Local production networks in the global marketplace

During the 1980s and early 1990s it was widely reported that large parts of the European countryside experienced considerable industrial growth led by a burgeoning of small and medium‐scale enterprises. The growth of these firms was closely associated with an expansion of trade and the intensification of competition on a world scale and the renaissance of industrial districts in specific localities. Within this context the notion of the “network” has been deployed in order to explore the complex interrelationships that exist in the relatively uncharted territory that lies between enterprises. This concept is employed to show how production units without any apparent legal connections establish a web of relationships in terms of flows of materials, information and finance. Social networks of entrepreneurs often lie behind the multitude of inter‐firm linkages. Focuses on a garment‐producing district of the northern Greek region of Macedonia that has experienced an explosion of enterprises and jobs since the early 1970s. Drawing on the experience of the small town of Polikastro and the adjoining rural county of Peonia, sets out to explore the processes of subcontracting and production networking. Aims to investigate the form and the nature of interorganizational relationships within the locality as well between rural industrialists, urban intermediaries and parent enterprises abroad. Examines changes in the linkages between firms within the context of developments that have taken place in the local communities and in the international marketplace.