Regional Industrial Clusters Research Articles

The Identification of Regional Industrial Clusters Using Qualitative Input–Output Analysis (QIOA)

Titze M., Brachert M. and Kubis A. The identification of regional industrial clusters using qualitative input–output analysis (QIOA), Regional Studies. The ‘cluster theory’ has become one of the main concepts promoting regional competitiveness, innovation, and growth. As most empirical applications focus on measures of concentration of one industrial branch in order to identify regional clusters, the appropriate analysis of specific vertical relations is developing in this discussion. This paper tries to identify interrelated sectors via national input–output tables with the help of minimal flow analysis (MFA). The regionalization of these national industry templates is carried out with the allocation of branch-specific production values on regional employment. As a result, the paper shows concentrations of vertical clusters in only 27 of 439 German Nomenclature des Unités Territoriales Statistiques (NUTS)-3 regions. Titze M., Brachert M. et Kubis A. L'identification des grappes industrielles à partir des tableaux d'échanges inter-industriels qualitatifs, Regional Studies. La ‘théorie des grappes’ est devenue l'une des principales notions qui prônent la compétitivité, l'innovation et la croissance régionales. Etant donné que la plupart des applications empiriques portent sur la mesure de la concentration d'un secteur industriel afin d'identifier des grappes industrielles, une analyse appropriée des rapports verticaux spécifiques se développe au sein de ce débat. A partir des tableaux d'échanges inter-industriels nationaux et à l'aide d'une analyse par flux minimaux, l'article cherche à identifier des secteurs étroitement reliés. La régionalisation de ces modèles de l'industrie nationale se fait à partir de l'attribution à l'emploi régional des valeurs de production spécifiques aux secteurs. Par la suite, l'article ne montre des concentrations de grappes verticales que dans 27 des 439 Nomenclatures des Unités Territoriales Statistiques allamendes (NUTS)-à trois régions. Grappes industrielles Analyse des tableaux d'échanges inter-industriels qualitatifs Liens verticaux Titze M., Brachert M. und Kubis A. Die Identifikation regionaler industrieller Cluster mit Hilfe einer qualitativen Input–Output-Analyse (QIOA), Regional Studies. Das “Cluster-Konzept” hat sich als einer der wichtigsten Ansätze zur Erklärung der regionalen Wettbewerbsfähigkeit etabliert. Viele zu dieser Thematik angefertigte Studien bedienen sich bestimmter Konzentrationsmaße zur Identifikation industrieller Cluster. Die aktuelle Diskussion berücksichtigt aber auch Aspekte von regionalen Wertschöpfungsketten. Der vorliegende Beitrag identifiziert verbundene Wirtschaftszweige anhand der nationalen Input–Output-Tabelle mit Hilfe der Minimal Flow Analysis. Die Regionalisierung der ermittelten Strukturen erfolgt durch die Aufteilung der Vorleistungen entsprechend der regionalen Beschäftigtenanteile der jeweiligen Wirtschaftszweige. Im Ergebnis zeigt dieser Beitrag, dass lediglich 27 von insgesamt 439 deutschen NUTS-3 Regionen Merkmale vertikaler Cluster aufweisen. Industrielle Cluster Qualitative Input–Output-Analyse Vertikale Verflechtungen Titze M., Brachert M. y Kubis A. La identificación de aglomeraciones industriales regionales usando un análisis input–output cualitativo, Regional Studies. El concepto de ‘cluster’ es un marco teórico clave en el estudio de la competitividad a nivel regional. Los trabajos en este campo utilizan medidas de concentración sectorial para la identificación de clusters industriales. La discusión actual considera además las cadenas productivas de valor a nivel regional. Este studio identifica relaciones intersectoriales con ayuda de tablas input–output y Minimal-Flow-Analysis. La regionalización de las estructuras sectoriales identificadas se llava a cabo a través de la distribución de valores de producción según las cuotas regionales de empleo en cada sector. Los resultados indican que tan sólo 27 de las 439 regiones NUTS-3 alemanas presentan características propias de clusters industriales verticales. Clusters industriales Análisis input–output cualitativo Relaciones intersectoriales verticales

