Will Industrial Districts Exploit B2B? A local experience and a general assessment.

When production is carried out by many geographically clustered small firms specialised in particular production phases that subcontract one another, what are the prospects of B2B electronic commerce? Prato, Italy, is home to thousands of textile firms as well as the locus of an early and innovative experiment of a local electronic network in the mid-1980s. This experience suggests that, since they fear to be imitated by their geographical proximates, geographically clustered firms may lag behind in the the exploitation of information and communication technologies. An analysis of the web sites of Pratese firms confirms this intuition. A similar investigation is carried out on web sites of fabrics producers worldwide. Contrary to Europe, in Asian countries geographically clustered firms exhibit little fear of information leakages. Differences in the organization of production may explain this puzzle.