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A Matter of Distrust: Explaining the Persistence of Dysfunctional Beliefs in Regional Clusters
Author(s) -
STABER UDO
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
growth and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.657
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1468-2257
pISSN - 0017-4815
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2257.2007.00374.x
Subject(s) - distrust , normative , rivalry , cluster (spacecraft) , positive economics , epistemology , phenomenon , social psychology , dysfunctional family , structuring , persistence (discontinuity) , psychology , sociology , economic geography , political science , economics , microeconomics , philosophy , computer science , law , programming language , psychotherapist , geotechnical engineering , engineering
Much theoretical writing on regional clusters is based on a functionalist and normative view of trust‐based social exchange underlying innovativeness and competitiveness. Empirical research, however, reports many cases of clusters that are best characterized as loosely connected agglomerations of firms, driven by intense distrust and rivalry, rather than trust and cooperation, and with outcomes that may or may not be advantageous. The aim of this paper is to offer a microlevel Darwinian explanation for the persistence of distrust in clusters. From the “meme's eye view,” a cluster may be understood as a cultural phenomenon that is created and reproduced by human agents as they selectively perceive and enact the ideas that draw their attention. The outcome is not necessarily a distribution of ideas that benefits the individual members of the cluster or enhances the performance of the cluster as a whole. This paper outlines the general evolutionary principles involved in this process and applies them in a discussion of some of the conditions under which ideas related to distrust may be selected and reproduced.