Spatial loyalty and territorial embeddedness in the multi-sector clustering of the Bergueda region in Catalonia (Spain)

The development of clusters of local growth is supported by different processes. Endogenous economic development produced by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is based on family firms in which local market characteristics influence the sectorial diversification that emerges within certain regions. In the Bergueda region (Catalonia, Spain), the formation of a successful network of SMEs in three main sectors (food, textile and machinery) in the 1990s demonstrated the importance of grass-roots prerequisites, including industrial tradition, social networks and a sense of spatial loyalty, one of the main concepts studied in this paper. The aim of this paper is to study how institutions, local economic networks and collective social agents generate a propitious economic space that constitutes favourable embedding in Berguedà. However, the key element in this industrial system is the loyalty that entrepreneurs and workers feel towards their industrial region. These two processes, territorial embeddedness and spatial loyalty, appear to be two of the major forces behind the economic dynamism of the region and have led to the formation of a new cluster of firms. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.