Facilitating Emergence of an ICT Industry Cluster

Abstract

Michael Porter and others suggest that the interactive dynamics between industrially related organizations within a circumscribed geographic area can help to form an "industry cluster", where the dynamics helps them to substantially improve their international competitiveness compared to organizations working in isolation. Following suggestions based on a paradigm of organizational emergence, the authors have intervened in their local area to see if they can crystallize the emergence of an industry cluster to address the ICT needs of organizational knowledge management. Although the ultimate success of the interventions remains to be demonstrated, this paper outlines the theoretical framework, some interventions, and the results of these interventions towards formation of an active cluster. We have observed that some low cost interventions appear to successfully build the kinds of interpersonal knowledge transfer relationships that historical studies suggest facilitate the emergence of successful clusters.

Keywords: Industry cluster, organizational dynamics, emergence, knowledge sharing, case study

JEL Classification: L16, L20, L86, O11, R10