Cognitive Identity and Social Reflexivity of the Industrial District Firms. Going beyond the "Complexity Effect" with an Agent-based Computational Prototype

Industrial districts (IDs) are complex inter-organizational systems based on an
evolutionary network of interactions among heterogeneous, localized, functionally integrated
and complementary firms. With an agent-based prototype, we explore how cognitive
processes and social reflexivity dynamics of ID firms affect technological adaptation and
economic performance of ID as a whole. Rather than observing IDs just by the point of view
of the so-called bottom-up emerging properties, we try to study how firms develop over time
“districtualized” behavioral attitudes, through cognitive capabilities of typifying and
contextualizing in a social sense their technological, organizational and economic action.
The question is: do cognitive processes, like those mentioned, have a great impact on
technological learning and economic performance of firms over time?