Evolving industrial clusters – A multi-dimensional investigation of influential factors

Since the popularization of the cluster terminology more than two decades ago, cluster research has attracted interest across different disciplines, resulting in a variety of theoretical perspectives, empirical approaches, and research agendas. This popularity is not limited to academia, as the term is also widely used by economic development and regional policy actors in order to support industrial clusters and enhance their positive economic effects. Ideally, this leads to the growth and sustainment of clusters, which, among other things, increases the resilience of the regional economy and its ability to cope with internal and external challenges. As industrial clusters are not binary entities that either exist or do not exist, clusters – like other business locations – must constantly adapt to changing socio-economic conditions to remain competitive, avoid downturns, and renew themselves. As a result, clustered firms, organizations, networks, and institutions associated with them are subject to constant change. In order to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the relevant driving factors, the research articles consider different theoretical perspectives, spatial scales, and empirical approaches to address evolving industrial clusters and related factors. The first article examines the phenomenon of co-located industrial clusters with different industry cores in one region. The empirical results show different patterns of collaboration and competition: on the one hand, the hiring of employees, especially in the segment of (highly) skilled labor, is an important concern for firms facing a tight labor market of co-located clusters. Consequently, filling vacant positions is challenging for firms of both industrial clusters, which results in a competitive environment including labor poaching. On the other hand, the linkages between firms are influenced by the institutional setting, such as changing regulatory environment, leading to more collaboration, even though an intense rivalry between participating firms has existed for decades. The second article takes up the regional findings from the labor market and examines the connection between the shortage of skilled workers and the degree of agglomeration of German firms in clusters. Such bottlenecks are a reality for many firms and organizations, with negative consequences for employees, firms and the economy as a whole. Up to now, it is unclear whether skill shortages in industrial agglomerations are more intense due to competitive labor poaching or less intense due to labor pooling. The empirical results show that firms located in an industrial cluster have a significantly lower probability of experiencing skill shortages in terms of vacancies for skilled jobs. At the same time, clustered firms face more difficulties in filling vacancies when they are struggling more with skill shortages. The third article additionally examines the influence of various factors on the decline or renewal of mature industrial clusters. Therefore, this study identifies different factors: preconditions, triggering events, and self-augmenting processes, and examines their influence on declining or renewing industrial clusters. The empirical results show, firstly, that the decline and renewal of industrial clusters is driven by different preconditions, triggering events, and self-augmenting processes. Secondly, these factors change over time and may have both positive and negative dimensions. Thirdly, the decline of industrial clusters is more often associated with unfavorable preconditions and triggering events, while self- augmenting processes are more often found in the context of cluster renewal. Finally, policy recommendations are derived on the basis of these findings. In addition to the empirical findings, these recommendations are based on the following general requirements for cluster policy: a greater consideration of theoretical findings, contextual factors, development phases, relevant stakeholders and monitoring/evaluation options. The ten specific policy recommendations aim at both existing and future cluster policy approaches and cover different areas, which is why the level of abstraction varies. For example, the first recommendation aims to take greater account of the cluster context in policy design, while another recommendation specifically mentions financial support for trade fair visits by SMEs. As usual, the results of this this and the included research articles are subject to a number of limitations, most of which are of a methodological nature. The concluding research outlook identifies article-specific starting points for future research projects and concludes with general considerations. Among other things, cluster research, especially with a focus on cluster policy, should be continued in the future, although there is a general need for conceptual unification of existing approaches addressing agglomerated economic areas.