Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 January 2016
This article proposes an institutionalist reading of the processes of industrial and employment change taking place in the clothing industry in Brindisi, Italy, during the 1990s. In contrast to more orthodox economic interpretations that focus on the separation between the economy and institutions, this article assumes the centrality of institutions for an understanding of industrial and employment performances and their change over time. Institutions profoundly affect the pursuit of the objectives of profit and efficiency in that they influence the definition of what can be considered as rational in a given institutional configuration and compatible with the values that a given society holds as socially and economically legitimate.
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