Innovation,knowledge and relations – on the role of clusters for firms’ innovativeness

ABSTRACT

For more than two decades, theories on regional clusters have inspired economic and structural policies at the European, national and regional levels. Based on the assumption that clusters generate innovation, policy-makers at all levels of governance have adopted instruments and mechanisms to stimulate, resource and sustain clusters. Despite the considerable attention paid to the clustering phenomenon, empirical evidence on to what extent firms’ innovation activities benefit from operating in clusters is scarce and inconclusive. This paper contributes to the micro-foundation of clustering effects by examining the characteristics and activities of cluster firms in relation to their innovativeness. Bridging innovation, management and cluster theories, it is argued that structural and relational embeddedness, relational capital and absorptive capacity influence clustered firms' innovativeness. Partial least-squares structural equation modelling of data from 104 firms in two software and information technology service sector clusters reveals that firms’ structural embeddedness (i.e. frequency of interactions) in clusters and external networks facilitates innovation cooperation. Firms’ absorptive capacity reinforces this positive effect of cluster-internal interactions on innovation cooperation. Results also suggest a substitution effect of trust as relational control mechanisms for formal control mechanisms within the cluster. However, the study finds no significant impact of firms’ innovation cooperation within the cluster (i.e. relational embeddedness) on their innovation success.     

Differentiated regional entrepreneurial discovery processes. A conceptual discussion and empirical illustration from three emergent clusters

ABSTRACT

The paper aims to contribute to better understanding of entrepreneurial discovery processes and regional industrial growth by examining (1) how different regional contexts affect entrepreneurial discoveries, and (2) how entrepreneurial discoveries support specific types of industrial path development in different regions. The paper includes empirical studies of the formation and growth of three ‘official’ regional clusters supported by Innovation Norway’s programme for immature clusters. The paper argues that entrepreneurial discoveries should be institutionalized (by system level entrepreneurs) to achieve considerable regional industrial effects. In our cases institutionalization occurs through the creation of cluster organizations and development of the knowledge infrastructure.     

Public policies and cluster life cycles: insights from the Basque Country experience

ABSTRACT

This paper contributes to the study of the role of public policies in the origins and evolution of clusters. Building on the existing literature, we set up a taxonomy of nine public policies that may have an impact on the emergence and evolution of clusters. Based on in-depth case studies of six clusters of the Basque Country, particularly representative of the industrial history of the region, we analyse the relevance of the different types of policies both in the emergence and evolution of clusters over time. In agreement with cluster literature, the paper concludes that public policies seem to have played only an indirect role across clusters and over their life cycles. Moreover, it points to the necessity of taking history and context into account, as most of the important policy measures highlighted by cluster literature today do not fit well with the previous policy and economic context. Finally, it also concludes that for cluster policies to be effective, the stages of the life cycle should be taken into consideration.     

Related variety and the dynamics of European photonic clusters

This article aims at assessing the role of related variety, that is, the relatedness of knowledge bases used by different sectors within a region, as a major driver of clusters’ development. Some recent theoretical papers underline the role of clusters as ‘knowledge platforms’ organizing the recombination of technologies in overlapping industries, following the seminal definition of clusters by Porter as ‘geographic concentrations of linked industries’. In order to investigate the role of related variety in cluster dynamics, we analyse the patterns of development of clusters specializing in photonics in Europe. Photonics constitutes a new and rapidly evolving set of technologies with a high expected degree of technological recombination. However, due to inadequate traditional sectoral classifications, we propose an original method to delineate the perimeter of photonics in patent databases. A two-step algorithm is then used to identify systematically photonic clusters in Western Europe at the local level. In the last part of the paper, a typology of technological trajectories of clusters over the last decades is developed and then correlated with a set of quantitative measures of technological relatedness. The results highly confirm the role of related variety as a major driver of success, particularly for the biggest European clusters.     

Intervention publique sur le développement de grappes industrielles au Québec

This article describes the conditions for the development of four industrial clusters and the mechanisms of their integration in the regional economy. The case studies are the aerospace and apparel clusters in Montreal, and the agri‐food and marine science and technology clusters in the Lower St. Lawrence region. Clusters are defined as arrangements of businesses, government actors, public authorities, and local intermediary organizations in a local area. However, the study shows that clusters are based on actors and processes operating at different scales, from the local to the global. It also shows the importance of the sectoral leadership acknowledged by the different stakeholders.     

Seeing Eye-to-eye: How do Public and Private Sector Views of a Biotech Cluster and its Cluster Initiative Differ?

