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This collection on 'Artificial intelligence, big data, algorithms and Industry 4.0 in firms and clusters' is introduced exploring the themes discussed by the nine papers and grouped into three categories to uncover new dynamics and identify future research opportunities for clusters and organizations in these transformative times. The first group explores theoretical aspects of AI and its evolution in social sciences, focusing on industry 4.0, smart cities, big data, and other related topics. The second group examines the role of industrial robots in employment, productivity, and knowledge absorption in industrial districts. The third group discusses innovation in the context of local production systems, AI ecosystems, and the growth and potential of the Metaverse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper demonstrates the possibilities of a scientometric approach using CiteSpace II software analysis of the field of railway dynamics with detection of research front, main clusters of cross-cited papers, their evolution and pivotal points (see terms in Sections 2.1 and 2.2). The initial database contained 5126 Web Of Science records published between 1975 and 2019 (45 years). The linguistic analysis determined the evolution of burst terms and grouped the papers in 14 clusters that corresponded with the view of the specialists in the field. 'Railway vehicle', 'Curved track' (hunting stability and derailment risk), 'Unconventional railway truck', 'Railway turnout (crossing)' and 'Polygonal wear' clusters were analysed in more detail with a determination of top-cited papers in each cluster and papers that determined connections between clusters (pivotal papers). Two pivotal papers were verified with their authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the live music industry have received much attention, little consideration has been given to regional music production clusters more broadly. Evaluating the impacts of the pandemic on the music economy of North West England, this paper identifies key areas of support required as music businesses transition into a digitally-orientated post-COVID period. Findings demonstrate the ways in which the pandemic encouraged or forced music businesses to innovate with new digital ways of showcasing, promoting and distributing music. Yet, while digitalisation offers many opportunities, these are often difficult for businesses to capitalise upon. The paper argues the need to place business support at the heart of local cultural policy. More specifically, the paper makes the case for a soft institutionalist approach whereby local policymakers, the market and civil society work together to generate and distribute crucial resources of human, financial and social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, stems from the rapid advancement of digital technologies such as the Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical Production Systems. It has the potential to weave positive changes to firms and impact organizational structure layers. Therefore, it provides an impetus for the collaboration of factories, suppliers, and customers. Nevertheless, due to the difference of Industry 4.0 vision among companies, there is a lack of unified perception and approach of its implementation roadmap. Therefore, many firms in both developed and developing countries that step in the way of digital transformation encounter not only organizational, technological, and operational challenges but are also compelled to cope with a large deal of confusion. Hence, this paper aims to identify the main concepts, characteristics, and technology enablers related to Industry 4.0 to provide stakeholders with a clear understanding of this paradigm. It then clusters and matches the derived concepts and characteristics associated with Industry 4.0. Further, the paper provides an analysis of how these clusters are supported by technology enablers of Industry 4.0, as well as managerial implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Creative clusters are increasingly being recognized as vital tools in the promotion of the competitiveness, innovation, urban development, and growth of cities in developed countries. This paper studies the geography of Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs) in Barcelona (Spain) for the years 2009 and 2017. We investigate the spatial distribution of firms using the Scan methodology, which identifies the localization of clusters and assigns them statistical significance. Our findings indicate that CCIs are not located haphazardly— they tend to cluster in and around Barcelona's prime districts. The evolution of the clusters over these nine years reveals distinct patterns of clustering among the twelve CCI sub-sectors. The mature clusters in Barcelona's core tend to have greater growth and enhanced transformation capabilities. Our results can guide CCI cluster policy, taking into account the specificity of each sub-sector. In addition, they can direct place-based development strategies, creative urban and rural planning, and restructuring in a polycentric context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Notwithstanding the wide research on clusters and industrial districts, most of the preceding contributions tried to analyse and investigate past research and rarely tried to critique or propose any future trajectories of this stream of research. The aim of this special issue is to identify and discuss the main themes of research that populate the current scientific debate and highlight the emergent lines that may well set the future research agenda. In order to provide a scenario for better understanding the content of this special issue, in this work, we encouraged a mix of quantitative and qualitative approaches. In particular, to identify the most important themes of current and future research, we present a bibliometric analysis of the papers that were presented at the international workshop 'Rethinking Clusters', which took place in Florence in 2018, with more than 100 participants. This exercise together with a wider literature review permits us to propose a new research agenda on cluster research according to eight main themes. These range from cluster life cycles, through creativity, innovation, knowledge networks, cluster policy issues, internationalization, sustainability, finally to cluster variety and relatedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cluster policies have been implemented for many years across Europe. Within an evolutionary perspective, industrial development policies need to be updated, and adapted to respond to new changing scenarios, challenges and demands of the social and economic community. It is the case of the challenges raised by climate change and the recent international summits and agreements (e.g. 2016 Paris Agreement or the recent COP27 in Sharm-el-Sheikh) or by exogenous shocks to supply and demand due to present international crises. This is the focus of this paper that analyses the evolution of cluster policies and identifies a specific gap that could and should be addressed soon. The policy literature thoroughly examines several areas that cluster policy should target to respond to the afore-mentioned challenges. However, one component is not adequately considered. This is the social capital linked to the important migration waves that have modified the social spectrum of European economies and have produced a strong impact on the way industry clusters function. Specific actions are required to address these important transformations and to restore the 'social embeddedness of economic action' and the social capital that ignites the competitive capacity of clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the translation and implementation of Smart Specialisation in Wales. It finds that rather than taking a new approach to innovation policy, Welsh policy-makers are following a largely cluster-based rationale, which omits the important entrepreneurial discovery process to identify the real strengths of the region. The fresh idea presented by this paper is that a replication of past policy approaches that have been tried and found wanting is taking place rather than a new approach to innovation policy across Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How new industrial pathways of development evolve has captured much attention in evolutionary economic geography lately. The role of path advocates and their narratives is deemed integral to legitimizing new industrial and technological pathways in regions. This paper investigates how the increasingly popular concept of legitimacy can shed light on the emergence of the London and Singapore software clusters. It finds that multiple concurrent clusters were emerging in these cities, the legitimization of which shaped the present-day clusters. The paper provides a novel rethinking of the cluster emergence process using a legitimacy perspective that highlights the varied importance of normative, cognitive, and regulatory legitimacies and the scales they emerge at, and contributes to understandings of inter-path dynamics and the role of path advocates and their narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The critical size of clusters is a well-known key quantity for precipitation modelling, especially for nucleation. Classically, its value is obtained from a mean-field model which approximates the free energy of clusters. AKMC simulations rely on a set of physical parameters defined at the microscopic scale, thus the nature of hypotheses is very different from its equivalent in phenomenological models. It has been shown recently than the free energy of clusters as well as other important quantities can be directly extracted from AKMC simulations. Thanks to these advances, the critical size for nucleation can now be derived from such measurements. In practice, one faces various problems depending on the quality of the available information. Thus, one has to adapt the measuring method to the different ranges of cluster size and/or the different stages of precipitation. This paper focuses on three methods, considering the precipitation in concentrated AlLi alloys as a model case to explore the evolution of the critical size versus the physical time, from nucleation to coarsening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Where technology clusters are concerned, extant research has primarily highlighted those that are situated in developed economies. The literature shows that immigrants – those who have moved to a region from other places – have been instrumental in the technology cluster emergence process. However, the heavy emphasis on developed economies has limited our understanding of technology cluster emergence in emerging economy contexts, and the ways that immigrants – the non-natives in a region – or natives – those born in a region – contribute to this process. This paper explores this issue through comparison of nine microfoundations for technology cluster emergence within regional natives and non-natives in the emerging technology cluster context of Johannesburg, South Africa. The research shows that natives and non-natives exhibit different profiles, with demographic factors accounting for some of the observed differences. Importantly, the research contributes to the field the understanding that natives and non-natives in emerging economies hold different potentials to influence technology cluster emergence and, therefore, may require different policy interventions to promote technology cluster development in emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the relation between parenting events and the performance of firms. Using data from the Italian motorcycle industry (1893–1993), we find that parents have higher survival chances after generating a spinoff (i.e. parenting event), confirming results from previous studies about other manufacturing industries. We also show that the survival patterns of parent firms differ across space, and we link them to cluster characteristics: parenting events are associated to survival advantages in the clusters of Milan and the Motorvalley, and to survival disadvantages in the cluster of Turin. The paper contributes to the literature on spinoffs and employee mobility and adds to the debate on the role of clusters and their institutions in evolutionary economic geography, by highlighting the importance of contextual factors for the performance of parent firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to illustrate how social innovation is promoted and spread by cooperative clusters in order to develop regional change. This paper focuses on the main drivers of the spreading and exaptation processes of social innovation. The cooperative cluster model, the exaptation concept, the top-down approach, the meso-institutions concept and the meso-level