Policy measures to support the emergence of localised industrial clusters (original) (raw)
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Factors and Mechanisms Causing the Emergence of Local Industrial Clusters: A Summary of 159 Cases
Regional Studies, 2013
Local industrial clusters have attracted much attention in the recent economic and geographical literature. A huge number of case studies have been conducted. This paper presents a meta-analysis of the case studies of 159 local industrial clusters in various countries and industries. Based on an overview of the various theories and arguments about the emergence of such clusters in the literature, it analyses the involvement of 35 different local conditions and processes, providing a summary on the knowledge that is gathered in these case studies with a comparison between continents, new and old clusters, and high-and low-tech industries.
Factors and Mechanisms Causing the Emergence of Local Industrial Clusters: A Meta Study of 159 Cases
2007
Local industrial clusters have attracted much attention in the recent economic and geographical literature. A huge number of case studies have been conducted. This paper presents a meta-analysis of the case studies of 159 local industrial clusters in various countries and industries. Based on an overview of the various theories and arguments about the emergence of such clusters in the literature, it analyses the involvement of 35 different local conditions and processes, providing a summary on the knowledge that is gathered in these case studies with a comparison between continents, new and old clusters, and high-and low-tech industries.
The Industrial Clusters - Evolution and Types
2010
The industrial territorial and branch organization depends on the “industrial environment”. This “industrial environment” is characterized by geographic concentration and proximity of the “growth factors”, which significantly increase the aggregate economic product. The “factors concentrations” allow identification and management of the competitive advantages of the industries, sectors and regions. Lot’s of the recent analytical concepts of the industrial environment processes are on the cutting edge of the cluster concept, which has some key advantages: First, cluster is geographically limited, which allows easy adaptation to regional analysis approaches /spatial context/. Second, the clusters exist due to product and technological spillovers, evidence for its existence, significance and completeness. This makes the cluster typology comparable with the functional typology of the settlements. Third, the cluster development is phase divided in accordance of its technological and prod...
The rise and fall of industrial clusters: Technology and the life cycle of regions
2004
When a major technological innovation spreads out in both high-tech and middle/low-tech industries, new clusters appear, develop and grow at the expenses of "older" historical industrial sites. The literature has, under various labels, recognised three main stages of cluster development: an initial stage sparked by an initial exogenous, shock; a second stage driven by Marshall's (1920) agglomeration economies (labour market pooling, supply of intermediate goods and services and knowledge spillovers); a third stage in which the cluster either achieves a sectoral leadership or declines. The paper shows how different clusters' evolution (often told as separated stories) are part of a wider picture in which technological and spatial interactions between emerging and declining clusters play a decisive role. A final section draws some policy suggestions for public authorities and regional planners dealing with the development of an innovative cluster.
Regional clusters are a pervasive phenomenon. Yet, clusters evolve and exhibit different forms in different places. Clusters are defined by interconnections of geographically concentrated firms in a particular field. This chapter will describe how these interconnections affect the propensity and shape of clusters. First, it describes the particularity of interconnections between geographically clustered firms and showed how firms substitute permanent co-location by temporarily generated proximity. Secondly, the chapter describes how these processes are connected to the emergence and decline of clusters. Thirdly, the chapter analyzes how socio-economic contexts affect these interconnections, resulting in variegated clusters.
The Borders of "Industrial Districts" in an International Competitive Environment
2000
The paper analyses the geographical scope of the links, which integrate the small and medium size firms, tightly embedded in a local production system ("industrial district"), with other firms and organizations both in a local and in an interregional perspective. In particular the paper aims to indicate the evolution of these relationships in the framework of the new forms of industrial organisation brought by the new technologies and the increasing international integration.
CHANGING STRUCTURE - KEEPING LOCATION GLOBAL CHANGE AND LOCAL STIKINESS IN LOCAL INDUSTRIAL CLUSTERS
During the last decades, local industrial clusters (LICs) have increasingly attracted attention among economists. The study of LICs, in particular in the Italian literature (under the more common label of 'Marshallian industrial districts'), highlighted the inadequacy of the mainstream body of explanation to provide a theory of the emergence and transformation over time of these systems. Moving from an evolutionary approach, this paper attempts to inquiry into the processes and structures which might account for the success over time of LICs. The LIC will be identified in the paper as possible locus of coexistence, overlapping and interaction of different networks. The focus on coexistent multilevel relational structures and on the interplay between production and knowledge relationships in a local clusters help understand how possible changes in these structures might lead to processes of selforganization at the cluster level. Indeed in the paper it is argued that the kind of knowledge which circulate within and is processed by networks determine the possible change path of the local cluster under external stimuli. Access to knowledge and information about markets, available technologies and competition provide the actors with the possibility to recognize and anticipate new market trends, opportunities and threats. However, the competitive advantage of a local cluster has to be attributed to the capacity to apply new knowledge and technologies more than to access it. Besides this, the knowledge absorptive and adoptive capacity of a local network depends on the degree of complementarity of the new pieces of knowledge with the local capitalized knowledge and skills. A new path of innovation can be gone through to the extent to which the kind of knowledge and technology on which it is based are compatible with the local experience. The perception of external stimuli itself by the local cluster depends on the local context and needs to be locally contextualized. The result is that market opportunities are recognized to the extent to which they are compatible with the technological and cognitive local context. The paper aims to identify the processes and structures affecting the persistence of competitive advantage of a location. Besides it aims to distinguish between the extent to which the capacity to maintain competitive advantage can be attributed to local features or to the participation of local actors to non-local communities of practice. The paper will analyze the case in which the persistence of a competitive advantage requires changes in the production structure characterizing a local cluster. These changes might lead the cluster to change in the production structure. The processes through which the transition to a new structure in a specialized cluster might be undertaken are studied. A certain correlation between location in the value chain of different actors and knowledge and information managed is detected. Moreover within the LIC's relational structure it is distinguished between those actors with a more local attitude and those with a non-local attitude.