Along with the ID (Industrial District) literature on innovation, in this paper it is assumed that many district firms still fall into a traditional model of innovation, which is characterized by high collaboration with clients and suppliers, no investments in R&D and scarce or no linkages with KIBS. These firms are not capable of codifying knowledge, which remains essentially tacit (Muscio, 2006).
To this ideal-type, we oppose a different (and new) innovation type of district firms that beyond relying on B2B relationships, shows a higher commitment to R&D investments and a certain openness to external providers of knowledge (KIBS). Firms like this share a different attitude towards knowledge codification, which becomes basic in order to couple different kinds of knowledge coming from so many different sources.
Results have shown that while differing in their innovation approaches, the two ideal- types are fairly similar in terms of age and size. This fact allows us to assume that advanced innovators reflect a different innovation model rather than simply being the result of a process of chronological evolution.