perspective are used to capture the strategic approach of spreading social innovation. The study analyses two successful clusters: Mondragon, made up of industrial SMEs, and Anecoop, an agricultural cooperative group, both leading clusters in their respective region. Qualitative methodology is used to compare both case studies. Among the findings, this paper is one of the first attempts to explain the territorial institutionalisation of social innovations by way of their exaptation. It presents adaptation and exaptation as distinct but partly sequential processes: the adaptation of social innovations in cooperative clusters paves the way for the subsequent leap via exaptation of these innovations in the whole of the territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of 'regional' economic growth through the creative industries is rendered problematic by the socio-geographical complexities that characterize them. Addressing an important conceptual and empirical deficit in our understanding of the creative industries at and beyond the regional level, this paper develops a novel and detailed examination of the music economy in North West England. Uncovering a significant disconnection with the mainstream industry in London – an obligatory point of symbolic validation and passage to wider markets – it is argued that policy is required to support professionals in developing socio-spatial networking strategies to cope with their disconnected status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses how cluster policy, particularly its management part, contributes to the processes of switching path dependency and escaping lock-ins in the old industrial regions. This is based on the case study of the Basque Country in a timeline of 25 years. Analysing the development of the Basque cluster policy on both a period and a stage-by-stage basis gives a practical understanding of the intervention framework for effective cluster policy management. Moreover, it rediscovers and stresses the importance of agile policy capacity to internal knowledge creation, constant learning and adaptation stimulating processes of path creation in old industrial regions by providing new ways of thinking about cluster policy interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose: This paper reflects upon the practice of Argentine rural extensionists working in the extension public system through the process of identifying different rural extensionists' types of mindsets and comparing them with transfer of technology extension approach, dialogical processes of horizontal knowledge exchange, participatory perspectives and innovation system approach. Design/Methodology/approach: A quali-quantitative investigation was conducted. Surveys containing closed and open questions were sent via email to rural extensionists. This allowed the researcher to identify their beliefs about different issues connected to extension practice. The sample was incidental (n = 219; 143 men, 76 women). Qualitative data was categorized and quantified. Finally, a two-steps cluster analysis was implemented. Findings: Two types of rural extensionists' mindsets were identified, one of which relates to the transfer of technology approach and other to the dialogical/horizontal model, yet neither of them fitting the ideal of the most important extension institution of the country, which supports an innovation system approach. Practical implications: Extensionists' practices and institutional ideals do not coincide. Reflexive training processes are required to make beliefs about rural extension explicit in order to build a contextually suitable extension proposal. Originality/Value: Through a quali-quantitative approach to the issue of rural extensionists' mindsets, this paper contributes to a better understanding of Argentine rural extensionists' practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cluster policies pervade all regions of the world to promote employment growth, innovation and entrepreneurship. Yet, research mostly focuses on cluster economic performance, but less on regional social cohesion, which is important when economic growth coexists with deprivation, poverty and inequality. The paper's aim is to understand both the economic and the social dynamics of clusters by developing a theoretical model based on system dynamics. It shows that clusters with positive economic performance do not necessarily lead to regional social cohesion. Multiple positive economic-related feedback processes can be mitigated by negative social-related feedback processes. Implications for academics and policy-makers are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research abstract: This paper uses an essay format to set out the major issues of attracting FDI in times of digital business transformation. It departs from identifying the changing nature of international production patterns and altering profiles of MNEs due to fourth industrial revolution and discusses the implication of thereof on FDI policy designing and implementing. It diagnoses the likely evolution of such policy aiming at attracting digital FDI and outlines the related challenges. It draws on the case of Poland and argues that humbler, yet quality-oriented and selective approach the policymakers might need to adopt, should focus on providing the right conducive business environment among others by pursuing the smart industrial policy and by leveraging the clusters advantages. Managerial abstract: The changing nature of international production and altering profiles of MNEs due to fourth industrial revolution impact how the FDI policy is designed and implemented. By drawing on the case of Poland it can be argued that humbler, yet quality-oriented and selective approach the policy-makers might need to adopt, should focus on providing the right conducive business environment. This implies pursuing the smart industrial policy and leveraging the clusters advantages. At the same time, it would be crucial to support local companies as partners for such MNEs – i.e. to empower domestic firms and embed foreign firms. Facilitating further cluster developments might prove critical in embedding footloose MNEs and equip local entities to cope with new challenges of digital transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines generational travel behaviour and intentions of Portuguese tourists before and after the pandemic. The comparisons established a framework to understand