Abstract

Southern Italy have been experiencing low industrialization levels for a long time. Their possible reason is that there are too many small businesses which fail to co-ordinate each other and to make good use of agglomeration economies. The aim of this paper is to verify if there are development factors linked not only with single business units ("micro") but also with the territory ("meso") which the business is integrated into. Such factors may explain higher or lower levels of development of a certain area. For this aim, a purpose-built database, with data on one of the vastest province of Southern Italy, i.e. the province of Salerno, is used. The wealth of information available as well as the statistical methodologies used allow to consider both quantitative and qualitative variables. This study confirms that in this area there are not homogeneous territorial clusters where "micro" and "meso" development factors are present at the same time, whereas there are some positive results in terms of dynamism where an interrelation between business organization and territorial institutions is shown.