Abstract
This chapter presents an analysis of the long-term development of the footwear industry in Italy and Turkey, focusing in particular on their main industrial districts/cluster: one in Italy and three in Turkey. Our research contributes to the reflection on the evolving relationship between history-dependent localisation externalities and firm performances. Agglomeration benefits do exist in the various stages of the cluster life cycle. However, not all firms benefit equally from being in a cluster, and not all firms show an accelerated pattern of growth after being located in a cluster. We found that after the take-off and the cluster’s emergence, the dynamics of clusters is driven by the ability of some leading firms to connect the cluster (and its internal supply chains) to external markets and to global knowledge sources.
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Notes
- 1.
The analysis presented in this chapter is based on the EU-sponsored ShoeColl project “Improving the shoe industry by means of the clustering method in order to gain the competitive capacity in the international market” 2010–2013. The project was designed to analyse the Turkish footwear industry and to provide policy suggestions for its improvement, also by comparing it with the Italian footwear clusters and creating linkages between Italian and Turkish cluster agents.
- 2.
In this chapter the terms industrial district and cluster are used as synonyms. A rich discussion on this issue can be found in Belussi (1996, 2015).
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
In addition, as it will be further discussed in the following chapters, we have to note that the 30 firms interviewed in Istanbul declared to employ more than 12,000 workers in total; the 30 firms interviewed in Konya reported about 1521 workers, and the 24 firms in Izmir declared to have 1822 workers. In the light of this information, we can conclude that the figures presented by the EU Cluster Observatory are likely to underestimate the phenomenon.
- 6.
Data were collected from the report “Social Auditing in Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey,” available at http://www.ilo.org/empent/Publications/WCMS_101067/lang--en/index.htm
- 7.
Sourced from the Turkish Government report (quoting Turkish National Institute of Statistics www.turkstat.gov.tr/UstMenu: http://www.tcp.gov.tr/english/sectors/sectoringpdf/footwear_2012.pdf. Following the Turkish Leather Council, in 2006, the Turkish footwear industry employed 380,000 workers in 40,000 companies (Turkish Leather Council: http://www.turkishleather.com/dtgeng/StaticPages/showpage.aspx?fname=altsektorler2.htm, accessed on December 2012).
- 8.
- 9.
We would like to thank the following persons who helped us organise the interviews and provide a simultaneous translation from Turkish to English: Zeliha Celik from Istanbul, Ersen Vural from Izmir and Zarif Songül Göksel from Konya. We also thank Sedef Akgungor from the Dokuz Eylul University (Izmir) for sharing her ideas with us about Izmir and its footwear cluster. Adem Ogut and Selcuk Karayel from the University of Konya helped us organise the empirical research in Turkey.
- 10.
It is important to note that in the USA, in Portland, (in the State of Oregon), Nike has given rise to an American cluster of 300 firms (final firms and subcontractors), 3200 self-employed workers and consultants and 14,000 workers. It has been estimated that the average annual salary in Portland is about 82,700 dollars. Clearly, though, local workers are employed only in high-tech or high-value functions. Adidas (which was bought in the last years by a former manager of Nike) recently moved its commercial American headquarters here.
- 11.
An example of these fast-growing Asian firms is represented by the case of the Tsai family that in 1988 founded in Hong Kong Yue Yuen, a firm that in 2011 produced 326 million pairs with sales amounting to 7 billion dollars (with 460,000 employees) and that has opened new factories in China together with a retail shop chain (called Pou Chen).
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Belussi, F., Caloffi, A. (2018). The Role of Leading Firms in Explaining Evolutionary Paths of Growth: Italian and Turkish Clusters on the Move. In: Belussi, F., Hervas-Oliver, JL. (eds) Agglomeration and Firm Performance. Advances in Spatial Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90575-4_10
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