what really has changed. The sample includes 490 Portuguese tourists. Our analysis revealed three clusters which are distinct in terms of generation belonging and distance travelled, among other variables. The results suggest that the willingness to travel is higher than previously, working as a kind of revenge to mitigate the isolation times. Strategical implications for practitioners are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2018, Uzbekistan initiated a clustering policy in the national cotton sector. Based on case studies, this paper investigates the recent changes in cotton production under the emerging clusters. Our findings show a mismatch between the meaning of clusters in the industrial policy literature and practice in Uzbekistan. The supervision of cotton growing passed from the state to private enterprises (clusters). This transformation has perpetuated monopsony conditions under which farmers have no alternative marketing channels. The input markets have been disconnected from state agencies, however farms lack access to private input markets, since clusters supervise the input use. Our analyses show that forced and child labor has receded. In general, the cluster reform hardly took into account the principles of industrial policy. For example, the establishment of clusters among farmers widely lacked transparency. Instead of a hastened establishment of clusters in large scales, an institutional environment that enables bottom-up initiatives should be promoted. Overall, from the farmers’ perspective, recent reform steps led to moderate changes at best, while clusters started to play a dominant role in the cotton sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the legitimization of emerging industries in traditional manufacturing areas by focusing on two inner structures: the cognitive and institutional structure. These structures and their interplay inform about the heterogeneity of routes and capabilities to enter legitimization trajectories. We compare two mechatronics clusters, both located in the North-East Italian area, namely in the provinces of Vicenza and Trento. The cases reveal how the evolution and legitimation of emerging industries might surface from bottom-up dynamics related to the technological upgrading of local historical industrial specializations, and from top-down institutional strategies, when the business community remains fragmented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at assessing the role of related variety, that is, the relatedness of knowledge bases used by different sectors within a region, as a major driver of clusters' development. Some recent theoretical papers underline the role of clusters as 'knowledge platforms' organizing the recombination of technologies in overlapping industries, following the seminal definition of clusters by Porter as 'geographic concentrations of linked industries'. In order to investigate the role of related variety in cluster dynamics, we analyse the patterns of development of clusters specializing in photonics in Europe. Photonics constitutes a new and rapidly evolving set of technologies with a high expected degree of technological recombination. However, due to inadequate traditional sectoral classifications, we propose an original method to delineate the perimeter of photonics in patent databases. A two-step algorithm is then used to identify systematically photonic clusters in Western Europe at the local level. In the last part of the paper, a typology of technological trajectories of clusters over the last decades is developed and then correlated with a set of quantitative measures of technological relatedness. The results highly confirm the role of related variety as a major driver of success, particularly for the biggest European clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novel ways to reduce the computational effort for atomic structure prediction while retaining high accuracy are of wide interest. This paper describes an implementation of the method of averaging over the wave vector k for the description of the lithium condensation. We show that the direct transition from the gas phase to the crystalline one is complicated. The formation of the crystal structure occurs through the condensation of individual small clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cluster policy is often ineffective in peripheral regions with weak institutions and significant barriers to knowledge production and exchange. Nonetheless, many peripheral regions have pursued such policies in recent years, an example being technology districts in southern Italy. This paper examines one such district -- the aerospace district in Apulia -- where policy has focused on indirect support for networking through coordination. This has led to a substantial increase in knowledge exchange within the district, but also to a heavy dependence on the cluster organization itself as the key actor in the knowledge-exchange network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates which intermediary practices among European aerospace clusters support their diverse membership. Using a configurational approach, we find nine successful sets of practices spanning cluster members with varying levels of internal resources. We unpack important trade-offs, with no single approach to intermediation being ideal in every context. However, the presence of mutual trust is necessary, hinting that its importance in brokered networks has been understated by past research. Furthermore, equifinality exists even for similar types of members, suggesting the need for future research to be attentive to the existence of multiple viable approaches to cluster intermediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an original empirical analysis of the European regional production network, making use of the interregional world input-output database. Similar to the concept of key sectors, a network analysis of key regions and key region-sectors of the EU in the global value chains (GVC) is carried out, taking into account both direct and indirect linkages. Additionally, a clustering analysis is performed to indicate the existence of highly interconnected groups of regions and the polarized structure of the European value chain network. The analysis is extended to quantify implications of Brexit, showing the relative vulnerability of the most internationalized regions and the differentiated sectoral impact according