Economic geography during an era of global competition involves a paradox. It is widely recognized that changes in technology and competition have diminished many of the traditional roles of location. Yet clusters, or geographic concentrations of interconnected companies, are a striking feature of virtually every national, regional, state, and even metropolitan economy, especially in more advanced nations. The prevalence of clusters reveals important insights about the microeconomics of competition and the role of location in competitive advantage.
Even as old reasons for clustering have diminished in importance with globalization, new influences of clusters on competition have taken on growing importance in an increasingly complex, knowledge-based, and dynamic economy. Clusters represent a new way of thinking about national, state, and local economies, and they necessitate new roles for companies, government, and other institutions in enhancing competitiveness. Resources, capital, technology, and other inputs can be efficiently sourced in global markets.
Firms can access immobile inputs via corporate networks. It no longer is necessary to locate near large markets to serve them. Governments are widely seen as losing their influence over competition to global forces. It is easy to conclude, then, that location is diminishing in importance. (n1) This perspective, although widespread, is hard to reconcile with competitive reality. In The Competitive Advantage of Nations (Porter, 1990), I put forward a microeconomically based theory of national, state, and local competitiveness in the global economy.
In this theory, clusters have a prominent role. Clusters are geographic concentrations of interconnected companies, specialized suppliers, service providers, firms in related industries, and associated institutions (e. g. , universities, standards agencies, trade associations) in a particular field that compete but also cooperate. Clusters, or critical masses of unusual competitive success in particular business areas, are a striking feature of virtually everynational, regional, state, and even metropolitan economy, especially in more advanced nations.
Although the phenomenon of clusters in one form or another has been recognized and explored in a range of literatures, clusters cannot be understood independent of a broader theory of competition and competitive strategy in a global economy. The prevalence of clusters reveals important insights about the microeconomics of competition and the role of location in competitive advantage. Even as old reasons for clustering have diminished in importance with globalization, new influences of clusters on competition have taken on growing importance in an increasingly complex, knowledge-based, and dynamic economy.
Clusters represent a new way of thinking about national, state, and local economies, and they necessitate new roles for companies, for various levels of government, and for other institutions in enhancing competitiveness. For companies, thinking about competition and strategy has been dominated by what goes on inside the organization. Clusters suggest that a good deal of competitive advantage lies outside companies and even outside their industries, residing instead in the locations at which their business units are based. This creates important new agendas for management that rarely are recognized.
For example, clusters represent a new unit of competitive analysis along with the firm and industry. Cluster thinking suggests that companies have a tangible and important stake in the business environments where they are located in ways that go far beyond taxes, electricity costs, and wage rates. The health of the cluster is important to the health of the company. Companies might actually benefit from having more local competitors. Trade associations can be competitive assets, not merely lobbying and social organizations.
For governments, thinking about the competitiveness of nations and states has focused on the overall economy, with national-level policy as the dominant influence. The importance of clusters suggests new roles for government at the federal, state, and local levels. In the global economy, sound macroeconomic policies are necessary but not sufficient. Government’s more decisive and inevitable influences are at the microeconomic level. Among them, removing obstacles to the growth and upgrading of existing and emerging clusters takes on a priority.
Clusters are a driving force in increasing exports and are magnets for attracting foreign investment. Clusters also represent an important forum in which new types of dialogue can and must take place among companies, government agencies, and institutions such as schools, universities, and public utilities. Knowledge about cluster theory has advanced, and the publication of The Competitive Advantage of Nations (Porter, 1990) helped trigger a large and growing number of formal cluster initiatives in countries, states, cities, and even entire regions such as Central America.
My purpose here is to summarize the current state of knowledge about clusters, their role in competition, and some of their implications. (n2) I outline the theory of clusters and the appropriate roles of government in cluster upgrading. (n3) Finally, I draw on my direct or indirect participation in many cluster studies and initiatives, as well as on other literature, to explore some of the best ways in which to organize such initiatives so as to catalyze economic development. WHAT IS A CLUSTER?
Clusters have long been part of the economic landscape, with geographic concentrations of trades and companies in particular industries dating back for centuries. The intellectual antecedents of clusters date back at least to Marshall (1890/1920), who included a fascinating chapter on the externalities of specialized industrial locations in his Principles of Economics. (n4) A cluster is a geographically proximate group of interconnected companies and associated institutions in a particular field, linked by commonalities and complementarities.
