Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Mytelka, Lynn
Author-Email: mytelka@intech.unu.edu
Author-Workplace-Name: United Nations University, Institute for New Technologies
Author-Name: Farinelli, Fulvia
Author-Email: Fulvia.Farinelli@unctad.org
Author-Workplace-Name: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
Title: Local Clusters, Innovation Systems and Sustained Competitiveness
Abstract: The growing interest in clusters, understood mainly in terms of spatial
	agglomerations of enterprises and related supplier and service industries, 
	can be traced back to two changes in the competitive environment of the firm that
	became increasingly evident over the 1970s and 1980s. These were the growing
 	knowledge intensity of production which gradually extended to cover a broad spectrum
 	of traditional industries and the emergence of innovation-based competition and its
 	globalization as barriers to trade and investment were dismantled. These changes
 	placed a greater burden on small and medium-sized enterprises, especially those in
 	traditional industries, to engage in a continuous process of innovation. Clustering,
 	which provides externalities and advantages derived from of interactivity, was seen
 	as a potential aid in this process. Yet not all clusters are innovation systems.
 	This paper analyzes the different ways in which firms in two clusters based on
 	traditional industries --the wooden furniture cluster in Jutland, Denmark and the
 	spectacle frame cluster in Belluno, Italy- have transformed have been transformed
 	into innovation systems. Of critical importance in this regard is the way in which
 	both industries have become tacit-knowledge intensive and embedded these advantages
 	within the cluster.  
Keywords: Industrial Clustering, Innovation, SMEs 
Series: Discussion Paper
Creation-Date: 2000
Number: 5
File-URL: http://www.intech.unu.edu/publications/discussion-papers/2000-5.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 214 Kb
Handle: RePEc:unm:unuint:200005