Analysis by product or by type of activity is becoming less and less pertinent when characterizing the production organization of industrial clusters and local productive systems. In numerous regions and metropolitan areas, the way that economic activities are based geographically reveals relationships which go across different sectors of activity, on the basis of the similarity of skills required. At Toulouse, on-board systems, mainly sets of equipment composed of electronic and computer components integrated into an aircraft, a satellite or an automobile, were first developed on a sectorial basis before becoming progressively the subject of transverse skills and knowledge between the different industrial sectors (aeronautics, space, automobile electronics). Today this system is tending to consolidate on the basis of positive externalities such as the sharing of common subcontracting of information technology services, the collaboration of industrial firms with engineering science institutions, the circulation of personnel within the local labour market. To this must be added a strong institutional input which is manifested by the addition of an "on-board systems" section to the Competitive Cluster "Aeronautics and Space" common to the Midi-Pyrenees and Aquitaine regions. In the case of Toulouse, the "on-board systems" activities form the basis of a local organization of these hightechnology activities into a local skills system.

The principal objective of this article is to offer an approach to the notion of hub firms using concepts from the Economy of Proximity. It shows that the specificity of the hub firm lies in its ability to combine technical and relational skills, allowing early involvement with, for example, an aircraft manufacturer in order to take part in the definition and the production of systems or sub-assemblies. A particular characteristic of the hub firm is the way it develops linked organisational and geographical proximities which this article analyses in detail. In particular, such firms demonstrate the capacity to establish different types of organisational proximity according to whether they are coordinating with the architect-integrator or with subcontractors , proximities sometimes reinforced by a temporary geographical proximity. When hub firms coordinate with industrial or scientific partners which help them conceive and master particular sets of skills, they often forge links based on geographical proximity in order to develop the innovations necessary for the acquisition and master of these in-house skills. These theoretical arguments are then tested in the cases of the hub firms Thales Aerospace and Liebherr Aerospace in the Toulouse aeronautical complex.

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