Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 12.3
Cluster analysis and policy exploratory expansion
Cluster
dimensions
Indicators and measures
Patterns
Policy guidelines
Spatial
concentration
Geographic spread
(boundary); density core
industry firms
Rapid geographical concentration; discernible
core industry boundary; number of firms in the
core industry increasing along with density;
supporting industry firms increasing rapidly.
Local regional level
1. Market and promote the cluster
2. Expand and maintain hard and soft infrastructure
3. Accommodate new businesses (start-ups and
in-migrating)—create one stop assistance center
4. Promote development of incubation and accelerators
5. Facilitate networking among firms in the cluster;
sponsor or co-sponsor informative workshops and
networking events
6. Streamline regulatory environment to support cluster
development
7. Maintain and disseminate information on workforce
needs and promote training by local education
institutions
Macro level (EU or National)
1.Provide assistance for cluster development after take-
off;
2. Assistance for lagging regions: workforce
development, infrastructure
Notes and caveats
1. The Exploratory Expansion stage means that the
economy is experiencing increasing returns and high
growth. The role of government is to recognize this and
promote further development of the core industry and
networking
2. Promotion of entrepreneurship should focus on
creation of growth companies and Incubation, and
workshops on growth company formation.
Non-productive entrepreneurship should be continued
but as a secondary function
Industry/Cluster
strength
Number of firms in core
industry; employment;
income; I-O analysis;
location quotient analysis
(LQ)
At least one industry is growing rapidly with LQ
increasing rapidly from the take-off level; rapidly
increasing internal flows between core industry
and supplier industries (I-O analysis)
Knowledge and
Information
Patents; number of
universities and STEM
research funding; industry
survey; expert interviews;
focus groups
Rapidly increasing patents and university STEM
sponsored research; university-industry linkages
increasing growing; but still considerable
knowledge & information heterogeneity
Entrepreneurship Number of start-ups and
churn rate
Rapidly increasing new start-ups including
company spin offs; focus on non-productive
entrepreneurship secondary; churn rate rapidly
increasing
Convergence
Agreed upon strategic plan;
membership in business
assns.; cluster industry
survey; expert interviews;
focus groups
Signs of convergence begin to appear in latter
part of exploratory stage; business associations
focused on core industry and cluster firm growth
(and new associations forming, e.g., technology
councils); focus is not on standardization or
building agreement on best practices; marketing
the cluster region has begun
Networking
Density and complexity of
business/industry networks;
number of foreign firms and
FDI (inbound and outbound);
Business/industry local networks evolving
rapidly with expanding internal sourcing (I-O
analysis)
