ABSTRACT
‘Culture’ has re-entered the lexicon of the economic disciplines with a prominence not seen for some time. With the growing interest in the social nature of production systems, signified by the use of terms such as ‘industrial networks’, ‘industrial districts’, and especially the ‘new social economy’ and ‘socio-economics’, a new significance has been ascribed to socio-cultural context. Hence, in emerging production systems in which the social division of labour is recognized as being of increasing importance, social and cultural characteristics have begun to figure prominently in the work of economic geographers (Storper, 1992; Sayer and Walker, 1992), industrial economists (Lundvall, 1988; 1994), political economists (Putnam, 1993) and management theorists (Kanter, 1995). The inter-firm relations which have come to dominate the ‘new competition’ (Best, 1990) are said to be based increasingly upon non-market forms of interaction bound by trust, in which cultural commonality between co-operating and transacting partners is seen as an advantage. 1
