Abstract
Starting with the mid-1990s, the Western Romania footwear cluster has emerged and grown attaining a critical mass of producers and suppliers. Statistical data analysis based on Location Quotient (LQ) supports the relative concentration of firms and jobs in the footwear cluster as compared to the rest of the regions. The higher LQ values of firms are positively correlated with high levels of entrepreneurship and qualified and diversified labor pool, whereas the high LQ of footwear employment shows the large scale production at region-industry level. Better performance of the firms in the cluster is revealed by much higher averages of turnover, size and profit as compared to the national average. Along the process of cluster building, the composition of the firms has turned hierarchical by functions, and diverse by size and production capabilities. Therefore, the cluster has gradually made the transition from a low-tech, labor intensive manufacturing to a local production system based on skills, knowledge and end-of-line activities. The findings of the paper reveal the impact of the cluster building on the regional economy in terms of specialization, competitiveness, integration into the global supply chain, and spatial pattern. Finally, the analysis will provide insights into the relations between the footwear cluster, regional development and policy design.
Highlights
Starting with the 1990s, transition economies have been characterized by emerging clusters in a variety of industries, from traditional to high-tech, as a result of both the delocalization of industrial supply chains across Europe (European Commission, 2001-2004) and increasing domestic entrepreneurship
The higher Location Quotient (LQ) values of firms are positively correlated with high levels of entrepreneurship and qualified and diversified labor pool, whereas the high LQ of footwear employment shows the large scale production at region-industry level
High concentration of footwear firms and employment mirrors the level of regional specialization and it is measured by the Location Quotient (LQ) in 2007, 2012 and 2015.These years are relevant for the analysis as they represent the year before the onset of the economic crisis (2007), the beginning of the economic rebound after the crisis (2012), and the latest data recorded by the national statistics (2015)
Summary
Starting with the 1990s, transition economies have been characterized by emerging clusters in a variety of industries, from traditional to high-tech, as a result of both the delocalization of industrial supply chains across Europe (European Commission, 2001-2004) and increasing domestic entrepreneurship. And Romania have played a central role due to two major triggering events which have contributed to the creation of new productive networks: the relocation of Italian producers and the openness of the Romanian economy to trade and foreign investments. The shift in the location of the manufacturing activities has involved a spatial decentralization of employment, as industry moved from autarky industry location centers, mainly internal regions, to a number of locations with a better access to the European Union markets. These macro-scale shifts have triggered economic growth of the Western Romanian Region as a border region
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