Spatial analysis of regional industrial clusters in the German forest sector

SUMMARY The economic concept of the forest sector as a cluster of interlinked wood-based industries is contributing to a growing understanding of a large sector in national economies of Europe. Although national level surveys have demonstrated the forest sector's global impact, neither its role in regional economies nor its distribution in geographic space are well understood. Attempting a regionalized analysis of the forest sector, this paper explores an approach combining regional economics and spatial statistics. Standard concentration indices (Gini coefficient, location quotient) and geostatistical autocorrelation measures for regional clustering (Moran's I and Getis-Ord G) are combined in an exploratory spatial analysis of detailed county-level employment statistics for Germany. The case study reveals decisive impacts of the forest sector on regional employment especially in rural areas. Regional industrial clusters and pairwise patterns of co-agglomeration of sawmilling, wood-based panels, wood-base...

The Evolution of Regional Industry Clusters and Their Implications for Sustainable Economic Development

The ability to detect embryonic yet dynamic industry cluster changes can help regional decision makers proactively create strategic initiatives that support value-based development. This article examines cluster trends in California's central San Joaquin Valley and northeast Indiana through the introduction of quantitative methods that detect microchanges in cluster development. These methods capture whether a region's clusters are evolving and, if so, how they are changing. Built on the foundation of traditional quantitative cluster analysis techniques, these additional screening methods can capture entrepreneurial and innovative activity within the industry cluster context at an earlier stage than traditional methods can. This approach can provide industry sector clues as to what may drive future cluster development, both positive and negative, and it can offer early-stage opportunities to assess job quality and productivity to help determine the sustainability of new cluster developments.

Upgrading Resource-Based Regional Industrial Clusters to Innovative Clusters: The Case of Shanxi Province in China

This paper is aimed as a contribution to the process of upgrading old industrial clusters towards a new status of innovative clusters. The concept of ‘lock-in’ is followed as it applies to a specific resource-based industrial cluster, to assess the value of this concept in the degradation of such clusters in a Chinese context. After identifying factors leading to the lock-in situation, we introduce the analytical framework of He–Xie Management Theory to investigate the potential role of this emerging management theory in promoting transition from old industrial clusters to innovative regions.

Putting Innovation in Place: Policy Strategies for Industrial Services, Regional Clusters, and Manufacturing SMEs in Japan and the United States 1

Abstract This paper examines the evolving situation of mature manufacturing small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) in Japan and the United States and considers some of the key challenges they now face in an era of globalization and rapid technological change. The rationale and justification for policy intervention to support mature SMEs is considered. A review is offered of illustrative policy initiatives in three areas: framework policies, industrial services, and regional industrial cluster policies. The convergence of manufacturing and regional policies is noted. The relative strengths and weaknesses of Japanese and US strategies are assessed. The paper concludes with a comparison of Japanese and US approaches to retaining manufacturing SMEs, interpreted through the various and at times interactive ways through which each country’s innovation system develops and evolves technology and business support policies.

Boosting Productivity, Innovation, and Growth through a National Innovation Foundation

