The present state of research into industrial clusters and districts. Content analysis of material published 1997-2006

[EN] The aim of this work is to help gain a better understanding of the research conducted on territorial agglomerations of firms at a multidisciplinary level. To this end, an analysis was performed of the contents of the most significant scientific literature on economics, management, planning and development, urban studies and geography published over the period 1997-2006. From the results, a database of 142 papers from 43 journals was then elaborated. An analysis of these works reveals the level of development of the main lines of research in this field and, consequently, makes it possible to detect the topics that require greater attention and that can be the object of future research for researchers and academics. The main conclusions include the growing number of studies conducted on the subject in recent years, as well as a greater predominance of empirical research over conceptual work, and the existence of a significant change in the topics or lines of research throughout the period under study. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.This research was financed by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, National R&D & Innovation Plan 2007–2010, under the project entitled “El Distrito Industrial: el impacto del Capital Social sobre la Gestio´n de la Cadena de Suministro” (The Industrial District: the impact of Social Capital on the management of the Supply Chain) (SEJ2007- 62876/ECON).Martinez-Fernandez, M.; Capó Vicedo, J.; Vallet-Bellmunt, T. (2012). The present state of research into industrial clusters and districts. Content analysis of material published 1997-2006. European Planning Studies. 20(2):281-304. doi:10.1080/09654313.2012.650906S28130420

Cultural economy and the creative field of the city

I begin with a rough sketch of the incidence of the cultural economy in US cities today. I then offer a brief review of some theoretical approaches to the question of creativity, with special reference to issues of social and geographic context. The city is a powerful fountainhead of creativity, and an attempt is made to show how this can be understood in terms of a series of localized field effects. The creative field of the city is broken down (relative to the cultural economy) into four major components, namely, (a) intra-urban webs of specialized and complementary producers, (b) the local labor market and the social networks that bind workers together in urban space, (c) the wider urban environment, including various sites of memory, leisure, and social reproduction, and (d) institutions of governance and collective action. I also briefly describe some of the path-dependent dynamics of the creative field. The paper ends with a reference to some issues of geographic scale. Here, I argue that the urban is but one (albeit important) spatial articulation of an overall creative field whose extent is ultimately nothing less than global

Do clusters generate greater innovation and growth? An analysis of European regions

The analysis of clusters has attracted considerable interest over the last few decades. The articulation of clusters into complex networks and systems of innovation-generally known as regional innovation systems-has, in particular, been associated with the delivery of greater innovation and growth. Despite the growing economic and policy relevance of clusters, little systematic research has been conducted into their association with other factors promoting innovation and economic growth. This article addresses this issue by looking at the relationship between innovation and economic growth in 152 regions of Europe during the period between 1995 and 2006. Using an econometric model with a static and a dynamic dimension, the results of the analysis highlight that (1) regional growth through innovation in Europe is fundamentally connected to the presence of an adequate socioeconomic environment and, in particular, to the existence of a well-trained and educated pool of workers; (2) the presence of clusters matters for regional growth but only in combination with a good social filter, and this association wanes in time; (3) more traditional research and development variables have a weak initial connection to economic development, but this connection increases over time and is, once again, contingent on the existence of adequate socioeconomic conditions

Collaborative and Collective: Reflexive Coordination and the Dynamics of Open Innovation in the Digital Industry Clusters of the Paris Region

International audienceEconomic geography increasingly conceptualises innovation as a collective action. However, the literature on clusters often reduces the collective dimension to the circulation of knowledge between local and regional organisations based on various forms of (market, organisational, social, institutional or cognitive) co-ordination. This paper diverges from this grass-roots perspective by discussing the role of collective actions in clusters--i.e. actions developed by a large number of cluster members acting as a group. Empirical evidence drawing on a study of three digital clusters in the Paris region shows that the cluster as a collective entity holds agency and-- thanks to reflexive co-ordination--can contribute to open innovation, including innovation-seeking partnerships in the early stages of cluster life cycles