Lisa De Propris

University of Birmingham · Birmingham Business School

The paper examines how Brexit has impacted on Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers in the UK Midlands, and to what extent such firms are reconfiguring their supply chains with the increase in trade barriers with Brexit. To do this, the paper aims to add to macro studies in the area by using a mixed-methods approach that combines de...

The paper is positioned in the emerging debate on the technological change brought about by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, often referred to as Industry 4.0. Our analysis is at the local, sub-national level. The aim is to explore what drivers and barriers local productive systems might face when seeking to embark on transitions that reconcile sm...

This special issue presents a collection of papers that explore from different angles the opportunities and challenges that Industry 4.0 poses to regions and cities. Papers investigate issues concerning: regional economies’ potential in creating new technologies by mapping the regional distribution of technological innovation capabilities and techn...

We explore the impact of technological changes brought in by the Fourth Industrial Revolution on local systems of industrial specialization. To do so we connect the Evolutional Economic Geography literature on regional diversification with the literature on systems change, notably the multilevel perspective (MLP) framework, expanding the latter wit...

Firms’ reshoring strategies have recently sparked academic and policy interest due to their contribution to rebalancing advanced economies. In line with the ongoing debate and by examining the journey of a company based in the West Midlands region of the UK, this work illustrates the adoption of a manufacturing reshoring strategy in response to a c...

This paper discusses the determinants of China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) with a special focus on the role of government policy. In particular, we investigate the types of policies that are most influential in promoting OFDI. Our main contribution is to analyse, for the first time, China’s OFDI policies by means of quantitative indi...

Over the years, manufacturing in advanced economies has been the object of intense reorganization driven crucially by the international strategies of multinational enterprises (MNEs), and more recently, by technological disruptions powering a new manufacturing model, defined as Industry 4.0 (I4.0). This paper aims to explore firm-based, place-based...

The paper examines processes of knowledge transformation in Industrial Districts (IDs) and how they contribute to industrial path development. Drawing on a case study of the footwear IDs in the provinces of Macerata and Fermo, Italy, we discuss how the knowledge configuration of the ID, within and outside of its core industry, changes as a result o...

You can the open access book here https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429057984

We live in turbulent times, but when has this not been the case? The history of regions and the ‘regional studies project’ has always had at its core concerns relating to new and increased social and spatial inequalities resulting from economic and political change. Whatever change has occurred to cause this turbulence, some people and places have...

This paper explores how to push the field of regional studies beyond its present institutional, conceptual and methodological borders. It does this from five perspectives: innovation and competitiveness; globalization and urbanization; social and environmental justice; local and regional development; and industrial policy. It argues that the future...

The last three decades have seen an acceleration of the interconnectedness of the global economy on a number of levels: economic, productive, financial, social, and cultural. Some referred to it as a turbocharged globalisation (Friedman, The Lexus and the olive tree: Understanding globalization. New York: Random House, 2000) since, not only had it...

The paper explores the evolving role of service sectors in relation to manufacturing activities within local systems of production and it discusses whether issues related to spatial proximity have shaped the value chains of manufacturing activities. Territorial servitization is defined here as the symbiotic recoupling between services and manufactu...

New technologies and sector imbalances due to manufacturing hollowing out have dented the regional stock of competencies in the European Union (EU) labour markets. This raises concerns over the sustainability of the EU’s competitiveness in the longer term. The present study explore on what occupational mix might be able to deliver greater regional...

Recent debate in regional studies has focused on place-based approaches to local development that are associated more and more to the investigation of systemic features able to trigger sustainable innovation paths and resilience against shocks and challenges. This chapter draws on the interpretative arguments related to the endogenous processes of...

This paper deals with the evolution of place-based division of labour, considering in particular the dynamics of differentiated pools of knowledge that can be embedded in local production systems such as industrial districts. Drawing on conceptual framework of Marshallian industrial districts, the paper develops a model that links knowledge dynamic...

The UK's automotive industry has been one of the ‘star performers’ of the UK economy in recent years – unlike most other manufacturing sectors. Output has increased by over 60 per cent since 2010 and there has been over £8 billion worth of investment in the industry in the past five years. The industry supports some 800,000 jobs in the UK. It is se...

The industrial district may be seen as a species hosting not only many different cases, but also, more generally, some ideal–typical forms that characterize different historical contexts. The form that, according to previous contributions, seems to emerge in contemporary contexts of advanced economies under globalisation, technological and societal...

The UK's vote to leave the European Union is a pivotal moment in British history. Over the past forty years, the UK's economy has become increasingly intertwined and dependent on its relationship with the other EU member states with both the EU and the UK's economic landscape irrevocably fashioned by its membership. Brexit takes both parties into u...

This paper explores the dynamics of inter-sectoral technological integration by introducing the concept of bridging platform as a node of pervasive technologies, whose collective broad applicability may enhance the connection between ‘distant’ knowledge by offering a technological coupling. Using data on patents obtained from the CRIOS-PATSTAT data...

