International Workshop on
Regulated Agent-Based Social Systems:
Theories and Applications (RASTA'02)
Abstract for
- 9:30 - 10:30 (first presentation)
- Cognitive Identity and Social Reflexivity of the Industrial District Firms.
Going Beyond the "Complexity Effect" through Agent-Based Computational Models
Riccardo Boero, Marco Castellani, and Flaminio Squazzoni
Industrial districts are decentralized complex systems characterized by an evolutionary network of interactions amongst heterogeneous, localized, functionally integrated and complementary firms. The traditional literature on districts heavily emphasizes the importance of the so-called district effect . Such literature underestimates the role of the cognitive identity and the social reflexivity of the district agents, taking a system perspective of analysis focused on the aggregated outcome of the district, rather than an agent-based focus of the district process . By creating an industrial district computational prototype, to say simulating an archetype of industrial district developing an agent-based model, we explore how the so-called industrial district effect has more to do with a growth of complexity inside the cognitive identity processes of agents. Industrial districts, if they really exist, are not only a simple effect of the geographical localization of firms. Industrial districts, if they really exist, are above all the result of a cognitive process of districtualization and dis-districtualization of firms. Such processes have an important effect on the technological innovation and the economic performance of firms.
Daniel Moldt
Last modified: Fri Jun 21 12:50:42 CEST 2002