As clusters have developed from an analytical concept into a key policy tool, numerous cluster initiatives, or collaborative organizations designed to enhance the competitiveness of clusters, have been implemented across the globe. However, while research on clusters is abundant, research specifically focusing on these emerging organizations is scant to date. This paper analyzes one such cluster initiative and its cluster, and in particular examines to what degree the public and private sectors (1) have the same understanding of the cluster's competitiveness and underlying strengths and weaknesses and (2) what activities the cluster initiative should conduct.     

An assessment of the technology level and knowledge intensity of regions in Turkey

The paper investigates the patterns of technology and knowledge of the regions. The first aim of the paper is to determine cluster templates at the national level. The second aim of the paper is to investigate the technology and knowledge composition of the regional highpoint clusters. The paper identifies patterns of industrial linkages to define cluster templates and regional highpoints. The second part uncovers regional distributions of technology and knowledge. The data comes from Turkey’s 2012 input–output table. The location quotients use industrial employment statistics from the Turkish Statistical Institute. The technological and knowledge intensity classification follows Eurostat. The findings reveal 10 cluster templates in Turkey. Spatial distribution of the highpoint clusters reveals that most regions contain highpoint clusters with low technology and low knowledge-intensive sectors. The results reveal that highpoint clusters in Turkey’s regions contain industries whose technologies do not demand high skills, knowledge and sophistication. Limited existence of high-tech industries and low knowledge intensity in Turkey’s industry composition is a limiting factor for transition to high value-added manufacturing. Special emphasis should be directed towards constructing regional advantage, given the current levels of technology and knowledge intensity.     

Cluster Facilitation from a Cluster Life Cycle Perspective

Clusters influence the way firms cooperate, organize and compete, but clusters and their related benefits rarely come spontaneously in a straight line of expansion. It is argued that clusters typically develop in accordance with a life cycle, which includes an evolutionary sequence of steps where actors from the private and public sectors are engaged and where one or more cluster facilitators are coordinating and promoting the process. In the literature, the role of cluster facilitators has almost exclusively been described as static, leaving a research gap about how this particular role changes during the life cycle of clusters. Inspired by that research gap, this paper contributes to the understanding of the relationship between cluster development and cluster facilitation. It brings forward a framework for describing and discussing the exact changes taking place in the role of cluster facilitators, including the facilitation focus, competencies and tasks that they make use of along the cluster life cycle. This investigation is based on a multiple case study consisting of nine different clusters located in Denmark.     

How Do Pre-existing R&D Activities in a Region Influence the Performance of Cluster Initiatives? The Case of French Competitiveness Clusters

This article explores the diversity of 66 French competitiveness clusters, which were all accredited in 2005 according to the same specifications, by characterizing the initial context in which they emerged and taking a close look at the link between this initial context and their current performance. Since French competitiveness cluster policy is based on state co-funding of R&D projects, we establish a typology based on a multiple component analysis and a hierarchical ascending classification of the R&D potential of the cluster's territory, the respective R&D efforts of companies and academic laboratories, the kinds of actors setting up the cluster and their pre-existing relationships. We then measure the differences among the five classes relating to their clusters' capacity to obtain state funding for their projects. Our results show that initial context can partially explain competitiveness clusters' performance. Competitiveness clusters in territories possessing significant R&D resources, and involving large companies capable of organizing projects, are the most efficient in obtaining state funding. In contrast, competitiveness clusters without prior cooperation experience perform poorly.     

Emerging challenges of an urban creative economy: reflections on the governance of creative clusters in Taipei City

ABSTRACT

Retaining the global mobile creative class has been considered a crucial strategy for driving creative economic development in inner cities. However, implementing the global creative city strategy overemphasizes the significance of amenity-based creative economic landscapes over institutional collaborations in contributing to the situated governance dynamics of creative clusters. Drawing on insights from an evolutionary perspective, this paper scrutinizes the extent to which creative city strategies foster the situated development of creative clusters based on a case study of Taipei. The paper argues that developing the urban creative economy requires a context-specific understanding of the urbanization process, and should involve an institutional collaboration to articulate the socio-spatial co-evolution between the diversified dynamics of creative clusters and urban form. This paper advocates reflexive thinking on neoliberal city strategies to develop a conjunctive, diverse and substantial creative policy to support alternative paths of creative city development.     

