Everything must change for us to remain the same. Resilience in the face of disruptive innovations in industrial districts

Abstract

This paper explores to what extent and under what conditions resilience can be developed to cope with radical innovations in the industrial district context. Based on a comparative analysis of an Italian and Spanish cluster, this paper provides and in-depth examination of the transformation at the firm and cluster levels at the introduction, development, and diffusion of disruptive technologies, that enable clusters to cope with it and thrive. Our findings identify cluster attributes that support resilience and propose different measures of district resilience.