Download or read book Clusters and Networks Their Importance for Small Enterprises in Developing Countries written by Meine Pieter van Dijk and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Enterprise Clusters and Networks in Developing Countries written by Meine Pieter van Dijk and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-07-05 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Enterprise Clusters and Networks in Developing Countries analyses the functions and advantages of clusters and networks for small enterprises in developing countries. In the opening chapter the editors describe different types of clusters and networks and compare the diverse forms of external economies and co-operation effects derived from them. Taking a multidiscplinary approach, they point out it is trust that is the social basis for positive effects of clustering and networking, which are often sources of co-operation and technology diffusion for small enterprises in developing countries.
Download or read book Industrial Clusters and Micro and Small Enterprises in Africa written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2010-12-30 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The World Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Research Institute, and the Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development (FASID), in collaboration with researchers affiliated with the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), recently conducted a study on Africa s domestic enterprises to improve the understanding of the constraints micro and small enterprises in Africa face in improving productivity and expanding their markets. In Africa, there are stark performance gaps between domestically owned enterprises and foreign-owned enterprises in terms of sales performance, productivity, and ability to reach distant markets. Among others, size appears to be a dominant factor in explaining the gap. Against this background, the study analyzes how naturally formed industrial clusters concentrations of enterprises engaged in same or closely related industrial activities in specific locations could potentially mitigate constraints Africa s micro and small enterprises face and enhance their business performance. The study is one of the first comprehensive quantitative inquiries on industrial clusters in Africa. The analysis specifically focuses on the role of spontaneously grown clusters of light manufacturing industries based on a set of original case studies of industrial clusters conducted for this research project. One of the key findings from the case studies was that cluster-based micro and small enterprises are performing better than similar micro and small enterprises outside of the clusters in terms of sales performance and ability to reach distant markets. Market access is a leading reason for cluster-based enterprises to choose their current locations. However, cluster-based enterprises face another set of unique growth constraints. By the very nature of spontaneous agglomera tion, new enterprises continue to flow to the clusters seeking the profit opportunities and better access to markets at such locations. The result can be intense competition in addition to increased congestion. Space constraints often impede growth within clusters. The lack of alternative locations available for industrial activities in the same cities, generic infrastructure bottlenecks, and unclear zoning policies and their unpredictable changes limit firms location choices and constrain their mobility. While competition should improve efficiency, lack of capacity among those competing cluster-based enterprises to invest and innovate does not generate growth out of the competition. The vast majority of naturally formed clusters of light manufacturing industries in Africa are still at a survival level, where agglomeration externalities are only limited to expand quantity but not quality as we observe in more advanced innovation-oriented clusters in elsewhere in the world. Existing studies on such natural industrial clusters in Africa have found that the lack of managerial skills among entrepreneurs running micro and small enterprises is a major constraint for innovation and growth in the clusters. As a part of this study, pilot managerial skills training programs were conducted in two industrial clusters on an experimental basis, where a group of randomly selected entrepreneurs within the clusters were given three-week long crush course of based management such as bookkeeping, marketing, business planning, and production management. The impact evaluation of the experiments showed significant positive impacts of the training programs on value added and gross profits of enterprises. Raising the current survival-type industrial clusters, which have been formed as a coping mechanism to weak investment climate, into more dynamic innovating clusters will be an important avenue for fostering growth of micro and small enterprises in Africa. While national efforts to improve investment climate and investments in human capital are undoubtedly important, there could be more targeted policies to be formulated, in complementing general policies, to support growth of micro and small domestic enterprises using existing industrial clusters as a natural springboard for their growth. In that context, the study discusses the merit of cluster-based managerial human capital development to build steps toward more innovation-oriented clusters, the importance of sound spatial planning policy, particularly at the local level in the context of urban planning, the need to expand market access and economic linkages for industrial clusters including regional integration and linkages with large enterprises.
