Design at work. The interwoven effect of territorial embeddedness, social ties and business networks.

The aim of the chapter is to shed light on how design output is produced, and to investigate on the relationship between design, local community and territorial development. In particular, the chapter will focus on Italy. Italian firms heavily invested in design for sustaining innovation and competitiveness in the global markets. The creative capacity of design is an important driver for renewing manufacturing sectors which otherwise were destined to decline. Designers tend to cluster in specific areas, and the work illustrates the triggering factors of the emergence of a community of designer in Turin, in the north-western part of Italy. Concepts such as communities of practice, territorial embeddedness, social networks, will be contextualised in the realm of the design sector. By doing so, the chapter offers an integrated view of creative work organizing, where a creative community, territorially embedded, gives rise to various business projects. Original data from a survey design conducted by the authors are elaborated through social network analysis tools and statistical methods.