Does homogeneity exist within industrial districts? A social capital-based approach

Industrial districts are made up of enterprises and organisations that are closely related, both physically and cognitively. From the social capital perspective, the district has been defined as a social network with a high degree of internal homogeneity. Nevertheless, good reasons can be found to justify a certain degree of heterogeneity among the member firms and at least two sub-clusters of firms, the 'core network' and 'periphery network', can be distinguished. Taking this idea as our starting point, we analyse the case of the Castellón ceramic tile industrial district in order to gain a greater understanding of these two groups of enterprises and their differences. Copyright (c) 2008 the author(s). Journal compilation (c) 2008 RSAI.