Industrial and Regional Clusters: Concepts and Comparative
Applications
Edward
M. Bergman and Edward J.
Feser
CHAPTER
ONE
Introduction
Industry clusters
refer to the tight connections that bind certain
firms and industries together in various aspects of common behavior, e.g.,
geographic location, sources of innovation, shared suppliers and factors of
production, and so forth. Industry cluster concepts date from the last century,
but they have captured the imagination of active policymakers and the serious
attention of scholars only in the last decade of this century. Because
clustering behavior is such a pervasive aspect of modern economies and global
trade, it draws the attention of many different disciplines and benefits from
their scholarship. Although a consideration of research on this topic might
alone justify book-length treatment, industry cluster concepts are also
powerful metaphors that are used routinely to guide industrial and regional
development planning throughout the world.
Drawing on classic
materials and the recent burst of scholarly and policy activity, this monograph
examines and demonstrates the use of industry cluster ideas as a means of
understanding and shaping regional economies. The highly fluid nature of the
rapidly developing body of literature and research on clusters is ideally
suited to a web-based presentation, and we attempt to take full advantage of
the medium here. Given the limits of a monograph presentation and the highly
fluid nature of the literature, however, we focus most attention on areas where
the advances have been somewhat more stable, incremental, and generally
cumulative. Those concern mainly operational concepts of industry and regional
clusters that have benefitted from alternative analytic approaches, and that
generate relevant information for regional development policymakers. Each
chapter represents our best effort to sort through, clarify and perhaps codify
important concepts, definitions, labels, and methods. Occasional self-contained
discussions of closely related sub-topics, explanatory sidebars, and short
glossaries of terms provide additional elaboration.
Intended Audience
The monograph is most
appropriate for students of regional science, regional studies, economic
geography, and related fields such as regional planning and development. We
often refer to concepts, without full elaboration, that are common and
well-known to those closely connected fields. We provide more details when
less-familiar concepts are borrowed from more distant sister fields. Industrial
clusters are also of interest to students of business, development studies,
international development, industrial innovation and strategy, and
international trade.
At the same time, an
integrated treatment of industry and regional clusters should be of interest to
local and regional policy makers in all parts of the world. Other audiences are
likely to include consultants and industry analysts. Indeed, it is the latter
that are responsible for many existing industry and regional cluster studies.
Organization
In
Chapter 2, we open by asking why we should study
industry clusters and supply a working definition of what we mean by the term.
The chapter continues by presenting overviews of the major theories and models
that provide the underlying foundation for cluster concepts, with particular
reference to regional analysis and policy applications. We make a key
distinction between clusters in economic space and clusters in geographic
space. Related concepts from growth poles to agglomeration economies are
reviewed and related to recent contributions to the cluster
literature.
In
Chapter 3 we describe techniques for identifying
industry clusters, including the use of expert opinion, measures of
specialization, input-output methods, network analysis techniques, and surveys.
Particular emphasis is placed on input-output based methods (the identification
of
value chain-based industry
clusters
). We then present an application of an
input-output based approach as an illustration. The application serves as the
baseline for subsequent analysis at the regional level in Chapter 4.
Chapter 4 argues that industry
cluster concepts are of greatest use to regional development scholars and
practitioners when they permit a unified view of a regional economy and insight
into its evolving structure. The chapter offers a sampling of how industry
cluster ideas can be effectively applied to better understand–and draw
policy guidance for--regional economies. Research applications extend or build
upon industrial cluster concepts to investigate related development concepts,
while policy applications apply industrial concepts directly to guide
development decisions and policy efforts at the regional level. Efforts are
made to incorporate or compare others’ work where similarity of
application or sufficient detail of results permit. This section may be the
most subject to amendment and expansion in future editions. If so, it may also
stimulate valuable documentation of analytic approaches underlying new
applications that would further enrich the other three sections as well.
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