There is growing awareness that knowledge in general, and learning (or the capability to learn) in particular may be critical to the competitive advantage of firms, regions and nations. In this respect, much has been written on the interactive and institutional bases of learning and knowledge creation. Lundvall (1988), for example, claims that firms learn and adapt to 'best practice' through interaction with other firms and organizations. Instead of outcomes of independent actions of isolated actors, innovations are more often the result of interaction and co-operation between actors within the firm (e.g., between RD Storper, 1997). In general, there is a growing interest in the social foundations of economic development (Fukuyama 1995), which have long been ignored by mainstream economists (Boschma, 1999a). The notion of 'social capital' has been introduced to underline this, which may be illustrated by the definition provided by Putnam (1993, p. 167.): "trust, norms and networks that improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated action". Apart from lowering transaction costs and improving institutional performance, social capital facilitates the transmission and exchange of information and knowledge, especially noncodified or tacit knowledge, which is, by nature, much more difficult to communicate. Where there is a high rate of trust, communication proceeds relatively smoothly, which may boost interactive learning (Maskell and Malmberg, 1999). Some claim that a new (post-Fordist) era of 'flexible specialization' in capitalist countries has emerged (Piore and Sabel, 1984; Best, 1990). Gregersen and Johnson (1997; p. 48 1 ) state that a modern learning economy has emerged in which the new ICT's "... have dramatically reduced the costs of storing, handling, moving and combining information, and have made different kinds of networking possible". Florida (2000) talks about 'a new age of global, knowledgebased capitalism', which is characterized by, among other things, new forms of relations between firms based on cooperation, trust and the sharing of knowledge for mutual benefit.