Clusters, Networks And Innovation

Description:
Governments and regional authorities often express the belief that the key to prosperity and economic expansion is related to the ability of countries to sustain regional clusters of competitiveness and innovation. The book reviews the most important conceptual approaches to the analysis of the emergence, growth and evolution of clusters of innovation. Drawing from the different experiences of industrial districts and high-tech regions such as Silicon Valley, Boston's biotech region, and Hsinchu-Taipei, the contributions in this book offer a broad interpretative framework and policy implications for the creation and strengthening of competitive clusters. Themes include: * the wide variety of existing clusters and the diversity in their emergence and growth; * the international mobility of factors and demand linkages; * the role of different network types and the social setting; * the accumulation of capabilities in key large actors and the importance of spinoffs and new firm formation; * the role of different learning regimes and sectoral specificities; * the importance of social networks, labour mobility, and face-to-face contacts as vehicles of knowledge spillovers. Broad implications are drawn for the design of policies to encourage successful economic clusters in developed and developing clusters.

Review:
Overall, this is an excellent book. Like a handbook, it brings together excellent essays from some of the most eminent scholars in the field. This text should become an essential source of reference for students and academics and for professionals in the development trade, and will be much referenced and cited in the future - a must for economic geography libraries. Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Clusters, Networks, and Innovation: Research Results and New Directions; PART I: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON CLUSTERS AND NETWORKS; 1. Network Models of Innovation and Knowledge Diffusion; 2. On Sectoral Specificities in the Geography of Corporate Location; 3. Regional Knowledge Capabilities and Open Innovation: Regional Innovation Systems and Cluster in the Asymmetric Knowledge Economy; PART II: EMERGENCE OF CLUSTERS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP; 4. 'Old Economy' Inputs for 'New Economy' Outcomes: Cluster Formation in the New Silicon Valleys; 5. The Entrepreneurial Event Revisited: Firm Formation in a Regional Context; 6. The Firms that Feed Industrial Districts: A Return to the Italian Source; 7. Employee Startups in High-Tech Industries; PART III: INSTITUTIONS, LOCAL COMMUNITIES, NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL NETWORKS; 8. The Silicon Vally-Hsinchu Connection: Technical Communities and Industrial Upgrading; 9. The Institutional Embeddedness of High-Tech Regions: Relational Foundations of the Boston Biotechnology Community; 10. Social Networks and the Persistence of Clusters: Evidence from the Computer Workstation Industry; PART IV: LOCALIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE SPILLOVERS; 11. Buzz: Face-to-face Contact and the Urban Economy; 12. The Geography of Knowledge Spillovers: Conceptual Issues and Measurement Problems; 13. Comparative Localizattion of Academic and Industrial Spillovers; PART V: PUBLIC POLICIES TOWARDS CLUSTERS; 14. Towards a Knowledge-Based Theory of the Geographical Cluster; 15. Deconstructing Clusters: Chaotic Concept or Policy Panacea