ABSTRACT
Recently, industrial districts have been affected by increasing internationalisation and delocalisation of production (Crestanello and Tattara, 2010; Chiarvesio et al., 2010; Sammarra and Biggiero, 2008). More specifically, in the 1990s many ‘made in Italy’ districts in the clothing, leather and footwear industries began to produce abroad and to develop an export strategy in many foreign markets (Mariotti and Piscitello, 2001). This process caused a transformation of districts’ traditional industrial structures along with a territorial fragmentation of the previous, local value chain (Porter, 2000; Lazerson and Lorenzoni, 1999; McCann and Folta, 2009; Belussi et al., 2008). Moreover, one focus of the interest has been the development of foreign investments by small firms and multinational companies inside the most important Italian districts (Gorg and Greenaway, 2004; Driffield, 2006; Cooke et al., 2004). Foreign investments inside industry agglomerations stimulated empirical work addressing the effect that such investments may produce on districts (Cooke et al., 2004). Specifically, in the industrial district literature, significant investments by foreign actors seem to have an impact on districts’ internal structures, particularly in terms of inter-organisational relationships among incumbent small and medium-sized firms (Scott-Kennel, 2007; Waxell and Malmberg, 2007).
