The internationalization of Italian industrial district firms in Mexico. The results of an empirical investigation

The paper analyzes the internationalization strategies of Italian industrial district firms in Mexico, with the aim to examine whether the Mexican market conditions could foster the local rooting of Italian SMEs and sustaining cooperation inter-firm relationships, thus generating the pre-requisites for the repeatability of the Italian industrial district model locally. The focus of the paper is on the Mexican footwear clusters in Léon and Guadalajara and is completed by an empirical investigation on a sample of SMEs of the Italian footwear district of Fermo-Macerata which are rooting in the above mentioned Mexican cluster with the aim to analyse the internationalization strategies adopted and the nature of the relationship with local Mexican SMEs.