The geographic scope of clusters ranges from a region, a state, or even a single city to span nearby or neighboring countries (e. g. , southern Germany and German-speaking Switzerland). (n5) The geographic scope of a cluster relates to the distance over which informational, transactional, incentive, and other efficiencies occur. (n6) More than single industries, clusters encompass an array of linked industries and other entities important to competition. They include, for example, suppliers of specialized inputs such as components, machinery, and services as well as providers of specialized infrastructure.
Clusters also often extend downstream to channels or customers and laterally to manufacturers of complementary products or companies related by skills, technologies, or common inputs. Many clusters include governmental and other institutions (e. g. , universities, think tanks, vocational training providers, standards-setting agencies, trade associations) that provide specialized training, education, information, research, and technical support. Many clusters include trade associations and other collective bodies involving cluster members.
Finally, foreign firms can be and are part of clusters, but only if they make permanent investments in a significant local presence. Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram of the wine cluster in California. This cluster includes 680 commercial wineries and several thousand independent wine grape growers. An extensive complement of supporting industries to both wine making and grape growing exists including suppliers of grapestock, irrigation and harvesting equipment, barrels, and labels; specialized public relations and advertising firms; and numerous wine publications aimed at consumer and trade audiences.
A host of local institutions are involved with wine such as the Wine Institute, special committees of the California state senate and assembly, and the world-renowned viticulture and enology program at the University of California, Davis. The cluster also enjoys weaker linkages to other California clusters in agriculture, food and restaurants, and wine country tourism. Drawing cluster boundaries often is a matter of degree and involves a creative process informed by understanding the linkages and complementarities across industries and institutions that are most important to competition in a particular field.
The strength of these “spillovers” and their importance to productivity and innovation often are the ultimate boundary-determining factors. Clusters are defined too broadly if they are aggregates such as manufacturing, services, consumer goods, or “high tech. ” Here, the connections among included industries are weak at best, and discussion about cluster constraints and potential bottlenecks will tend to gravitate to generalities. Conversely, equating a cluster with a single industry misses the crucial interconnections with other industries and institutions that strongly affect competitiveness.
Clusters occur in many types of industries, in smaller fields, and even in some local industries such as restaurants, car dealers, and antique shops. They are present in large and small economies, in rural and urban areas, and at several geographic levels (e. g. , nations, states, metropolitan regions, cities). Clusters occur in both advanced and developing economies, although clusters in advanced economies tend to be far more developed (Porter, 1998b).
Cluster boundaries rarely conform to standard industrial classification systems, which fail to capture many important actors in competition and linkages across industries. Because parts of a cluster often are put into different traditional industrial or service categories, significant clusters might be obscured or even unrecognized. In Massachusetts, for example, there proved to be more than 400 companies connected in some way to medical devices, representing at least 39,000 high-paying jobs. The cluster was all but invisible, buried in several larger and overlapping industry categories such as electronic equipment and plastic products.
The appropriate definition of a cluster can differ in different locations, depending on the segments in which the member companies compete and the strategies they employ. The lower Manhattan multimedia cluster, for example, consists primarily of content providers and firms in related industries such as publishing, broadcast media, and graphic and visual arts. The San Francisco Bay area multimedia cluster, by contrast, contains many hardware and software industries that provide enabling technology.
Clusters also can be examined at various levels of aggregation (e. g., agriculture cluster, wine cluster), thereby exposing different issues. The boundaries of clusters continually evolve as new firms and industries emerge, established industries shrink or decline, and local institutions develop and change. Technological and market developments give rise to new industries, create new linkages, or alter served markets. Regulatory changes also contribute to shifting boundaries, for example, as they have in telecommunications and transport. Why view economies using the lens of clusters instead of, or in addition to, more traditional groupings such as companies, industries, SIC codes, and sectors (e.g. , manufacturing, services)?
The most important reason is that the cluster as a unit of analysis is better aligned with the nature of competition and appropriate roles of government. Clusters, broader than traditional industry categorizations, capture important linkages, complementarities, and spillovers in terms of technology, skills, information, marketing, and customer needs that cut across firms and industries. These externalities create a possible rationale for collective action and a role for government.
As will be discussed further, such connections across firms and industries are fundamental to competition, to productivity, and (especially) to the direction and pace of new business formation and innovation. Most cluster participants are not direct competitors but rather serve different segments of industries. Yet they share many common needs, opportunities, constraints, and obstacles to productivity. The cluster provides a constructive and efficient forum for dialogue among related companies, their suppliers, government, and other institutions.
