Social Identity and Identification Processes : Enriching Theoretical Tools to Study Industrial Districts

Becattini’s (1979, 1989, 1990) “simple” redefinition of the research object from “industry” to “district,” that is, from a product/market-based definition to a territory-based one, allowed for an enlargement of the scope of economic analysis which has shown complex interactions between social and economic aspects of regional studies, and specifically of industrial districts, in the realm of industry studies. In order to explain such a complexity and its evolutionary character, many scientific disciplines entered the field, with their theoretical tools and empirical methodologies. In a sort of “snowball effect,” sociologists, management scholars, geographers and historians developed researches or suggested ideas and hypotheses concerning IDs, besides heterodox industrial economists. Consequently, specialists in the field had to progressively take into account the new perspectives and studies which were emerging in an unending body of literature. Therefore it is with caution and understanding possible negative reactions of some readers, that we propose other theoretical tools. They belong to a rather different discipline from the ones “traditionally” employed in these studies, especially when carried on by industrial economists, heterodox or orthodox as they could be. The discipline is social psychology (Jones, 1998), and the theoretical tools are derived from Social Identity Theory (SIT), and partially already developed in the field of management studies under the heading of organisational identity and identification processes