Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
tions which exist within a specific cluster or region, we will see shortly that
while there may be conditions under which it could be advantageous for
an MNE to locate facilities within a cluster, there are also many situations
in which this will not be so.
5.4
ANALYTICAL TYPOLOGIES OF SPATIAL
CONFIGURATIONS: IMPLICATIONS FOR MNEs
AND SPILLOVERS
5.4.1
The Transaction-Costs Spatial Typologies
If we adopt a transactions-costs perspective we can define three distinct
types of industrial clusters, according to the nature of firms located there,
and the nature of their relations and transactions within the cluster ore
region (Gordon and McCann 2000; McCann et al. 2002; McCann and
Sheppard 2003; Simmie and Sennet 1999). These three distinct types of
industrial clusters are the
pure agglomeration
, the
industrial
complex
, and
the
social network
. It has to be highlighted that the difficult analytical
problems relating to the diverse features of spatial agglomerations are
compounded by severe problems of identification and definition.
4
Here
we provide a classification of spatial types which is independent of either
the sector or the location, but instead is based on the microeconomic
behaviour and objectives of the co-located actors, and on the transactions
evident in the cluster or region. The key feature which distinguishes each
of these different ideal types of spatial industrial configurations is the
nature of the relations between the firms located there. The characteristics
of each of the cluster types are listed in Table 5.1, and as we see, the three
ideal types of clusters are all quite different.
In the model of pure agglomeration, inter-firm relations are inherently
transient. Firms are essentially monopolistically atomistic, in the sense of
having almost no market power, and they will continuously change their
relations with other firms and customers in response to market arbitrage
opportunities, thereby leading to intense local competition. As such, there
is no loyalty between firms, nor are any particular relations long-term. The
external benefits of clustering accrue to all local firms simply by reason
of their local presence. The cost of membership of this cluster is simply
the local real estate market rent. There are no free riders, access to the
cluster is open, and consequently it is the growth in the local real estate
rents which is the indicator of the cluster's performance. This idealized
type is best represented by the Marshall (1890, 1920) model of agglomera-
tion, and is the notion of clustering underlying models of new economic