Innovation drives America’s economic growth and ultimately determines its living standards and those of its metropolitan areas. However, the nation faces a growing innovation challenge in today’s global economy. To respond, the federal government should establish a National Innovation Foundation (NIF)—a new, nimble, lean, and collaborative entity devoted to supporting firms and other organizations in their innovative activities. By enhancing America’s world-class entrepreneurial and market environment, NIF would boost the nation’s innovation leadership for the 21st century and raise productivity and incomes. Moreover, by supporting workforce development and performance improvement in firms, NIF would help create better jobs for high school graduates in manufacturing and “low tech” services as well as those with advanced degrees in high technology industries. America’s Challenge • Global competition is increasing. Like manufacturing, call centers, and software production, corporate R&D is also shifting overseas. Over the last decade, the share of U.S. corporate R&D sites declined from 59 to 52 percent within the United States, while it increased from 8 to 18 percent in China and India. • American innovation leadership is slipping. The U.S. ranks only seventh among OECD countries in the percentage of GDP devoted to R&D expenditures. • Private markets suffer innovation inefficiencies. Private firms tend to under-invest in innovation because no single business can capture all the economic benefits arising from new technologies, products, or business models. Limitations of Existing Federal Policy • There is no national innovation policy. Rather than comprising an explicit, focused, national agenda, federal innovation efforts are scattered throughout government. • There is little focus on services innovation and commercialization. Existing federal innovation activities pay little attention to the service sector and to the important roles that smaller firms and universities play in the commercialization process. • There is no systematic innovation partnership between the federal government and state and local governments. Federal policies do little to support the effective, albeit underfunded, innovation efforts established by state and local governments. A New Federal Approach The federal government should establish a new National Innovation Foundation (NIF) with the sole mission of promoting innovation. The NIF’s proposed budget would be $1-2 billion per year. The new entity could exist as a new agency within the Commerce Department, a government-related public corporation, or an independent federal agency like NSF. The NIF would: • Catalyze industry-university research partnerships through national sector research grants. • Expand regional innovation-promotion through state-level grants to fund activities like technology commercialization and entrepreneurial support. • Encourage technology adoption by assisting small and mid-sized firms in implementing best-practice processes and organizational forms that they do not currently use. • Support regional industry clusters with grants for cluster development. • Emphasize performance and accountability by measuring and researching innovation, productivity, and the value-added to firms from NIF assistance. • Champion innovation by promoting innovation policy within the federal government and serving as an expert resource on innovation to other agencies.

Developing regional clusters in India: The role of national laboratories

This paper sets in perspectives the development of regional industrial clusters in India and discusses issues related to technology transfer from public-funded R&D laboratory system in India, such as the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), to small and medium enterprises and the impact of such transfers on the development of Indian industrial clusters. This has been done with the help of case studies of technological and managerial intervention from three specific CSIR laboratories. The paper also discusses different aspects of regional characterisation, specialisation and the role played by these national laboratories and others in trying to resolve the technological, managerial and social problems faced by industrial and artisan clusters.

Differences in Labor versus Value Chain Industry Clusters: An Empirical Investigation

ABSTRACT Regional analysts often identify industry clusters according to a single dimension of industrial interdependence, typically by trading patterns as revealed in national or regionalized input–output data. This is despite the fact that the theory underpinning regional industry cluster applications draws heavily on Marshall's theory of external economies, including the important role of labor pooling economies and knowledge spillovers in addition to spatially co‐located suppliers. This article investigates whether industry clusters identified based on trading relationships (value chain clusters) are meaningfully different in industrial composition and geography than those derived from an analysis of occupational employment requirements (labor‐based clusters). The results suggest that value chain linkages are a weak proxy for shared labor requirements, and vice versa.

Entrepreneurship: the missing ingredient in China's STIPs?

China is concerned to improve the technical capability of its industry. It has chosen Science and Technology Industry Parks (STIPs) as the model for incubating its R&D capability and driving its hi-tech policy. Against this background, the authors examine two main issues. First, we review assessments of university science parks in the UK and a wider context extracted from the literature before examining specifically China's R&D intensity and hi-tech policy. Second, we examine the performance of hi-tech companies situated on STIPs and those located outside STIPs, comparing their success in commercializing technology. We pay particular attention to the role of entrepreneurship in this activity by those engaged in it. Our findings are based on secondary quantitative data and qualitative data collected by means of interviews and focus groups in the Beijing and Shanghai areas in March 2004. From our research it is clear that China lags behind OECD countries in its R&D capability and the technology transfer rate is low, hampering China's hi-tech potential, although China is achieving some success in hi-tech exports, notably of ICT goods. Furthermore, innovation capability, locational factors such as being located in a regional industry cluster (in or outside STIPs), guanxi and networking opportunities, entrepreneurial skills, including international business experience and access to more financial sources and capital for developing the business, are essential for commercializing technology effectively in China. The role of entrepreneurship is evident. However, it remains still underdeveloped in China's STIPs.