Unhelpful Fixer? Canada,the Euromissile Crisis,and Pierre Trudeau's Peace Initiative, 1983–1984*

ABSTRACT

This article provides the most rigorous international history to date of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's 1983 peace initiative, one of Canada's major foreign policy ventures of the Cold War, examining both Trudeau's motives and the reception of his initiative among Canada's allies. Drawing on newly declassified sources in Canada, it uncovers the two-track strategy behind this initiative, aiming to mobilise Western European leaders to exert pressure on the Reagan Administration on the one hand, while quietly urging European allies to call for a review of NATO strategy on the other. Based on previously unavailable archival materials from seven different countries, this article also reveals how the Canadian initiative was received by the world leaders Trudeau sought to win over. It reassesses the Canadian initiative, revealing that it borrowed heavily from existing proposals from other countries, and that NATO leaders viewed the initiative as a mere electoral ploy to help Trudeau win re-election rather than a serious project to ease East–West tensions. This article concludes that with this initiative Canada was not in fact playing the role of a ‘helpful fixer’ and that the initiative constituted part of a wider and understudied trend in government responses to the ‘Second Cold War’.     

Why Every Cluster Cannot be a Successful Community?

The study of clusters is an important area of academic research. Clusters are also an important tool for public sector economic development. Historically, many organically developed clusters were based around a community of like-minded people. This may have led to a commonly held assumption in the literature that all clusters are communities. We suggest that not every cluster is also a successful community, based on empirical findings for four biotechnology clusters. Three issues of interests to practitioners are causes for clusters not being communities, the link between cluster success and development of “community” and policy failure at creating community within clusters. The discussion also aims to extend theory, first, by dealing with the rarely discussed question of the lack of collaboration “across” communities, and secondly, by attempting to help develop a theory of community formation in clusters.     

The Role of Leading Firms in the Evolution of SME Clusters: Evidence from the Leather Products Cluster in Florence

Clusters that emerged in the past have changed during the latest decades, so that today the research challenge in economic geography is on their evolution over time. The aim of this paper is to update the evolutionary path of SME Italian clusters, which faced the economic crisis are undergoing a process of decline in the number of firms. Furthermore, changes in the techno-economic landscape and in the competitive environment have generated new challenges. In this context, some leading firms, able to connect local resources (and firms) to global networks, have emerged over time and today they act as a gatekeeper. The focus will be on local networks interacting with leading firms and particular attention will be devoted to the pattern of co-evolution and to the geographical dimension of this co-evolutionary process. To empirically verify if other firms in the cluster may co-evolve with the leading firm over time, a deep analysis of the Gucci network in the leather products cluster in Florence will be carried out.     

Cluster Life Cycles,Path Dependency and Regional Economic Development: Insights from a Meta-Study on Basque Clusters

In this study, we aim at evaluating the role of path-dependent and past-dependent forces in the historical trajectory of clusters. For that purpose, we study the life cycles of four of the main industrial clusters in the Basque Country (paper-making, electronics and information and communication technology, maritime industries and aeronautics) and analyse the factors that account for the origin, development, maturity and, if so, decline of those clusters, considering factors related to both cluster dynamics and the regional environment. Our analysis shows that the existence of a life cycle does not imply a straightforward growth path. Clusters follow multiple growth patterns in their development. The heterogeneity of growth patterns may be, in some cases, due to different initial conditions. However, despite similar initial conditions and/or resource endowments and opportunities for development, we can observe heterogeneous evolutionary patterns. Clusters react differently to the same external shocks (e.g. international demand, global competition and technological change) and evolve differently according to their capabilities.     

A place-based policy for promoting Industry 4.0: the case of the Castellon ceramic tile district

ABSTRACT

Digitization and its impact on regions and clusters remains overlooked in the literature, and constitute this present paper’s goal. How does an industrial district transit collectively to the adoption of new radical changes brought about by Industry 4.0? This study explores the role of collective actors and innovation platforms during the early stages of a pilot policy to stimulate a collective transition of an entire MID (Marshallian Industrial District) into Industry 4.0. We posit that institutional isomorphism and the existent social capital in MIDs is a double-sword phenomenon that can also positively constitute an enabler for fostering change on a collective-basis. Technology transitions, such as Industry 4.0, can be supported and led by collective actors that are central in facilitating the adoption of Industry 4.0 in MIDs, enticing innovative firms to engage in that transition, establishing, legitimizing, and embedding a new set of processes, practices and inter-firm arrangements for digitizing and then promoting imitation: the positive leverage of isomorphism. Thus, MID transition is facilitated through capitalizing on the MID logic of cooperation-competition and isomorphism, by developing and promoting a collective understanding of the new paradigm, building a supportive infrastructure, educating in the new technology and avoiding cognitive inertia.     

