and Feldman, 1996; Sweeney, 1996; Kirat and Lung, 1999). Indeed, the leading theoretical formulations of the relationships between knowledge and local development have defined innovative or learning clusters, variously labelled 'learning regions', 'innovative milieu, and 'regional systems of innovation', as the key to competitive advantage (Camagni, 1991; Florida, 1995; Asheim, 1996; Cooke, Uranga and Etxebarria, 1997, 1998; Bell and Albu, 1999).
