Publisher's Synopsis
In modern industrial economies, flexible specialization - the ability of manufacturing and increasingly service enterprises to respond and to reflect changing market requirements and technological changes - is widely seen as a panacea for survival and growth, both for individual companies and entire sectors. The concept is widely debated and enthusiatically endorsed yet this is the first book to examine critically how flexible specialization operates, and how it relates to regional econonmic development is a "post-Fordist" world.;The book is divided into four sections: the first contains broad, original, theoretical chapters from leading workers examining the economic, structural and managerial issues of flexible specialization, particularly in relation to regional development. The second section concentrates on reporting experience with experiments in flexible specilization in successful manufacturing economies, including Japan, Switzerland, West Germany and Norway. Since the concept is widely recommended as an eminently-suited organizational principle for service industries, the third section is devoted to a theoretical and empirical exploration of this sector, both producer and personal services and administrations, using illustrations for the USA, UK and Netherlands. Finally, since flexible specialization is enthusiastically quoted as the saviour of Eastern Eruope's antiquated industrial economies, the final section explores in four chapters the opportunities and pitfalls of the approach in the region.