to the geographical origin, as London would mostly affect (tourism and financial) services, whereas the rest of the UK regions would mainly affect manufacturing activities. The findings suggest the considerable heterogeneity of European value chains as a result of varying levels of urban hierarchy, trade specialization between and within countries as well as sectoral concentration of regional economies. The empirical findings can provide valuable policy insights for supporting coordinated economic strategies to enhance regional competitiveness, development and cohesion, and reduce trade imbalances and spatial inequalities in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analytical approaches from emergent paradigms in economic geography – namely, evolutionary economic geography (EEG) and relational economic geography (REG) – can help to advance and integrate extant research in tourism geography on destinations’ dynamics and organisation. Taking into account concepts such as human agency, contextuality and path dependence, the paper conceptualises local tourism destinations’ evolution as a complex, path- and place-dependent process that is determined by the action and interaction of stakeholders and their ability to adapt or create new paths, as well as to survive in response to local and global changes. Hence, it discusses the bidirectional effects between stakeholder practices and local tourism destinations’ evolutionary performance. Furthermore, it attempts to increase the understanding of how and why destinations change over time, which is valuable for policy formation and to improve local tourism destinations’ competitiveness and sustainability. All in all, the paper presents theoretical insights from EEG and REG to facilitate understanding of the mechanisms underpinning the evolution of destinations and examines the advantages of building an integrated evolutionary and relational approach. This also means an opportunity to integrate the geographical analysis of tourism destinations into mainstream thinking on economic geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial agglomeration is well theorized within regional studies and economic geography, with firm- and industry-level advantages generally attributable to the strategic benefits derived from spatial proximity. Increasingly, alternative proximity types have been explored to explain firm relationships within and between industries. This paper applies a novel social network analysis (SNA) approach to analyze city clustering as a function of both spatial and non-spatial factors - namely, economic, sociocultural and geopolitical. Based on the internal reporting structures of Australia-based firms, it explores how ‘global clusters’ are more useful in understanding industry dynamics and processes than hierarchical lists of cities of cascading importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether there exist productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment (FDI) to domestic firms at the regional level, using firm-level panel dataset covering 22 manufacturing industries in India from 2000 to 2012. In order to estimate the productivity spillovers from FDI at the regional level, we select 10 industrial clusters across 4 regions in India. In estimating productivity, we control for a possible simultaneity bias by using semi-parametric estimation techniques. We find that local firms benefit from horizontal and vertical FDI, but the benefits from the latter are found to be substantially stronger. The absorptive capacity of domestic firms is highly relevant to harvest the spilled technology from foreign-owned firms. Furthermore, we find that domestic firms belonging to high-technology industries benefit more from FDI at the regional level. We also find that market concentration is a crucial conduit for firm innovation, technological upgradation, and having a direct effect on local firm total factor productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper carries out a systematic literature review on Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (EEs). In complying with the research protocol, after validating 1122 publications, the year in which the greatest number of publications was recorded, the journals publishing most, the authors with the greatest number of articles and the most cited articles were all identified. Innovation, clusters and open innovation are revealed to be the most important streams of literature. From an analysis of social networks, word co-occurrence and co-citations, and cluster analysis, EEs are defined as a set of interdependent actors and coordinated factors, in order to allow entrepreneurship within a given territory. Here, innovation is considered to reflect a new idea and that clusters originating in the spatial concentration of principal and supporting companies use open innovation combining intentionally internal and external knowledge flows, to accelerate internal innovation and market expansion for the purpose of using innovations externally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research has emphasised various mechanisms for knowledge exchange in industry clusters, including inter-firm collaboration, labour mobility, and monitoring of other firms. However, these mechanisms are normally studied in isolation, and we know little about how they interrelate. This paper examines which firms collaborate within a cluster. We ask whether knowledge exchanges through other channels, specifically monitoring and labour mobility, are positively or negatively associated with collaboration. We use data from interviews with 30 firms in the subsea sector in Rogaland, Norway, representing nearly the entire population of the cluster, to examine the association between the different forms of linkages. The results from Social Network Analysis reveal an overall high degree of knowledge exchange among the organisations making up the subsea cluster. Furthermore, using Quadratic Assignment Procedure (QAP) regression analysis, we find that collaborative linkages are significantly more likely to exist between firms which share recruitment and/or monitoring linkages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes a fresh empirical look at how cluster presence matters for economic performance. It analyses a new data set developed for the European Cluster Observatory to assess the impact of clusters on industry-level wages and regional prosperity. It is found that