Special issue: clustering and innovation: firm-level strategizing and policy

Abstract

In the last two decades, the geography of productive activity has become a crucial aspect in various fields of economic research. This resurgence of territory as a fundamental economic factor is a consequence of the growing awareness of the fact that regional variations in terms of economic growth and performance ultimately depend on a set of relatively immobile resources – knowledge, skills and institutional and organizational structures – whose role is now recognized as highly important (Breschi and Malerba 2001). A growing number of scholars of the industrial and innovation economies devote their efforts to analysing the geographical dimension of innovative activities through a range of conceptual and empirical analyses, with relevant contributions from not only economics but also sociology and business. The study of clusters is particularly important. Interest in clusters owes to their spatial and social proximity. For example, high growth firms have huge innovation potential, which depends heavily on the competitive environment (Brown, Mawson, and Mason 2017). The geography of highgrowth firms, which profoundly affects regional development, seems to follow a spatial logic (Li et al. 2016). The term cluster expresses the existence of a geographical concentration of similar economic activities in terms of inputs, technology or products and markets. This term is general. Other concepts are used to describe more specific forms of clusters: growth poles, industrial districts, regional innovation systems, innovative milieus, industrial complexes, learning regions, local production systems and regional clusters, to name but a few. Although they are not synonymous, they all refer to spatial concentrations of economic activity. Consistent with the vision that innovation drives economic growth, they emphasize the importance of knowledge for regional competitiveness (Morgan 1997; Torre 2008; Vissers and Dankbaar 2016). The literature identifies three types of groupings of local firms that should be distinguished from clusters (Gordon and McCann 2000; Granovetter 1985; Simmie 2004). The first is the agglomeration. More than cooperation, this relates to discontinuous local interactions resulting from the presence of a large number of other firms and ecological processes of natural selection among firms. The second is the industrial complex, in which the determinant factor of concentration is the reduction of transportation costs resulting from the location of natural resources. The third type is based on social networks. In this case, relationships of trust make firms willing to undertake joint initiatives and sometimes act together to achieve common goals. As Isaksen (2016) explains, the emergence of clusters requires the right conditions for groups to emerge, as well as triggers that determine that clusters emerge in particular locations. To analyse the emergence and effects of concentrations of firms, the regional literature has used different theoretical approaches. Notable contributions include that of Becattini (1979) on the Marshallian industrial district and the externalities or network approaches (Camagni 1993). More specifically, different approaches have been used to investigate the reasons that justify the superior innovation performance of firms located in clusters and the complex, heterogeneous territorial distribution of innovation competencies. Notable approaches include those used in the case studies of technological clusters (Saxenian 1994), the analysis of technological districts and new industrial and technological spaces (Storper 1992) and the study of innovative media (Capello 1999; Maillat, ENTREPRENEURSHIP & REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT 2019, VOL. 31, NOS. 1–2, 1–6 https://doi.org/10.1080/08985626.2018.1537143