演化经济地理的理论基础及其在集群研究中的应用

演化经济地理主要研究经济景观的演化过程,其理论基础包括广义达尔文主义理论、复杂性理论与路径依赖理论。将演化经济地理理论引入集群研究,运用微观一中观一宏观多尺度相结合的方法,有助于深入理解集群演化的过程及其动力机制,打开集群内部的"黑箱"。微观视角关注企业惯例及其区位行为如何影响集群的演化过程与空间特征;中观视角关注集群的知识网络结构特征、企业间知识联系,与网络演化的过程;宏观视角关注集群系统的演化路径与动力机制,以及集群与外部环境的相互作用。然而,由于演化经济地理理论与方法目前尚处探索阶段,将其应用于集群研究中仍存在不少局限。最后,结合中国产业集群现状,提出若干研究议题,认为未来中国产业集群研究需要更加注重"演化转向"。     

‘The Official Feast’: cultural tensions in U.K. carnival

Abstract

This paper reveals how U.K. street carnival is located within policy discourses that facilitate notions of creative economy, inter-place competition and the representation of institutionally-preferred versions of local, regional and national place-identity. The paper draws on ethnographic research within two community town carnivals and the professional Battle for the Winds carnival performances that launched the 2012 Olympic sailing at Weymouth. It considers the evolution of policy-driven carnival vocabularies that were designed to articulate preferred ‘Jurassic Coast’ and Olympic place identities for the south-west U.K. during 2012, and their effect on two vernacular, community street carnivals in East Devon and Dorset. The paper exposes the cultural tension between these vernacular events and the ‘official feast’ of Jurassic Coast and Olympic carnival, in terms of their performance of contradictory place-identities and contested notions of artistic community. It describes the popular challenge to aesthetic hegemony that these community carnivals presented during 2012. Finally, the author argues for a reassessment of the artistic value of vernacular carnivals, and affirms their status as a culture of resistance that creates alternative, sometimes inconvenient, symbolic constructions of community and place to those preferred by institutional actors operating within a neo-liberal discourse of inter-place competition.     

The Evolution of Biotechnology in Three Continents: Schumpeterian or Penrosian?

This Editorial introduces the Special Issue on ‘Biotechnology Clusters and Beyond’. Drawing on the interventions of five commissioned articles from Canada, Germany, Israel, the UK and the US it suggests that biotechnology clusters are interesting and important intellectually and for policy deliberation. They pose questions about basic cluster theory because localized networks, though intense, may not be as extensive as global ones in firm practices, especially as these evolve over time. Moreover, innovation is more deeply embedded in the publicly funded science base than for ‘Porterian’ clusters. Regarding innovation, biotechnology is also less obviously Schumpeterian, there being little market-driven ‘creative destruction’, and is arguably, with its strong emphasis on both large- and small-firm ‘capabilities’—Penrosian—an emphasis in clustering research and applications that warrants further investigation. Finally, at the specific technology-exploitation phase, market interactions assert themselves over milieu characteristics because scientists know the value of their discoveries and there is accordingly high appropriability associated with such knowledge capabilities.     

The Results of Cultural Management of the Croatian Archaeological Heritage with Special Consideration for Cost Effectiveness: The Case of Roman Iovia (Ludbreg)

Abstract

During the four seasons of excavations of the Roman town of Iovia-Botivo (present-day Ludbreg, Croatia), a smaller bath and sizeable (presumably public) building were discovered. An optimal plan for presentation was made with all due consideration for the site’s speci?c situation. The plan encompassed scholarly and professional requirements concerning conservation in situ combined with the needs of successful cultural management, thus resulting in alignment between the latter two factors as well as cost effectiveness. By applying the aforementioned principles (which served more as guidelines rather than rigid edicts) and facilitating successful, interdisciplinary cooperation between the national government, the municipal authorities, and researchers, it was possible to provide a sound, legally secure future for this site.     

‘We are not a rich country to waste our resources on expensive toys’: Mexico’s version of Atoms for Peace

Abstract

The Atoms for Peace initiative was announced by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on 8 December 1953. The ways in which Eisenhower’s proposal was interpreted, adapted and reshaped by different countries allows us to understand the various meanings and uses of nuclear technologies, particularly in Third World countries. Mexico’s version of the initiative was related to its modernizing nationalism, a distaste for overt geopolitical alignment and nuclear weapons, and an intermittent commitment of the federal government with nuclear technologies. These ingredients eventually led to the promotion of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, known as the Treaty of Tlatelolco (TT) signed in Mexico City in 1967. The TT made Latin America the first nuclear weapons-free populated region in the world, thus positioning Mexico in the new geopolitical nuclear order through a denuclearization discourse and a policy of non-engagement with nuclear technologies.