Download or read book Cluster Development in Selected Asian Countries Local and regional contexts Penerbit USM written by Suriati Ghazali and published by Penerbit USM. This book was released on 2015 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book consists of chapters that review concepts and theories to empirical evidences and case studies of cluster development in five Asian countries – Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. It explores the dynamic of clustering in linking its potential and challenges to economic development, policy making, innovation and social networking in various cluster development projects in different localities and regions. For many years clusters have been touted to have significant economic and strategic advantages to develop potential and successful industrial regions. This book offers a better understanding of rural challenges in cluster development in different localities of Asian countries, which would help in generating new ideas and suggestions in making appropriate recognition to rural agendas in the era of globalization. It is suitable as a reference for university and college students in related fields, as well as for researchers, planners, administrators and the society at large.
Download or read book Entrepreneurship Innovation and Business Clusters written by Panos G. Piperopoulos and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-29 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Business Clusters, Panos Piperopoulos provides a comprehensive introduction to what entrepreneurship is all about, how and why entrepreneurs innovate and how innovation systems operate. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) constitute the backbone of most economies, so the author examines their characteristics and the crucial role played by the owners and entrepreneurs who innovate to ensure the survival and continued growth of their firms. He also includes the particular phenomena that arise where the entrepreneurs are either female or from ethnic groups, or where the context is that of a developing region or country. The importance of co-operative strategic alliances and networks between firms is discussed, along with how these strengthen SMEs' competitiveness. The concept of open innovation has been proposed as a new paradigm for the management of innovation and the author presents a hypothetical model for enhancing the competitiveness and performance of SMEs by properly utilizing employees' creative potential, emotional intelligence, tacit knowledge and innovative ideas. The contemporary model of business clusters, involving partnerships with competitors, agents, universities, research centres and local, regional and national governments is discussed. The ways, means and methods through which SMEs' competitiveness and innovation can be enhanced within business clusters is illustrated by cases that identify four types of SMEs, that behave differently and play different roles in the networks and clusters of which they form a part, but all of whose performance and competitiveness is a function of their position and role in the wider scheme of things.
Download or read book Upgrading Clusters and Small Enterprises in Developing Countries written by Jose Antonio Puppim de Oliveira and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-24 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SME's are acknowledged as effective sources of jobs and incomes, gaining an important position in the development agenda, subsequently 'cluster' policies were conceived as a framework to augment the effects of SMEs and to optimize resources used to support them. Based on case studies from Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia and India, this volume examines SME clusters and argues that unless they counteract common problems such as very low wages, poor working conditions, poor quality products and lack or environmental regulation, they will be pushed out of the market and so become unsustainable. This book suggests that the SME clusters currently being stretched should react by 'socially upgrading' in order to improve their innovation capacity, as well as social, environmental and labour standards. It puts forward conceptual frameworks which explain the way firms can upgrade: through markets, interaction among cluster members, through Corporate Social Responsibility and other such public policy, and through the better enforcement of regulation.
Download or read book Upgrading to Compete Global Value Chains Clusters and SMEs in Latin America written by Carlo Pietrobelli and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does enterprise participation in global markets ensure sustainable income growth? Policies have often been designed in the belief that this is true, but competitiveness and participation in international markets may take very different forms, and developing countries do not always benefit. This book presents a series of rich and original field studies from Latin America, conducted by the authors with the same consistent methodological approach, and represents a theory-generating exercise within clusters and economic development literature. The main question addressed is how Latin American small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may participate in global markets in ways that provide for sustainable income growth, the “high road” to competitiveness. In contrast, the “low road” is often typically followed by small firms from developing countries, which often compete by squeezing wages and revenues rather than by increasing productivity, salaries, and profits.
