Abstract

Giacomo Becattini (1927-2017) has devoted his long academic life to the study of industrial districts, understood as local communities, where a specialized but decentralized production organization becomes efficient because social cohesion, widespread culture, and common sense of responsibility act as a unifying element. Becattini came to this rigorous definition of industrial district by developing the cultural heritage of Alberto Bertolino, thoroughly analyzing Marshall's work, realizing a vast empirical research on the city of Prato. The synthesis of these analytical components leads to an original approach that has proven to have a remarkable operational capability, enabling to understand and promote local development, both in Italy and in many countries that were suffering from the crisis of the large Fordist enterprise and in the several emerging countries, where the growth of decentralized industrial districts has become the main path to development.