Because of externalities, public and private investments to improve cluster circumstances benefit many firms. Seeing a group of companies and institutions as a cluster also highlights opportunities for coordination and mutual improvement in areas of common concern with less of a risk of distorting competition or limiting the intensity of rivalry. Viewing the world in terms of narrower industries or sectors, conversely, often degenerates to lobbying over subsidies and tax breaks. Resulting public investments involve fewer spillover benefits across firms and industries and, therefore, are prone to distort markets.
Because large proportions of participants in such narrow groupings often are direct competitors, there is a very real threat that rivalry will be diminished. Companies also often are hesitant about participating for fear of aiding direct competitors. An industry or narrow sectoral perspective tends to result in distorting competition (anti-competitive rent-seeking behavior), then, whereas a cluster perspective focuses on enhancing competition (pro-competitive). The presence of customers, suppliers, and firms from related industries in the dialogue helps to police proposals that will limit competition.
I return to these issues when I explore the implications of clusters for government policy. LOCATION AND COMPETITION During recent decades, thinking about the influence of location on competition has been based on relatively simple views of how companies compete. These see competition as largely static and resting on cost minimization in a relatively closed economy. Here comparative advantage in factors of production is decisive. In more recent thinking, increasing returns to scale play a central role. Yet actual competition is far different.
Competition is dynamic and rests on innovation and the search for strategic differences. Close linkages with buyers, suppliers, and other institutions are important, not only to efficiency but also to the rate of improvement and innovation. Location affects competitive advantage through its influence on productivity and especially on productivity growth. Generic factor inputs themselves usually are abundant and readily accessed. Prosperity depends on the productivity with which factors are used and upgraded in a particular location.
Economic development seeks to achieve long-term sustainable development in a nation’s standard of living, adjusted for purchasing power parity. (n7) Standard of living is determined by the productivity of a nation’s economy, which is measured by the value of the goods and services (products) produced per unit of the nation’s human, capital, and physical resources. Productivity, then, defines competitiveness. The concept of productivity must encompass both the value (prices) that a nation’s products command in the marketplace and the efficiency with which standard units are produced.
The productivity and prosperity of a location rest not on the industries in which its firms compete but rather on how they compete. Firms can be more productive in any industry if they employ sophisticated methods, use advanced technology, and offer unique products and services, whether the industry is shoes, agriculture, or semiconductors. All industries can employ “high technology,” and all industries can be “knowledge intensive. ” Thus, the term high tech, which normally is used to refer to fields such as information technology and biotechnology, is of questionable relevance.
A better term might be enabling technology to signify that these fields provide tools that can enhance technology in many other industries. Conversely, the mere presence in any industry does not by itself guarantee prosperity if firms there are unproductive. Traditional distinctions between high tech and low tech, manufacturing and services, resource based and knowledge based, and others have little relevance per se. Improving the productivity of all industries enhances prosperity, both directly and through the influence one industry has on the productivity of others.
National productivity ultimately is set by the sophistication (e. g. , technology, skill) with which companies compete. Unless companies become more productive, an economy cannot become more productive. The sophistication of companies’ approaches to competing determines the prices that their products and services can command and the efficiency with which they produce. Company sophistication in competing can be thought of in two parts. The first and most basic is what I term operational effectiveness, or the extent to which companies in a nation approach best practice in areas such as production processes, technologies, and management techniques (Porter, 1996).
The second aspect of company sophistication relates to the types of strategies companies employ such as the ability to compete on differentiation and not just cost, the array of services that can be provided, and the approaches used in selling internationally. Yet the sophistication of how companies compete in a location is strongly influenced by the quality of the microeconomic business environment. Some aspects of the business environment (e. g. , the road system, corporate tax rates, the legal system) cut across all industries.
These economy-wide (or “horizontal”) areas are important and often represent the binding constraints to competitiveness in developing economies. In more advanced economies and increasingly elsewhere, however, the more decisive aspects of the business environment for competitiveness often are cluster specific (e. g. , the presence of particular types of suppliers, skills, or university departments). Capturing the business environment in a location is challenging given the myriad of locational influences on productivity and productivity growth.
In The Competitive Advantage of Nations (Porter, 1990), I model the effect of location on competition through four interrelated influences, graphically depicted in a diamond; the diamond metaphor has become common in referring to the theory (Figure 2). (n8) In a recent two-part article, I explore and statistically test the sequential process by which the diamond must upgrade if an economy is to advance (Porter, 1998b). Parallel improvements in the sophistication of company operations and strategies and the quality of the diamond provide the microeconomic foundations of economic development.