The Local Nexus Network is addressing the intersection of two important emerging research areas, re-distributed manufacturing and the food-energy-water nexus. It is an on-going initiative which aims to develop an evidence-based comprehensive research agenda and foster an inclusive community of researchers and stakeholders for sustainable local food...

This paper assesses the impact of regional technological diversification on the emergence of new innovators across EU regions. Integrating analyses from regional economics, economic geography and technological change literatures, we explore the role that the regional embeddedness of actors characterised by diverse technological competencies may hav...

The paper presents a theoretical framework for understanding the evolution of industrial districts from Marshall’s conceptualisation to today’s realities and theorisations of the industrial district as model of industrial organization and development. We discuss three generation of industrial districts: the first generations of districts were the s...

Creative industries are increasingly understood to contribute to localised innovation and dynamism. This paper provides a methodologically consistent comparison of creative industries across France, Great Britain, Italy and Spain. We map spatial agglomerations of creative activities showing evidence of urban concentration, which for Britain and Fra...

In recent years, ‘offshoring’ and ‘outsourcing’ have transformed fundamentally nationally based auto sectors into global networks of design, production and distribution across the global value chains coordinated by the major automotive Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). As manufacturing activities tended to be shifted to low-labour cost locat...

The article explores whether and how creative industries are surviving the current downturn in order to understand whether they will be in a position to contribute to UK's economic growth. The argument suggested here is that creative industries are crucial for recasting UK manufacturing so that parts of it can be competitively located in the UK. Th...

The objective of this report is to come up with useful suggestions, in collaboration with the Region of Basilicata and other local stakeholders, which may be used as input to develop a strategic vision for the Basilicata region, and to set up an Operational Regional Development Program 2014-2020. This report has been inspired by policy concepts lik...

Questo rapporto mira a contribuire alla definizione di una strategia di sviluppo locale e regionale elabarata ' in collaborazione con la Regione Basilicata attraverso l'ascolto degli stakeholder locali al fine di utilizzarli come input per sviluppare una visione strategica per la regione Basilicata e redigere un Programma di sviluppo operativo regi...

Soumission à Epi-revel International audience The policy and academic debate on industrial clusters has developed in a context dominated by ‘industry champions’ which are not necessarily national. Despite the fact that indust ial dist icts first emerged and indeed were first studied in England by Alfred Marshall over 100 years ago, the spatial dime...

The research tackles the lack of cross-country comparative studies on the geography of creative industries and provides their comparative geography in four European countries: France, Great Britain, Italy and Spain. We use local labour markets as territorial units of analysis and divide creative industries in traditional and non-traditional. This a...

The aim of the paper is to present the main lines of the wide-ranging and decades-long debate on IDs (industrial districts). We look at what the IDs have represented in the past, their current situation, and the challenges and opportunities these face in a socio-economic context that is spurring greater interaction between global and local forces....

The argument developed in this paper is that a resilient economy requires a growth agenda that is underpinned by a balanced industrial mix, the development and adoption of new knowledge or technological platforms, and risk taking in radical and incremental innovations as well as in soft and hard innovations. In other words, it is desirable to promo...

The creative economy is a holistic and multidisciplinary concept that deals with the interaction between economics, culture and technology, and centred on the production of creative contents in goods and services. One of the most relevant dimensions of creativity is the territorial one. Despite the emphasis put on the theoretical definition of crea...

available at: http://www.nesta.org.uk/sites/default/files/creative_clusters_and_innovation.pdf

The forces of globalisation now impacting on local economies pose threats to the existing paradigm of competences and routines, yet simultaneously offer opportunities to integrate new knowledge and learning. This is particularly pertinent with respect to Europe's ‘mature regions’, which are undergoing a major economic restructuring by trying to shi...

This article compares the importance of agglomerations of local firms, and inward FDI as drivers of regional development. The empirical analysis exploits a unique panel dataset of the Italian manufacturing sector at the regional and industry levels. We explore whether FDI and firm agglomeration can be drivers of total factor productivity (separatel...

The policy and academic debate on industrial clusters has developed in a context dominated by industry champions which are not necessarily national. Despite the fact that industrial districts emerged ?rst and indeed were ?rst studied in England by Alfred Marshall over 100 years ago, the spatial dimension of economic activities has been marginal to...

The objective of the article is to explore the relative determinants of firms' performance in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter (BJQ) considering creativity and innovation; firms' access to the market and networking. The article utilizes qualitative and quantitative analyses and aims to ascertain the role of firms' commitment to developing an in-hou...

The current debate on drivers and processes of creative industries in cities and regions oscillates between two approaches: one that focuses on individuals' creative talent drawing on Florida's work, and one that looks at firms and systems of firms, i.e., creative clusters. In this introductory note, we critically review the main contributions on b...

DE PROPRIS L. and LAZZERETTI L. Measuring the decline of a Marshallian industrial district: the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter, Regional Studies. This paper presents the findings of a study on the decline of a typical Marshallian industrial district: the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter in the UK. The paper contributes to the current debate on clusters'...

