Abstract
Policies to support clusters of firms and other territorially-rooted agents are as popular today as they have ever been. While contemporary cluster policy most commonly adopts a microeconomic perspective to support business competitiveness, cluster policy practice remains strongly influenced also by the social foundations that can be found in the industrial district concept. This paper critically analyses contemporary cluster policy by incorporating an institutional perspective that seeks to enable greater understanding of the relevance of local community, systems of values, and informal institutions for cluster policy practices. Supported by a brief analysis of the diversity of cluster policies that are found in seven European regions, the paper makes a first step in highlighting the potential space for cluster policies to work more explicitly on the social embeddedness of clusters in their territories. This agenda requires more research, which could build on Giacomo Becattini’s key ideas in responding to the increasing sensitivity of both academics and policy makers to the intractability of the economic and social aspects of territorial development processes.
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Source: Extended based on Konstantynova and Wilson (2017)
Source: Authors’ elaboration based on Kherallah and Kirsten (2001)
Source: Williamson (2000, p. 597)
Source: Authors’ own elaboration
Source: Authors’ own elaboration
Source: based on Konstantynova and Wilson (2017)
Source: based on Konstantynova and Wilson (2017)
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Notes
Clusters and industrial districts share some essential characteristics (Porter and Ketels 2009) and they do so alongside a range of other concepts that have emerged in other parts of the academic literature. For example Scott (1998) highlighted the rise of industrial spaces, while others have talked about local production systems (Crouch et al. 2001), local high-tech milieus (Keeble and Wilkinson 2002), local and regional innovation systems (Asheim and Gertler 2006; Cooke 2001; Cooke and Morgan 1998), or learning regions (Asheim 1996; Asheim and Clark 2001; Morgan 1997). A number of works have tried to systemise these related concepts, e.g. Rosenfeld (2005) or Delgado et al. (2016).
For example Brenner and Schlump (2011) see the cluster support areas in (a) education, (b) public research, (c) R&D support, (d) innovation culture, (e) start-ups support, (f) network organisation and cooperation, and (g) infrastructure and local conditions, and Maskell and Kebir (2005) argue that different types of policy support will be more or less appropriate at different stages of the cluster life-cycle.
The purpose of NIE is on both (1) to explain the determinants of institutions and their evolution in time, and (2) to evaluate their impact on economic performance efficiency (Kherallah and Kirsten 2001).
Territorial strategies or programmes that address a broad spectrum of areas, e.g. from industry, via innovation to education.
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The authors acknowledge Interreg Europe Cluster3 Project, Basque Government Department of Education, Language Policy and Culture and anonymous reviewers.
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Konstantynova, A., Wilson, J.R. Cluster policies and cluster institutions: an opportunity to bind economic and social dimensions?. Econ Polit Ind 44, 457–472 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40812-017-0081-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40812-017-0081-x