industry-level wages are associated with industry- and surrounding-cluster agglomeration levels to a similar degree. For regional prosperity, cluster portfolio strength is found to matter, while the specific mix of clusters is insignificant once business environment conditions are accounted for. The data show a meaningful relationship between clusters and economic outcomes, independent of other locational qualities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the growth pattern, magnetic and electronic structure of VLin (n = 2–13) clusters are studied using density functional theory in generalised gradient approximation. The growth pattern showed that the VLin (n = 2–13) clusters favoured the three-dimensional configuration and appeared cage-like structures with increasing size. The average binding energy, second-order energy difference and dissociation energy are discussed, and the VLi12 cluster is magnetic superatom. The spin magnetic moment of VLi12 cluster is 1 μB and the molecular orbital arrangement is 1S21P61Dα51Dβ4. The chemical bonding patterns of the VLi12 cluster was obtained by using molecular orbital analysis and the adaptive natural density partitioning method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural heritage between bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) and their relevant crystals has already been acknowledged. But how this kind of heritage is represented is still unclear. In the present paper, firstly, two important characters are considered to determine the principal cluster of crystal, i.e. the atomic-packing efficiency which is evaluated by atomic density radial distribution method and cluster isolation degree which is obtained by the cluster-size reduction rate because of overlapping of clusters in crystal. Then according to these two criteria principal clusters of BMGs Cu-Zr, (Pt,Pd)-Zr and Pd-Si systems are analysed. And the results show that the principal cluster dominates the short-range-order structure of its parent phase as well as the relevant BMG. It is exactly the principal cluster that enters the cluster-plus-glue-atoms units to formulate BMG as [principal cluster](glue atom)1,3. It proves that the structural heritage between glassy state and relevant crystal is actually reflected by cluster formula which contains the principal cluster. Furthermore, via study structural similarity of metallic glass and relevant crystal, elaborated steps towards quantitatively composition design for BMGs are established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines economic growth in 52 African countries for 1961–2016 and seeks to find if there is common growth. As all African countries have their particular features, concerning climate, harvest, industry, size, politics, and infrastructure, and more, it seems best to rely on a non-parametric method. Dynamic Time Warping is such a convenient method, also as it allows leads and lags across countries to vary over time, and as it can easily be incorporated into a clustering technique. Five clusters are found, two of which concern Equatorial Guinea and Botswana, and the three other clusters have common growth rates of about 0, 2 and 4 over more than five decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clusters are places that facilitate knowledge sharing and dissemination among firms and institutions working in functionally-related fields. Structural changes that take place within clusters over time influence knowledge-related processes and require new approaches towards external knowledge sourcing. In this paper, we use a mixed-method approach to investigate different knowledge sources that firms use at different stages of a cluster life cycle. The empirical research comprises the investigation of two clusters that specialize in the same kind of economic activity, i.e. in the furniture industry, but are at different stages of their life cycle. These are, a mature cluster – the Livenza district in Italy and a growing one – the Kępno cluster in Poland. The analysis revealed that firms in a mature cluster use a greater variety of external knowledge sources and more knowledge-intensive sources than those in growing clusters do. This may be explained by more homogeneous and well-established knowledge pools at later stages of a cluster life cycle and/or by higher competition between firms offering similar products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes industrial clusters in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area (HMA) in Finland. The HMA is the largest and most powerful concentration of population and economic activity in Finland. The paper analyzes knowledge-intensive industrial clusters and their structures. Clusters are identified according to a statistical analysis that provides a systematic perspective on the knowledge-intensive economic geography of the HMA. There are two main questions: how diverse are the identified clusters in terms of their internal structure; and, are there spatial irregularities identifiable in these structures? Knowledge-intensive clusters are strongly localized close to the infrastructural nodes: their physical localization is closely linked to road- and rail-structures and terminals. In general, clusters become smaller as their distance to the center of Helsinki increases: distance decay is evidently present. Our findings indicate that clusters are plural entities and their diversities do not follow a clearly identifiable pre-determined logic. Knowledge-based industries focusing on immaterial products tend to have closer central proximity than other industries but variations are extensive. This cluster diversity indicates that the HMA has a threshold for manifesting agglomeration gains that generate and extend industrial diversities within key clusters. The most diverse clusters tend to be located in the urban core, whereas the more narrowly focused clusters may be found in relatively peripheral locations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper asks whether biotechnology, in general, and the industry clusters of innovative biotechnology enterprises that have uniformly characterised its economic form, are now in a terminal crisis. Or are the difficulties that are clearly evident and described below surmountable and showing signs of being surmounted? The question of a crisis in biotechnology is important because so much faith has been placed in the technology over the past generation during which it has