The traditional district literature tends to assume that: (1) the competitiveness of firms depends on external sources of knowledge; (2) all firms in a district benefit from knowledge externalities; (3) relying on external knowledge relationships necessarily means these are confined to the...

This paper studies the case of the Marche footwear districts. Statistical evidence and interviews with entrepreneurs suggest that the traditional inter-firm relationships within these districts have significantly changed during the past decade. Some leading firms have been building up more...

Footwear industry represents an important sector in national economy. Most of its production goes to export, Romania being the 14th footwear exporter worldwide. The aim of this article is to make an analysis of the evolution of the Romanian footwear industry by presenting the sector’s main...

This paper studies the case of the Marche footwear districts. Statistical evidence and interviewswith entrepreneurs suggest that the traditional inter-firm relationships within these districtshave significantly changed during the past decade. Some leading firms have been buildingup more...

Cost reduction, productivity increase and creating value for the client are just a few of the arguments that managers use when they adopt Lean philosophy. Businesses’ concern is to create products that have value in the eyes of the client, continuously analyzing the existing value stream in...