Crafting social memory for international recognition: the role of place and tradition in an Italian silk-tie maker

This chapter focuses on the role of place and local history in building the brand identities of craft organizations. Recent research on craft organizations has focused on the local context as an important factor for identity recognition and distinctiveness. However, an important but understudied aspect of this relates to the organizational use of both the sense of place and history and how visions of the past are used to support and legitimate organizational operations. In this context, local history is not simply regarded as a timeline along which events come to pass, but as a symbolic and cultural artefact that organizational actors deliberately manage and construct.