made great technical strides forward in medicine and other user communities (agro-food, energy, environment, security) and contributed significantly to healthcare and welfare gains while high hopes have long and justifiably been associated with its vibrant industry clusters. The paper postulates a crisis based on two key features of biotechnology. The first of these is an economic crisis in which enormous sums are required to research, develop and innovate new products, especially medical drugs. The second is epistemological and confronts the (reductionist) central dogma of biotechnology with the evolutionary implications of emergent systems biology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyses how the internal resources of small- and medium-sized enterprises determine access (learning processes) to technology centres (TCs) or industrial research institutes (innovation infrastructure) in traditional low-tech clusters. These interactions basically represent traded (market-based) transactions, which constitute important sources of knowledge in clusters. The paper addresses the role of TCs in low-tech clusters, and uses semi-structured interviews with 80 firms in a manufacturing cluster. The results point out that producer–user interactions are the most frequent; thus, the higher the sector knowledge-intensive base, the more likely the utilization of the available research infrastructure becomes. Conversely, the sectors with less knowledge-intensive structures, i.e. less absorptive capacity (AC), present weak linkages to TCs, as they frequently prefer to interact with suppliers, who act as transceivers of knowledge. Therefore, not all the firms in a cluster can fully exploit the available research infrastructure, and their AC moderates this engagement. In addition, the existence of TCs is not sufficient since the active role of a firm's search strategies to undertake interactions and conduct openness to available sources of knowledge is also needed. The study has implications for policymakers and academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regions have gained a position at the forefront of the economic development policy agenda. However, the regional approach to economic strategy remains contested. This paper tests the extent to which regional policy in less competitive regions is accounting for issues relating to entrepreneurship and enterprise development as a tool for improving regional competitiveness. It does so by examining policies undertaken by the UK Labour government 1997–2010, drawing on interviews with policy makers and an analysis of relevant policy documents. This paper finds that entrepreneurship policy at the regional level is multidimensional, with policies broadly ranging from those that are either economically or socially driven. Although there is a considerable policy activity in these areas across less competitive regions, enterprise policy making remains relatively undifferentiated across the regions. There are a number of evolutions in regional policy occurring, especially a shift from policies relating to the facilitation of clusters to those focused on developing regional innovation ecosystems. It is found that regional policy makers are under pressure to measure short-term outputs at the expense of long-term nurturing. The paper also finds that there is a tension between using enterprise policy as a tool for improving regional competitiveness or for addressing economic and social disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decades, researchers and policymakers around the world have been paying attention to the concept of clusters of related firms, industries and institutions, with a view to the presumably positive effects of clustering for learning, innovation and the productivity of firms. More recently, a network approach to learning and innovation emerged, which emphasizes strategic, preferential, repeated and at the same time temporary knowledge exchange (i.e. dynamic cooperation) between firms and other organizations. This may, however, go at the expense of the attention for the important, different and complementary learning effects of the mainly spatial process of concentration and clustering of related firms, industries and institutions. This paper argues that clusters and networks are two separate concepts that both merit attention, especially—albeit not exclusively—with a view to learning, knowledge development and innovation. A first argument is that spatial clustering has quite different effects for the development of knowledge, learning and innovation in and by firms, as compared with network settings. A second point is that in some cases, clustering yields a governance advantage over networks. Taking into account the risks of cognitive, technological, organizational and institutional lock-in associated with both processes, this paper concludes that both clustering and networking have advantages and disadvantages for the firms involved. The two concepts are potential dynamic complements, as clustering and networking have different but complementary effects for learning, although they are also static substitutes, as firms may opt to switch between the two processes, for example, leaving a local or regional cluster to engage in a network endeavor at a higher spatial scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional agglomerations of industry have been a focus of economic geography research, especially in terms of how these clusters form and remain successful. Such a core topic should be explored in economic geography coursework. Economic geography education itself has been the topic of debate, particularly in terms of how to make important concepts relevant to students, especially those with little or no exposure to geography. This paper presents results from a project in an upper-level, undergraduate geography course that centered on an assessment of Portuguese clusters and their export potential, employed to explore and integrate core concepts in economic geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we chart the development of creative cities from urban clusters through to 'characteristic towns', the latter typology reflecting a government desire to build distinctive cultural brands. We illustrate how this recent development iteration has played out in Hangzhou and its relationship to Internet+, a policy blueprint introduced by the Chinese government in March 2015 which underpins ambitions to make