Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
cooperation via, for example, promotion of buying or selling cooperatives. At the
macro level assistance for workforce improvement, business assistance, develop-
ment planning and infrastructure, and support for lagging regions via a regional
policy regime is a possibility. At best the region can implement business attraction
and retention policies and hope a segment of the economy will, via planning or
serendipitously, attract enough firms for a take-off.
12.4.2 The Take-Off Stage and Policy Guidelines (See Table
12.2
)
In the take-off stage one or more industries begins to emerge and exhibit signs of
clustering (see Table
12.2
). An area within which most of the companies in the
industry are contained can be identified. Yet, the density of firms is modest. The
strength of the core industry and the emerging cluster is growing and characterized
by a LQ that rises above 1.0 demonstrating that the core industry is evolving into a
lead cluster sector. It is during this stage that cross industry cooperation begins as
represented by increasing cross industry flows (from a regional I-O table).
Knowledge and information heterogeneity may be expanding but modestly as
cohesion of the core industry(s) is still in a nascent stage. Yet, that which does exist
is highly heterogeneous. It is not likely that knowledge indicators would experience
much change as take-off occurs.
Entrepreneurship indicators such as start-ups may show modest increases and
there may be efforts to form a business incubator. Yet, most of the start-ups will
continue to be of the non-productive form. Convergence around a strategy that
envisions a cluster is not usually of major interest in the form of action steps.
Networking may be evolving at this stage but will not be well developed around
the concept of an emerging cluster. There may be a few new firms formed with the
goal of supplying inputs or marketing assistance to businesses in the core industry
(s) but this will be modest. There may be isolated instances of firms in the core
industry(s) cooperating on matters such as joint bidding on projects or supplying
goods or services jointly in cooperation to a market segment. Cooperation in
general will tend to be modest as the region is not yet focused on building the
cluster.
The role of local regional government at the take-off stage includes providing
information about the economy regarding the emergence of a core industry(s) and
providing assistance for workforce development and infrastructure maintenance
and development. It also has the opportunity to provide support for business
assistance, for example, training and promotion of buyer-seller cooperatives. A
major local government leadership role is to communicate to all stakeholders that
cluster conditions are evolving and that there is a need and opportunity for produc-
tive entrepreneurship. A role for national government is to provide planning and
advisory assistance for regions that exhibit the potential for cluster development.
Continued support for lagging regions is important as regions with emerging
clusters may also be lagging regions.
