Delocalization as a competitive strategy for small and medium enterprise

Since the nineties, but the phenomenon has intensified in the last decade, has increased the number of SMEs that choose to relocate their production - or specific phases of it - in countries with low labour costs, in order to maintain or strengthen their competitiveness on international markets. Many enterprises of industrial districts adopted a strategy of relocation, breaking up the system of relationship on which these particular and economic realities are based. These realities are characterized by SMEs sectorial specialized. The phenomenon, which affected most of the Italian industrial districts occurred with particular intensity in textile and clothing local production systems, causing relevant economic and employment effects. Most of the relocation processes were realized in the Eurasian continent with a high concentration of productive investments in Eastern Europe and China, becomed one of the main partner of Italian manufacturing districts. This contribution - which is part of that wide field of research that investigates the effects of globalization on local production systems – proposes to analyze the process of internationalization of production of Italian industrial districts with particular reference to those involved in textiles and clothing; it wants to describe and interpret the consequences that this process determines, first, on the competitiveness of enterprises and, secondly, on the districts competitiveness. The hypothesis, in fact, is that the relocation has not be viewed a priori as a process of relational dismantling of districts, but as a necessary step in their process of reorganization and competitive refocusing. This process is a necessary condition to achieve a correct development