Balancing localization and globalization:exploring the impact of firm internationalization on a regional cluster

This paper explores the impact of firm internationalization on regional industrial clusters. The past decade has witnessed the popularization of two intertwined trends in geographic competitiveness: globalization and localization. While previous research has sought to understand and analyse how multinational enterprises pursue strategies to capture critical expertise and resources in dynamic regional environments, to date only limited efforts have sought to explore how internationalization affects ‘cluster’ relationships among locally founded, rapidly growing firms. Specifically, this paper explores whether the internationalization of local firms weakens the local relationships associated with industrial clusters. It reports the findings of research conducted on the internationalization of a cluster of companies in the photonics industry. Twenty-three senior executives were interviewed, face-to-face. Grounded theory methodology was applied to the data to create a new conceptual framework to explore how internationalization impacts the embedded social relationships of locally established firms. The findings suggest that, as firms internationalize, intimate local relationships become less significant. As local companies mature and their sales and markets expand, they develop new capabilities and operations. Firms pursuing strategies to develop capabilities outside their home region gain access to outside resources and, in turn, elect to reorient their level of intra- vs. inter-cluster interaction.

The dynamics of regional specialization and cluster formation: dividing trajectories of maritime industries in two Norwegian regions

The theoretical starting point of this paper is the academic debate on regional specialization, agglomeration and industrial clusters. The paper offers further insights into the industrial dynamics within regional contexts by combining two approaches: (1) an historical study of industrial agency focusing on entrepreneurship, diversification and specialization; (2) a study of the relations within contemporary industrial systems important for industrial upgrading. Methodical triangulation has provided longitudinal studies. Particular attention is paid to path dependence as well as entrepreneurial capacity in order to explain why the industrial trajectories of matching regions divide. As the paper discusses continuity and change, a more dynamic perspective on path dependency is introduced. The past is not just regarded as a constraint, but as heritage as well. The dynamics leading to cluster formation and upgrading as well as industrial fragmentation are investigated in detail. The developments of shipyards and related maritime industries of the two Norwegian regions compared are characterized by static continuity and dynamic continuity, respectively.

Regional Industrial Identity: Cluster Configurations and Economic Development

We explore the concept of regional industrial identity as an important missing component in our understanding of the development of metropolitan regions and the spatial arrangements of industries. While economists and sociologists have explained the location of industry clusters on the basis of unevenly distributed resources, and historians have provided rich descriptive insight into the developmental dynamics of particular metropolitan regions, little systematic theory has been advanced to explain cross-regional inflows and outflows of resources, especially with respect to patterns in cluster development. This paper examines the concept of regional industrial identity as a social code that (1) arises from the shared understandings of residents and external audiences about the suitability of a region for particular kinds of business activity and (2) influences decisions about where to locate investments. We argue that such understandings are principally informed by configurations of industry clusters that have already formed in a region. Clusters, which are the results of historical investments, are also important signals about the types of business that can thrive in the future. We develop theoretical propositions linking characteristics of regional industry cluster configurations, in particular cluster dominance and cluster interrelatedness, to the strength and focus of regional identity and, as a result, to the types and amounts of resources that will develop within and flow into and out of regions.