A few elements of this framework deserve highlighting because they are important to understanding the role of clusters in competition. Factor inputs range from tangible assets such as physical infrastructure to information, the legal system, and university research institutes that all firms draw on in competition. To increase productivity, factor inputs must improve in efficiency, quality, and (ultimately) specialization to particular cluster areas. Specialized factors, especially those integral to innovation and upgrading (e. g., a specialized university research institute), not only are necessary to attain high levels of productivity but also tend to be less tradable or available from elsewhere.
The context for firm strategy and rivalry refers to the rules, incentives, and norms governing the type and intensity of local rivalry. Economies with low productivity are characterized by little local rivalry. Most competition, if present at all, comes from imports. Local rivalry, if occurring at all, involves imitation. Price is the sole competitive variable, and firms hold down wages to compete in local and foreign markets. Competition involves minimal investment.
Moving to an advanced economy requires that vigorous local rivalry develop. Rivalry must shift from low wages to low total cost, and this requires upgrading the efficiency of manufacturing and service delivery. Ultimately, rivalry also must evolve from cost to include differentiation. Competition must shift from imitation to innovation and from low investment to high investment in not only physical assets but also intangibles (e. g. , skills, technology). Clusters, as will be evident, play an integral role in these transitions. The character of rivalry in a location is strongly influenced by many aspects of the business environment (e.g. , the available factors, local demand conditions).
Yet the investment climate and policies toward competition set the context. Things such as the macroeconomic and political stability, the tax system, labor market policies affecting the incentives for workforce development, and intellectual property rules and their enforcement contribute to the willingness of companies to invest in upgrading capital equipment, skills, and technology. Antitrust policy; government ownership and licensing rules; and policies toward trade, foreign investment, and corruption have a vital role in setting the intensity of local rivalry.
Demand conditions at home have much to do with whether firms can and will move from imitative, low-quality products and services to competing on differentiation. In low-productivity economies, the focus is heavily on foreign markets. Advancement requires the development of more demanding local markets. The presence or emergence of sophisticated and demanding home customers presses firms to improve and provides insights into existing and future needs that are hard to gain in foreign markets. Local demand also can reveal segments of the market where firms can differentiate themselves.
In a global economy, the quality of local demand matters far more than does its size. Clusters of linked industries play a central role in giving rise to demand-side advantages. A cluster is the manifestation of the diamond at work. Proximity, arising from the co-location of companies, customers, suppliers, and other institutions, amplifies all of the pressures to innovate and upgrade. In the Global Competitiveness Report 1998 article (Porter, 1998b), I find evidence of the role of clusters in economic development.
I test statistically across a broad sample of countries and find empirical support for the overall theory about the relationship between the microeconomic business environment and the prosperity of national economies and, in particular, for the impact of local clusters on economic development. (n9) The presence of a well-developed cluster provides powerful benefits to productivity and the capacity to innovate that are hard to match by firms based elsewhere.
CLUSTERS AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE Clusters affect competition in three broad ways that both reflect and amplify the parts of the diamond: (a) increasing the current (static) productivity of constituent firms or industries, (b) increasing the capacity of cluster participants for innovation and productivity growth, and (c) stimulating new business formation that supports innovation and expands the cluster. Many cluster advantages rest on external economies or spillovers across firms, industries, and institutions of various sorts. (n10) Thus, a cluster is a system of interconnected firms and institutions whose whole is more than the sum of its parts.
Each of the three broad influences of clusters on competition depends, to some extent, on personal relationships, face-to-face communication, and networks of individuals and institutions that interact. Although the existence of a cluster makes such relationships more likely to develop and become effective, they are far from automatic. Formal and informal organizing mechanisms and cultural norms often play a role in the functioning and development of clusters. (n11) Clusters and Productivity Scholars have sought to explain concentrations of firms in terms of economies of “agglomeration.
“(n12) These normally have been seen to arise at either the industry level or for a diversified urban economy. Many treatments of agglomeration economies rest on cost minimization due to proximity to inputs or proximity to markets. These explanations, however, have been undercut by the globalization of markets, technology, and supply sources; easier mobility; and lower transportation and communication costs. Today, the nature of economies of agglomeration has shifted toward the cluster level and away from either narrower industries or urban areas per se. Access to specialized inputs and employees.
