Networking and division of labour – The case of industrial districts in the North–East of Italy*

Abstract

Networking can be considered the organizational support to the learning process. The paper defines a new coordination process of the division of labour between autonomous actors and organizations, beyond the market and the hierarchical processes. Networking by means of “interactive communication” is becoming increasingly the typical organizational process in post-fordism which allows new, far-reaching, opportunities in the division of cognitive labour. The discussion of the process of exploration and exploitation of knowledge is based on two analytical dimensions: (a) the types of knowledge shared by organizations and (b) the types of roles played by different actor networks. The analytical framework shows how different specialized actors and organizations, with different tasks, are complementary as regards the effectiveness of the networking (specialists, systemists, connectors and meta-organizers). The empirical evidence – concerning the evolution of the industrial districts of the North–East of Italy towards the network form – seems to support the conceptual approach adopted.