A comparative study on the interaction of inner-locality networks and inter-locality networks concerning the localization of SMEs.

中小企业分别创建了自己的企业间网络，并以其社会环境网络为支撑。这些网络由不同的空间秩序组成；从地方尺度到全国范围。中小企业可以通过它们与这些网络中的其他行为者之间的互动发挥创新作用。通过对日本三个工业区的案例研究，证明了具有竞争力的中小企业在自身能力的基础上，既有自己的超本地企业间经济交易网络，也有自己的非经济性质的本地企业间网络。这两种网络相互作用，增强了中小企业的竞争力。最典型的例子是新工业冈屋成员(NIOM)，它是在1990年中小企业接班人的非经济志愿活动的基础上组织起来的，中小企业通过各种网络相互学习编码知识和默会知识。编码知识可以毫无争议地在全国范围内分布，隐性知识不限于地方，而是可以从一个企业转移到另一个企业，两者位于很远的距离。物理上的接近并不是学习隐性知识的必要条件。大多数成功的中小企业不仅在自己的本地公司间和社会环境网络中经历了互动，而且还与其他公司建立了自己的区域间交易。后者对创新的决定作用要比地方互动大得多。从这个意义上说，中小企业的本土化并不像欧美国家的经济地理学家所坚持的那样至关重要。

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) create their own inter-firm network respectively and are supported by their social environmental network. These networks consist of various spatial orders ; from locality scale to nation-wide one. SMEs can be innovative through the interaction between themselves and the other actors within these networks. Through the case studies on three industrial areas in Japan, Suwa-Okaya, Kiryuu-Ota and Hamamatsu, it proved that competitive SMEs on the basis of their own competence have their own supra-local inter-firm network of economic transaction as well as their own local inter-firm network of non-economic character. These two kinds of networks interact with each other and strengthen the competence of SMEs. The typical case is New Industrial Okaya Members (NIOM), which was organized in 1990 on the basis of non economic voluntary activities of the then successors of SME-owners.SMEs learn coded knowledge and tacit one from each other through the various networks. Coded knowledge can distribute nation wide without dispute, and tacit knowledge is not restricted within locality, but is transferable from firm to firm, both of which are located at a long distance from each other. Physical proximity is not a necessary condition for the learning of the tacit knowledge. Most of the successful SMEs experienced interaction not only within their own local inter-firm and social environmental networks, but also created their own inter regional transaction with the other firms. The latter is rather more decisive for the innovation than the local interaction. In this sense, the localization of SMEs is not critical as the economic geographers in the European and American countries insist on.