Industrial clusters,organized crime,and productivity growth in Italian SMEs

We examine whether organized crime affects firms’ performance (defined using Total Factor Productivity growth) both directly and indirectly, by downsizing the positive externalities arising from the geographic concentration of (intra‐ and inter‐industry) market‐related firms. The analysis uses a large sample of Italian small‐ and medium‐sized manufacturing firms over the period 2010–2013. The results highlight the negative direct effects of organized crime on firms’ productivity growth. Any positive effect derived from industrial clustering is thoroughly debilitated by a strong presence of organized crime, and the negative moderation effect of organized crime on productivity growth is greater for smaller than for larger firms.     

Heritage and participatory governance: An analysis of political strategies and social fractures in Spain

In the heritage field, institutions tend to see social participation as a synonym for good governance practice. This extends to other areas such as the environment, humanitarian aid, and sustainable development. In this article, the authors analyze the use of participatory models in the management of heritage through the study of three heritage sites in Spain: the prehistoric paintings in Altamira, the Mosque‐Cathedral in Córdoba, and the Cabo de Gata‐Nijar Natural Park. Their study suggests that, despite the promises of more democratic heritage governance, participatory methods are commonly bounded by social fractures that are concomitant to certain ‘heritage regimes’. They conclude that the critical study of participation in heritage should go beyond the dichotomy between ‘good and bad’ participation. Rather, it should focus on understanding what participation does to the entire heritagization process.     

Tourism,leisure and work in an east African pastoral society (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

This article investigates what happens with leisure experience between cultures when the Mursi of southwestern Ethiopia meet with international tourists. I propose that instead of regarding leisure as a fixed human condition within one society, it might fruitfully be approached as a process that evolves when different societies meet, i.e. as a constantly emerging (and disappearing) practice in cross‐cultural encounters. Tourism, studied broadly from an anthropological point of view, offers an excellent field for this investigation. The Western ideology of leisure, mobilized by tourists in non‐Western settings, is a good entry point to make tangible how societies understand leisure pursuits in intercultural encounters.