Modelling proximity effects on industrial district competitiveness

This paper investigates how proximity affects the Industrial Districts (ID) competitiveness by taking into account four dimensions of proximity, namely geographical, organizational, cognitive and social. The aim is to identify the optimal combinations of proximity that fosters ID competitiveness. The complexity science is adopted as both theoretical and methodological approach. Complexity theory is used to identify whether the proximity matter for the ID competitiveness by analyzing the influence of the proximity on the ID adaptive capacity. Our argument is that the more adaptive the ID, the more the competitive success. Based on the complexity theory, we identify the structural features that allow ID adaptation and their best values. Then, by developing a computational model based on the Business Dynamics, we carry out a simulation analysis to evaluate the influence of the proximity on the values of the ID structural variables. We look for the best combinations of proximity providing results coherent with the optimal theoretical values suggested by the complexity theory.