China an innovative nation. The term 'entrepreneurial solutionism' describes a proclivity to see digital technology as a solution to China's social and economic problems, and a way to enhance the realisation of the 'Chinese Dream' of national rejuvenation. Central to the Internet + blueprint is the slogan 'mass entrepreneurship, mass innovation', suggesting elements of the kind of Silicon Valley style neoliberalism, often celebrated in start-up cultures. While it has become fashionable to append the term neoliberalism to China's developments, we argue that China's reversion to hard authoritarianism under Xi Jinping renders this description problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation in clusters is initially rooted in proximity among specialized actors, but over time it results from an interplay between the local and global levels. The internationalization of production and the relocation of cluster manufacturing activities abroad open a debate on the impact of such dynamics upon innovation, between knowledge acquisition opportunities and the weakening of local innovation activities. This paper contributes to the debate by empirically testing whether internationalization has an impact on cluster firms' innovation outputs. Based on a survey conducted among 259 Italian cluster firms, the results show that upstream and downstream internationalization per se does not impact innovation, measuring product, process, organizational, and marketing innovation outputs. On the contrary, collaboration with external actors, such as designers, research centres or universities, has a positive effect on firms' innovation outputs. This is consistent with the cluster model and with previous studies focusing on innovation in the cluster context. Our analyses show that it is not internationalization that matters when it comes to innovation for cluster firms. Innovation performances are influenced by the relational capabilities of cluster firms to connect and manage collaboration even outside the cluster scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to describe the structure of the biotech cluster in Uppsala, Sweden, and to analyse how cluster knowledge dynamics result from processes and interactions unfolding at different spatial scales. The empirical basis for the analyses are derived from various sources: business registers, an internet-based survey of 106 firms, 23 in-depth interviews with key individuals, and a longitudinal database give data on the degree to which collaborations, rivalry, business transactions, capital sourcing and labour mobility take place in the local cluster. In addition to asking questions about which interactions are most localized and globalized, respectively, the paper also sets out to give an account of the 'clusterness' of the case in point. The paper shows that while the business relations of the biotech companies in Uppsala are strongly globalized, the sourcing of capital, the informal social networking and the labour market dynamics are much more regionalized/localized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Many safety and health books and papers are written from academic standpoints, providing in-depth studies of various aspects of accidents, their causation, cost, and effects on the work. Our paper attempts to use a different approach to the analysis of the accidents. We have designed a model for human accidents by classifying the selected cases based on accidents-rated factors like work type, managerial and physical factors, into a number of groups or clusters . The collected data are split into a training set for model construction and test for model verification. Moreover, we used this model to generate a set of rules to develop a fuzzy engine , which can then predict and forecast the rate of accidents. All this has been done for people worked and gained experience in Kuwait within the Kuwaiti construction market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the emergence of small indigenous software companies in Scotland, focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of the region's socio-economic infrastructure as a foundation for innovative new business ventures. Following a brief review of some of the accepted wisdom on high-tech start-ups and regional economic development the paper provides some background information on the Scottish region, comparing new firms in the software industry with the foreign multinationals that dominate the local IT industry. A framework—the ‘socio-technical constituencies’ approach—is then proposed that allows the author to examine networks of specialist knowledge that underlie new business development. Agglomeration effects and the influence of ‘clusters’ of complementary types of knowledge, expertise and innovative competencies at the regional level are at the heart of the analysis. The framework is applied to a sample of local firms, looking at how ‘learning’ via socio-technical networks underlies their evolution. Policy-makers' attempts to boost the region's new business birth rate and promote the hoped-for ‘silicon glen’ effect are viewed in the light of the study's findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cluster Associations (CAs) attempt to promote competitiveness through inter-firm collaboration, and are generally seen as drivers of social capital formation in the region. We map in this paper, by using Social Network Analysis, the cluster policy network of the Basque Country in 2013, which may be considered a proxy of the structural dimension of social capital in the region. Besides, we identify the central agents of this network and attempt to explain the reasons for their centrality and the roles that they play. We take the affiliation of an organization to at least two CAs as a first indicator of the overall pattern of connections within the cluster policy network. Later on, we filter it with data about the Boards of Directors of CAs, and the Basque Contact Points created to concur with the Seventh Framework Programme for Research launched by the European Commission. We contend that those organizations that are present in these three networks form a ‘small world’ that numerous studies have shown to be favourable for creative output, where they might play a dual role of gatekeepers of knowledge and innovation within and between clusters and drivers of bridging social capital formation in the Basque Country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]