Browsing Danish Research Unit for Industrial Dynamics (DRUID) by Author "Maskell, Peter"
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The Role of Temporary ClustersMaskell, Peter; Bathelt, Harald; Malmberg, Anders (Frederiksberg, 2005)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Business people and professionals come together regularly at trade fairs, exhibitions, conventions, congresses, and conferences. Here, their latest and most advanced findings, inventions and products are on display to be evaluated by customers and suppliers, as well as by peers and competitors. Participation in events like these helps firms to identify the current market frontier, take stock of relative competitive positions and form future plans. Such events exhibit many of the characteristics ascribed to permanent spatial clusters, albeit in a temporary and intensified form. These short-lived hotspots of intense knowledge exchange, network building and idea generation can thus be seen as temporary clusters. The present paper compares temporary clusters with permanent clusters and other types of inter-firm interactions. If regular participation in temporary clusters can satisfy a firm’s need to learn through interaction with suppliers, customers, peers and rivals, why is the phenomenon of permanent spatial clustering of similar and related economic activity so pervasive? The answer, it is claimed, lies in the restrictions imposed upon economic activity when knowledge and ideas are transformed into valuable products and services. The paper sheds new light on how interaction among firms in current clusters coincides with knowledge-intensive pipelines between firms in different regions or clusters. In doing so, it offers a novel way of understanding how interfirm knowledge relationships are organized spatially and temporally. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7883 Files in this item: 1
DRUID_05_20.pdf (119.4Kb) -
Maskell, Peter; Lorenzen, Mark (København, 2003)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The many competing schools of thought concerning themselves with industrial clusters have at least one thing in common: they all agree that clusters are real life phenomena characterized by the co-localization of separate economic entities, which are in some sense related, but not joined together by any common ownership or management. So hierarchies they are certainly not. Yet, it is usually taken for granted that clusters, almost regardless of how they are defined, all expatriate the 'swollen middle' of various hybrid 'forms of long-term contracting, reciprocal trading, regulation, franchising and the like' residing somewhere between hierarchies and markets. This fundamental (but usually implicit) assumption would, perhaps, be justified if markets could be reduced to events of exchange of property rights, between large numbers of price-taking anonymous buyers and sellers supplied with perfect information as they are commonly conceived in mainstream economics. One of the original attractions of Neoclassical price theory was precisely that it promised a way of analysing the economy in general and market exchange in particular independently of specific institutional settings. However, introducing transaction costs as more than fees paid to intermediaries leads inevitably to comparative institutional analysis and, not to be forgotten, to the perception of markets as institutions with specific characteristics of their own. Some sets of characteristics are so common that they represent a specific market organization or market form. The cluster is one such specific market organization that is structured along territorial lines because this enables the building of a set of institutions that are helpful in conducting certain kinds of economic activities. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7265 Files in this item: 1
03-14.pdf (290.9Kb) -
local buzz, global pipelines and the process of knowledge creationBathelt, Harald; Malmberg, Anders; Maskell, Peter (København, 2002)[More information][Less information]
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The Role of Institutions and Policy in Sustaining CompetitivenessMaskell, Peter (Frederiksberg, 1996)[More information][Less information]
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From Cost Reduction to Knowledge SeekingMaskell, Peter; Pedersen, Torben; Petersen, Bent; Dick-Nielsen, Jens (Frederiksberg, 2005)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: A corporation’s offshore outsourcing may be seen as the result of a discrete, strategic decision taken in response to an increasing pressure from worldwide competition. However, empirical evidence of a representative cross-sector sample of international Danish firms indicates that offshore sourcing in low-cost countries is best described as a learning-by-doing process in which the offshore outsourcing of a corporation goes through a sequence of stages towards sourcing for innovation. Initially, a corporation’s outsourcing is driven by a desire for cost minimization. Over a period of time the outsourcing experience lessens the cognitive limitations of decision-makers as to the advantages that can be achieved through outsourcing in low-cost countries: the insourcer/vendor may not only offer cost advantages, but also quality improvement and innovation. The quality improvements that offshore outsourcing may bring about evoke a realization in the corporation that even innovative processes can be outsourced. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7885 Files in this item: 1
DRUID_05_17.pdf (115.1Kb) -
Maskell, Peter (Frederiksberg, 1996)[More information][Less information]
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Malmberg, Anders; Maskell, Peter (Frederiksberg, 2005)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The concept of localized learning outlines how local conditions and spatial proximity between actors enable the formation of distinctive cognitive repertoires and influence the generation and selection of skills, processes and products within a field of knowledge or activity. The localized learning argument consists of two distinct yet related elements. One has to do with localized capabilities that enhance learning while the other concerns the possible benefits that firms with similar or related activities may accrue by locating in spatial proximity of one another. In this essay, we disentangle these two inherent elements of the concept, review some of the critique that has been raised against it, and sort out some misunderstandings that we think are attached to its present use. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7884 Files in this item: 1
DRUID_05_19.pdf (110.2Kb) -
Maskell, Peter; Kebir, Laïla (København, 2005)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Abstract: This paper investigates the theoretical backgrounds of the "cluster" and proposes a framework aiming at drawing the contour of cluster theory. The profundity of the notion of ‘clusters’ is arguably conditional on the coherence of four fundamental issues associated with the concept: 1) the economic and social benefits that may accrue to firms when clustering or co-locating (the existence argument); 2) the diseconomies encountered when clustering exceeds certain geographical and sectoral thresholds (the extension argument); 3) the advantages obtained by exploiting intra-cluster synergies rather engaging in external interaction (the exchange argument); and, finally, 4) the possible erosion of economies and onset of diseconomies over the lifecycle of the cluster (the exhaustion argument). Each of these four issues is examined in terms of three relevant major theoretical frameworks that can be brought to bear on the cluster concept. The paper considers approaches based on the idea of externalities (illustrated by the Marshall's work on ‘Industrial district’); on competitiveness issue (illustrated by Michael Porter’s theory of cluster growth); on a territorial perspective (illustrated by the GREMI approach). The analysis acknowledges the general shift in explanatory emphasis from considerations of static cost efficiency towards more dynamic interpretations that highlight the creation and use of knowledge as their pivotal theoretical element. By placing these changes within a common conceptual framework the paper shows how different theoretical solutions provide distinct points of departure for subsequent policy recommendations. Three distinctive groups of solutions are identified focussing respectively on local spillovers, on competitiveness and on the region and its development. The paper concludes by identifying areas of particular ambiguity where further theoretical work is most urgently needed. Key words: Cluster, cluster theory, industrial district, innovative milieu, regional policy JEL Codes: L22, R10, R58 URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7211 Files in this item: 1
maskell05-09.pdf (260.6Kb)
Now showing items 1-8 of 8