Agglomeration, Technology and Business Groups critically reviews the reasons for the creation of business groups and examines their main characteristics. The authors demonstrate that any useful investigation of the organization and strategies of firms needs to take the business group as the basic unit of analysis. This premise underpins their analysis of the impact of two structural variables - spatial agglomeration and technology - on firm strategy and organization. Via a new dataset on Italian business groups, specific insights into the formulation of diversification strategies, location choices made and variances in vertical integration are provided. Shedding new light on the influence of spatial agglomeration and technology on the organization of firms, this innovative book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and students focussing on industrial economics, the theory of the firm and/or spatial agglomeration.

Italian industrial districts (IDs) recently attracted international attention because their performance during the last few decades contradicted the alleged weakness of industrial structures based on SMEs in "traditional" sectors. The book analyses some developments taking place in Italian IDs and local systems of production that can represent a new stage of evolution for the backbone of the Italian economy. Based on the extensive use of original databases three main trajectories of change in IDs are presented. The first trajectory is the increasing role of "groups" of manufacturing SMEs arising from mergers and acquisitions as well as spin-off growth processes at the "family firms" level. The second one is the consolidation of innovation capabilities in IDs. And the third one is the internationalisation process of Italian IDs through both trade and foreign direct investment. The essays suggest that Italian IDs are again evolving by coherent adaptations which will have, however, uncertain outcomes.