ABSTRACT
Economic theory has devoted a large amount of intellectual energy to explain the uneven development of regions and the increasingly evident concentration of activities in industrial clusters, without producing any solid explanatory models. Some conceptual and terminological differences embodied in the various theories on innovation and diffusion are, on further analysis, linked to the different meanings attributed to technology. Economists have long been interested in the problem of measuring and identifying the effort undertaken by firms in order to have access to technological change, in terms of the resources and methods used for its implementation. Local development may be seen as a process with a long memory, whose influence persists over time. Technology has been considered for a long time as a set of plants and equipment embodied in the capital goods portfolio of large enterprises. The notion of technology begins with the point of view of the firm that develops and uses technology to obtain economic advantages.
