ABSTRACT
The problems of both technical change and the regulation of the economic systems conjured up during the 1980s a series of considerations which may globally be centred on the issue of ‘structural changes’. This matter is at the heart of the evolutionist approaches which associate the process of structural change to the transition from a techno-economical paradigm to another. In an industrial economy, the motor of the dynamic is situated at the firms’ level. Furthermore, in the Schumpeterian tradition, the major impulse comes from innovative behaviour which, in each new growth cycle, results in the creation of new industries. Endowed with innovative capacities, industrial districts nevertheless remain fragile systems that are highly sensitive to economic conditions. This fragility is primarily due to their dependence on international competition and technological evolution. The organisational dynamic of innovative milieux goes hand in hand with an important opening to the outside.