Technological Life-Cycles

New disruptive technological life-cycles may initiate the emergence of new regional industrial clusters or create opportunities for further development of existing ones. They may, however, also result in stagnation and decline. For clusters in many of the fast developing technologies, the evolution is closely related to shifts in technological life-cycles. During the 1980s and 1990s new mobile communications technologies have emerged as a series of distinct life-cycles, which have caused major disruptions in the industry. The paper examines the key features of a cluster in wireless communications technologies, where the economic evolution has been quite closely related to the emergence of new key technologies. The analysis is focused on the strategy and policy issues involved in the specific phase where one technological life-cycle may (or may not?) be succeeded by the next. When facing disruption the actors in the cluster have discussed various strategies for how to cope with shifts in the technological life-cycles. We find that there is room and need for policy and collective action in periods of uncertainty created by new disruptive technological life-cycles.

Technology Transfer from National R&D Laboratories and the Development of Regional Industrial Clusters in India

This paper examines issues relating to technology transfer from the publicly funded R&D laboratory system in India (including organizations such as CSIR, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) to industry The author analyses the development of regional industrial clusters in India and considers the strategy of regional specialization in technological innovation projects undertaken in national R&D laboratories and its relationship to the development of industrial clusters and districts. In addition to this examination of the various aspects of regional specialization and the impact of the CSIR laboratories, the paper also highlights the significant role played by other centres of excellence, both in the government sector and elsewhere, in helping industrial clusters and artisan concentrations in various regions of India to solve technological, managerial and social problems.

Dynamic Clusters in Developing Countries: Collective Efficiency and Beyond

The alleged beneficial effects of regional industrial clusters for competitiveness and growth in developing countries have been subject to intensive study. A prominent place in the debate has been occupied by the collective efficiency approach. In this paper we extend that approach by incorporating insights from the literature on firm-level technological learning in development. The resulting framework is applied to the software cluster of Bangalore (India), to illustrate the ways in which spatial proximity of firms and other parties interacts with cluster knowledge creation in a dynamic environment. A number of new insights emerge, including the importance of "old economy" factors such as high demand for innovation, international technology transfer, low wages and strong technology and education institutions. To the extent that "new economy" regional factors also matter, spontaneous agglomeration advantages appear to be important alongside active collective efficiency.

The Entrepreneurial Event Revisited: Firm Formation in a Regional Context

This paper outlines the development of an entrepreneurial culture in the US Capitol region and the formation of a regional industrial cluster. The conditions that the literature associates with entrepreneurship lag rather than lead the development of the cluster. Supportive social capital, venture capital and entrepreneurial support services, as well as actively engaged research universities, are conditions that reflect the successful establishment of an entrepreneurial culture, built by the actions of pioneering entrepreneurs who often adapted to constructive crisis.

Knowledge Creation and Diffusion in Geographic Clusters

Knowledge Creation and Diffusion in Geographic Clusters

From integrated enterprises to regional clusters: the changing basis of competition

As manufacturing becomes a truly global affair, the basis of competition will no longer be between individual companies and their supply chains but between regional industrial clusters. Large multi-nationals can relocate operations to any part of the world, with significant impact on the regions into and out of which they move. This has significant implications for economic development in any regional economy. A new form of competition has come into being, namely, that between different regions of the world seeking to attract and retain manufacturing bases of multi-national companies. The strengths of the regional clusters — networks of interrelated businesses and other organisations — influence the multi-nationals in their location and sourcing decisions. This paper discusses the nature of clusters, giving illustrative examples from several parts of the world. Nevertheless, the cluster concept is only partially understood. Many questions concerning cluster development need to be examined. A brief discussion of the operations management and IT issues within clusters, as opposed to within individual member companies, is given. The paper presents a research agenda.

The Economic Impact of Cardiff University: Innovation, Learning and Job Generation

This paper discusses two economic functions of the University of Wales Cardiff (Cardiff University) in relation to local and regional economic development. The first concerns its direct and indirect impact as an economic force in its own rights in the locality and the wider city-region of South East Wales. Through the application of impact analysis it shown that the University is responsible for generating a gross local output of approximately £100 million a year and sustaining over 3,000 jobs. The second aspect of the paper concerns the knowledge impact of the University and its contribution to the development of regional industrial clusters in the automotive and electronics industries, and enhancing the `learning capacity' of the locality.