Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
and the electronics industry around Madrid) are detailed in Castells et al. (1989).
In some cases the flexibility is really artificial, in the sense that it is imposed by a
national welfare system, and the firm's search to escape from the need to make
social security payments to workers, to compensate them for dismissal or lay-
offs, or to provide minimum wages. This does not render the concept inadequate,
however; it is of the essence in this kind of operation that the rigidities imposed
by, for example, the state or by unions, are to be avoided. In the Mediterranean
cases, this has meant illegal industries. In the case of Britain, some flexibility
was introduced by the British non-adoption of the Maastricht regulations of the
EC.
How does flexible specialization mean an escape from the centre-periphery
structure of the MNCS and their allocations of function between factories and
countries? In the first place, the firms are independent, except in the Benetton
type of arrangement where they are dominated by one firm which is their
market. Independence means they are free to seek alternative sources for raw
materials and alternative markets. Being independent may also mean more
chance for innovation, although this aspect has not been tested. Independence
also means a greater development of management skills and entrepreneurship,
which are lost in the bureaucratic structures of the big firms.
For the labour force, such firms provide a better chance to build skills, as the
jobs are usually varied, so that any worker may be required to move from one
task to another as part of the flexibility of the firm. Semi-skilled and skilled
labour is needed, rather than unskilled. As the skills are generic rather than
specific to individual tasks, workers can also move from one firm to another—
indeed, they may need to do so in order to maintain employment, or to improve
their status. Because of all these features, it is possible for this kind of industrial
district to arise in new regions. Rather than depend on established large cities, as
in the Turin and Milan cases, or on state intervention, as in the Mezzogiorno from
the 1950s, the Third Italy districts have arisen from small local specializations
and skills, a distinctive endogenous type of growth which gives hope to other
regions seekingindustrial development.
Current changes
One of the big questions hanging over the concept of flexibility in Italy and
elsewhere in Europe is whether it can survive. It may be that this kind of
organization is only a transition, as social and economic evolution takes Third
Italy out of traditional structures and into the modern world. What is happening
now is a pull between global and local interests that may be resolved either way
(Cooke & Morgan 1994). Although the region has risen to eighth in Europe on
the basis of per capita income levels, with low unemployment and good growth
rates for production, it may be in danger of changing to a more standard kind of
industrial region.
