Industry Clusters as a Strategy to Strengthen Regional Economies
Industry clusters have become a popular model for analyzing regional economies as well as organizing strategies and policies to promote regional economic development. In 1990 Harvard business economist Michael Porter drew together several theories of regional development with elements of business strategy into a compelling and lucid work, The Competitive Advantage of Nations. Porter theorized that successful industry clusters could be explained in terms of a diamond of advantage, consisting of four main elements; (1) factor conditions, a regions endowment of factors of production, including human, physical, knowledge, capital resources, and infrastructure, which make it more conducive to success in a given industry; (2) demand conditions, the nature of home demand for a given product or service, which can pressure local firms to innovate faster; (3) related and supporting industries, networks of buyers and suppliers transacting in close proximity to foster active information exchange, collective learning, and supply-chain innovation; and (4) firm strategy, structure and rivalry, a climate that combines both intense competition among localized producers, with cooperation and collective action on shared needs, making it fertile for innovation and regional competitive advantage.From an economic development perspective, several important elements of the industry cluster framework stand out:Endogeneity Successful industry clusters tend to possess dynamics, such as trust, competition and entrepreneurship that lay the foundation for future success.Agency Human agency, in the form of collective action, industry, and regional leadership, are crucial elements of ongoing success.Strategy The strategic decisions of local firms in competition with one another helps in raising the bar for all parties.The industry cluster model has rapidly become the focus of many economic development initiatives in the U.S. and other countries. Porter has documented several successful international cluster case studies in such diverse countries as Costa Rica, Finland and Australia. In the U.S., several states, including Arizona and Connecticut, have initiated industry cluster strategies (Waits, 2000), while countless cluster initiatives have focused on sub state regions, metropolitan areas, and even rural regions. Recently state and local workforce development programs in the U.S. have begun using a cluster approach to focus their job placement, skill development and training efforts. The Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board in Pennsylvania provides an excellent example of this emerging trend.Since 1994, the State and Local Policy Program (SLPP) of the University of Minnesotas Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, has studied industry clusters as a basis for understanding and strengthening regional economies. SLPP has conducted studies of 17 industry clusters in five regions of the state of Minnesota, including both heavily urbanized and more remote rural areas. The studies have shown that multiple clusters, in fact do exist, within each of these regions, and that effective institutional and entrepreneurship strategies can strengthen or upgrade these clusters, increasing the economic prosperity of the region and its citizens.While many economists argue that industry clusters are associated with agglomeration economies in densely populated urbanized regions, SLPP has shown that more sparsely-populated rural areas may have successful knowledge clusters, which drive innovation and contribute to regional economic prosperity. Knowledge clusters are specialized networks of innovative, interrelated firms, deriving competitive advantages primarily through accumulated, embedded and imported knowledge among local actors about highly specific technologies, processes and markets. Examples of rural knowledge clusters in Minnesota are recreational vehicles manufacturing in northwestern Minnesota, automation and motion control technology in the city of Alexandria in west central Minnesota, and a composites materials cluster in the city of Winona in southeastern Minnesota.Successful regional cluster strategies are likely to have several common components:Understand your local knowledge base. Look to your economic base and identify the knowledge that propels your most innovative and successful enterprises. Understanding what makes your region or community different may help in discovering its current and potential sources of competitive advantage.Foster linkages between firms and the local institutions that support them. Active feedback between industry and local institutions, particularly educational institutions, are and important mechanism for promoting economic competitiveness. This is especially critical for rural clusters, given the centrality of human capital and work force skills to their success.Develop strategies for promoting innovation around knowledge clusters. Innovation is the most important element for successful clusters in both urban and rural regions. Consequently strategies should focus on promoting innovation through entrepreneurship strategies, new product development, and stimulating research and development and technology transfer activity among existing firms.Promote a regional vision to guide local strategies. Economic development strategies remain notoriously local in nature, even as there is an increasing awareness that organizations within a region must work together to be effective.
Industry Clusters Knowledge Clusters Regional Economic Development Innovation Competitiveness
Lee W. Munnich Jr. Hubert H.
Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs University of Minnesota, U.S.A. 55455
国际会议
2007 International Conference on Dtrategic Management（2007年战略管理国际会议）
成都
英文
837-853
2007-04-19（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）