Resilience and the role of arts and culture-based activities in mature industrial districts

In this paper, we build on the results of previous research on how industrial districts (IDs) well-endowed with innovation capabilities may fall down and sometimes react against lock-in conditions. Major challenges eventually brings about crises in IDs stuck into the cognitive core and institutional frames which have featured their past growth. Renewed development paths demand adaptive capacities. Conditions of cognitive or institutional lock-in may hinder or slow-down a successful reaction, corresponding to low resilience cases, but lock-ins may be avoided or overcome by the activation and integration of a multiplicity of secondary know-how nuclei. The present paper introduces some conceptualisations related to dynamics in IDs, and aims at exploring the roles of the cultural backgrounds and the possible activation of arts and culture-based activities