Location within a cluster can provide superior or lower cost access to specialized inputs such as components, machinery, business services, and personnel compared to vertical integration, formal alliances with outside entities, or “importing” inputs from distant locations. (n13) The cluster, then, is a spatial organizational form that can be an inherently more efficient or effective means of assembling inputs than the alternatives, provided that competitive local suppliers are available. Sourcing outside the cluster might be necessary if competent local suppliers are unavailable, but it is not the ideal (first best) outcome.
Given the inherent benefits of clusters, however, forces encouraging local supplier development and upgrading are strong, and constituent firms have an incentive to encourage entry of new suppliers or local investments by distant suppliers. Countervailing the advantages of clusters in assembling inputs and labor is the possibility that the concentration of cluster participants bids up the cost of scarce specialized inputs and personnel. (n14) Yet the ability to outsource many inputs limits any such cost penalty relative to other locations.
More important, however, the presence of a cluster not only increases the demand for specialized inputs but also increases their supply. The availability of specialized personnel, services, and components, and the number of entities creating them, often is far greater at clusters than elsewhere despite the greater competition. Access to information. Extensive market, technical, and other specialized information accumulates in the firms and local institutions within a cluster that can be accessed better or at lower cost, allowing firms to raise current productivity by getting closer to the productivity frontier.
This also applies to the flow of information between units of the same company. (n15) Proximity, supply and technological linkages, and the existence of repeated personal relationships and community ties fostering trust facilitate the information flow within clusters. (n16) Obtaining information about current buyer needs is an important special case of the informational benefits of clusters. Sophisticated buyers often are part of clusters, and other cluster participants have information about buyer needs that often is shared. Complementarities.
A cluster enhances productivity not only through the acquisition and assembly of inputs but also through facilitating complementarities between the activities of cluster participants. Some of the most important types of complementarities are the following(n17): ° Complementary products for the buyer. In tourism, for example, the visitor’s experience is affected not only by the appeal and quality of the attraction (e. g. , beach, historical site) but also by the quality of the hotels, restaurants, souvenirs, airport facilities, and transportation, making the different parts of the cluster mutually dependent.
Such complementarities across products in creating buyer value are common, being present not only in service delivery but also in product design, logistics, and after-sales service. (n18) The co-location of firms and industries within a cluster makes it easier to achieve product-service coordination and creates internal pressures for improvement among parts of a cluster in ways that can substantially improve overall quality and/or efficiency. ° Marketing complementarities.
The presence of a group of related firms and industries in a location offers efficiencies in joint marketing (e.g. , firm referrals, trade fairs, trade magazines, marketing delegations). It also can enhance the reputation of a location in a particular field and makes it more likely that buyers will consider a vendor or manufacturer based there. Buyers can see multiple firms in a single visit. The presence of multiple sources for a product or service in a location also can reduce perceived buying risk by offering buyers the potential to multisource or switch vendors if the need arises. ° Complementarities due to a better alignment of activities among cluster participants.
Linkages with suppliers, channels, and downstream industries are recognized and captured more easily within clusters than among dispersed participants. Substantial improvements in productivity also sometimes are possible when several parts of a cluster change simultaneously (e. g. , coordination to develop cluster standards and measures). Access to institutions and public goods. Clusters make many inputs that otherwise would be costly into public or quasi-public goods. The ability to recruit employees already trained in local training programs, for example, eliminates or lowers the cost of internal training.
Firms often can access specialized infrastructure, advice from experts in local institutions, and the like at very low cost. Indeed, the information built up at a cluster can be seen as a quasi-public good. (n19) Some of the public or quasi-public goods available in clusters are similar to conventional public goods in the sense that they are closely linked to government and public institutions (e. g. , public investment in specialized infrastructure, educational programs, information and trade fairs). However, other quasi-public goods available to cluster participants are created as a natural byproduct of competition.
These include information and pools of technology, the reputation of the cluster location, and some of the marketing and sourcing advantages described earlier. In addition, public or quasi-public goods at cluster locations often are the result of private investments in training programs, private infrastructure, quality centers, and other forms that benefit a cluster. Private investments in cluster-specific public goods or quasi-public goods are common because of the collective benefits perceived by cluster participants.
Often, such private investments in public goods take place through trade associations or other collective mechanisms. Incentives and performance measurement. Clusters help to solve or mitigate some agency prob