'A Handbook of Industrial Districts is a very well-organized and structured collection of scientific works on the theory of industrial districts. © Giacomo Becattini, Marco Bellandi and Lisa De Propris 2009. All rights reserved.

The paper explores the process of production internationalisation of local production systems with a special concern for the tension between embeddedness and openness, and with the governance structure of international networking. Local production systems are prompted to look beyond their local borders by the need to access knowledge, competences,...

Lisa De Propris and Roger Sugden Guest editors.

The debate on clusters, industrial districts, regional innovation systems and innovative milieux has consolidated the belief that the competitiveness of firms and localities in many ways depends on the local accumulation of learning, competences and skills within a particular community, in a particular place, on a particular activity.

This article examines the compatibility of the Lisbon objectives with the EU's long-standing concerns for social, economic and territorial cohesion. In particular, the Commission's policy agenda has been driven since the reform of the Structural Funds in the late 1980s by the concern to improve regional welfare in view of enabling socio-economic co...

The paper presents the findings of a study on the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter at its zenith from 1880 to 1920. Drawing on a unique database covering four decades and secondary data, it has been possible to map out the organization of production, the degree of firms' specializations, and extent of production and social networking within the Quarter...

Drawing on the existing debate on the link between the governance of local production systems (i.e. clusters or industrial districts) and the development of localities, this paper analyses the structure of interfirm networking and co-operation, as well as the structure of governance, in the jewellery district in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter (BJ...

The prime concern is to highlight the strategic choice framework (SCF) for analysing localities' economic development and competitiveness policies in the context of globalisation. The SCF is centred on hypotheses relating to the governance of production, where 'governance' is understood in terms of the processes and associated structures for identi...

This paper examines the link between cluster development and inward foreign direct investment. The conventional policy approach has been to assume that inward foreign direct investment (FDI) can stimulate significant clustering activity, thus generating significant spillovers. This paper, however, questions this and shows that, while clusters can g...

This paper examines the link between cluster development and inward foreign direct investment. The conventional policy approach has been to assume that inward foreign direct investment (FDI) can stimulate significant clustering activity, thus generating significant spillovers. This paper, however, questions this and shows that, while clusters can g...

This article investigates the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) location across Italian provinces. Specifically it examines the relationship between industry-specific local industrial systems and the location of inward FDI. This extends previous analysis beyond the mere density of activity, to illustrate the importance of the specific...

De Propris, L. (2005) Mapping local production systems in the UK: methodology and application, Regional Studies 39 , 197-211. The paper outlines a possible methodology to map and study local production systems. The three-level diagnostic methodology enables researchers to map, classify and analyse in depth firms' agglomerations in regions or countr...

This article compares the role and objective of informal capital provision in a trust-based context (such as in industrial districts) and in a market-based context. An example of the former is given by the activities of impannatori in the Prato (Florence, Tuscany) textile district, while the latter is associated with the activities of business ange...

The imminent large-scale EU enlargement raises important questions regarding the success of Phare as one of the Pre-Accession Funds in preparing candidate countries' institutions for Structural Funding, the need to reform EU regional policy itself, and to what extent the Commission is using Phare to build regional-level institutions and shift an en...

The paper presents the results of an empirical study that aims to investigate the impact of interfirm co-operation over innovation on four different types of innovation: product, process, incremental and radical innovation. Drawing on the innovative milieu literature, the impact on the above four types of innovation was tested for both external and...

With the reform of the Structural Funds, regions have gained a key role in the design and implementation of regional policy. Yet some of the weakest regions were not equipped with appropriate institutional structures and have struggled to benefit. In evaluating the reform, we revisit concepts such as justice and equity. While the reform may have gi...

Given GDP variations across CEE regions and with CEE regional structures and development processes only emerging recently, the cohesion situation under EU enlargement is considerably more challenging than when current EU regional policy was launched in 1988. Yet even that reform ran into problems given heterogeneity in the forms of regional governa...

The recent process of production fragmentation and the rapid growth of firm clusters have been explained by the increasing need for output flexibility. Although the mainstream literature relates flexibility mostly to labour adjustments, this paper investigates sources of flexibility as being related to forms of inter-firm production. Two extreme ca...

Drawing upon the innovative milieux and industrial districts literature, the paper provides substantial empirical evidence that firms have a greater chance of being innovative if they co-operate with other firms over innovation, albeit undertaking no investment in RLD. This is an important result especially for small firms. In particular, the paper...

In the literature on vertical relations little attention has been paid to the tole of strategic uncertainty, that is, the presence of multiple self-enforcing outcomes which might lead to coordination failure. However, if firms have some degree of freedom in designing the industrial relations they engage, alternative solutions, in the form of vertic...

This paper aims at presenting the main lines of a wide-ranging debate spreading over the last decades on what industrial districts have represented in the past, what they are undergoing at the present time, and the challenges and opportunities they are facing in a socio-economic context where global and local forces increasingly interact. We start...

University Microfilms order no. UMI00411639. Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Victoria, 1992. Includes bibliographical references.