Clusters for Life or Life Cycles of Clusters: In Search of the Critical Factors of Cluster Resilience

Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, Forthcoming

34 Pages Posted: 27 Sep 2011 Last revised: 17 Dec 2013

See all articles by Raphaël Suire

Raphaël Suire

University of Nantes - IAE - Department of Business Administration

Jerome Vicente

LEREPS Sciences Po Toulouse, University of Toulouse

Date Written: september 27, 2011

Abstract

This paper investigates the driving forces behind the life cycles and resilience of technological clusters. It concentrates in particular on the combination of critical parameters that allows clusters to succeed in disconnecting their cycle from the cycle of the technologies they produce, in order to maintain stability and growth in unstable economic environments. Three propositions on location decision externalities, the life cycle of composite technologies, and the structural properties of knowledge networks, are developed and introduced in an inclusive study of cluster trajectories. Discussions show that resilient clusters are the ones that combine network and external audience effects in location decision-making, and evolve towards a specific core/periphery and disassortative structure of knowledge interactions along the knowledge and market phases. Understanding these pathways could be at the heart of the renewal of cluster and regional policy in a macro-economic context characterised by high instability and new growing consumer paradigms.

Keywords: cluster, location externalities, composite technology life cycle, core/periphery network, disassortativity, resilience

JEL Classification: D85, L14, O30, R12

Suggested Citation

Suire, Raphael and Vicente, Jerome, Clusters for Life or Life Cycles of Clusters: In Search of the Critical Factors of Cluster Resilience (september 27, 2011). Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, Forthcoming , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1934244 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1934244

Raphael Suire (Contact Author)

University of Nantes - IAE - Department of Business Administration ( email )

Nantes, 44000
France

Jerome Vicente

LEREPS Sciences Po Toulouse, University of Toulouse ( email )

Place Anatole France
Toulouse Cedex, F-31042
France

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