Clusters and rivalry: Does localization really matter?

This exploratory study addresses the link between rivalry-which we regard as a cognitive social dimension of competition- and localization. We adopt a visual-mapping technique to collect data on firms belonging to the packaging-machinery geographical cluster in Northern Italy.We can summarize our results as follows. Entrepreneurs identifying rivals within the cluster also tend to cite a larger number of rivals altogether. A firm's proximity to its rivals is a key to a deeper comparison with them. Geographical distance represents a tool for scanning the competitive environment; it is not used as a criterion by which to classify rivalry. From these results, we generate a few propositions that shed a new light on the relationship between rivalry and localization. © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.