Download or read book Innovation Networks and Clusters written by Blandine Laperche and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2010 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Economics, networks are increasingly used to describe the many links created between independent companies, as well as between them and other institutions (universities, banks, venture capital, etc.). In the current global and knowledge-based economy, they can be characterised as knowledge factories and knowledge boosters. They feed the internal processes of innovation (collaborative innovation) or the external processes of innovation, created by the propagation effects that come from inter-firm collaboration. The book explains how innovation networks are at the origin of the production of new knowledge that will be transformed and used in common as well as in separated production processes. This characteristic of networks as knowledge factories gives incentives to further investment in the production of knowledge and ensures the cumulativeness of the innovation process. Some of the authors clearly take a territorial point of view and study how clusters (in different parts of the world: Europe, Eastern Asia and North America) propelled by the quality of the innovation networks they enclose, can be characterised as knowledge pools into which the local actors will be able to draw to reinforce their individual and collective competitiveness. This book also includes analyses of the quality of the networks built within clusters, which may help their identification.
Download or read book Clusters Networks and Innovation written by Stefano Breschi and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2005-12-22 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Governments and regional authorities often express the belief that the key to prosperity and economic expansion is related to the ability of countries to sustain regional clusters of competitiveness and innovation. The book reviews the most important conceptual approaches to the analysis of the emergence, growth and evolution of clusters of innovation. Drawing from the different experiences of industrial districts and high-tech regions such as Silicon Valley, Boston's biotech region, and Hsinchu-Taipei, the contributions in this book offer a broad interpretative framework and policy implications for the creation and strengthening of competitive clusters. Themes include: · the wide variety of existing clusters and the diversity in their emergence and growth; · the international mobility of factors and demand linkages; · the role of different network types and the social setting; · the accumulation of capabilities in key large actors and the importance of spinoffs and new firm formation; · the role of different learning regimes and sectoral specificities; · the importance of social networks, labour mobility, and face-to-face contacts as vehicles of knowledge spillovers. Broad implications are drawn for the design of policies to encourage successful economic clusters in developed and developing clusters.
Download or read book Micro Clusters and Networks written by Ewen Michael and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-10-19 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces a new approach to the analysis and management of growth in small tourism markets for regional and rural locations. It recognizes from the outset that the vast bulk of the tourism industry’s product is delivered by small business enterprises and that many of these are located outside of metropolitan areas. Its central premise is that a myriad of small-scale clusters can provide an effective means to establish a local competitive advantage in tourism activities based on the resources of existing communities. The book brings together contemporary views of the potential of clustering theory to promote development in micro-markets, within the paradigm of competition, to create a new framework for regional development that might serve to enhance the growth of small-scale tourism destinations. Microclusters and Networks provides a theoretical explanation of how and why micro-clusters come about, with chapters by specialist authors to illustrate examples of their practice in the real world; but it goes further to demonstrate not only why they work but also how community members interact to form successful clusters. The incorporation of networking theory provides the means to explain the role of local community interaction in delivering successful social outcomes. The analysis that is provided clearly has applications for many industries beyond the development of rural and regional tourism destinations.
Download or read book The Role of Small and Medium Local Enterprises in Regional Development written by August Cornelis Marinus Westen and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Development on the Ground written by Allen John Scott and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edited by two leading scholars who have been instrumental in the shaping of current thinking in the field of regional and industrial economics, this volume brings together a range of theoretical and empirical contributions that analyze and explain distinct patterns of regional development, and the successes and failures in this regard, across the world. A mixture of theoretical insights and empirical and comparative evidence, it links these findings to on-going policy debates that attempt to understand the success and failure of distinct regions through particular models of institutions and patterns of governance. International in appeal and scope, this book is an invaluable tool for students of all levels studying economics, economic geography, regional development, development studies, international business, international political economy, development sociology and public administration.
Download or read book Regional Trade Agreements in Asia written by Van Hoa Tran and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2008-01-31 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tran Van Hoa and Charles Harvie present this timely and original study of the likely effects of new regional developments in Asia.
Download or read book Identity Economics written by Kate Meagher and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 2010 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is essential reading for those interested in the role of the informal economy in contemporary processes of growth and economic governance in Africa.
Download or read book A Road Map to the Development of European SME Networks written by Agostino Villa and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-10-03 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent European Commission studies recall the urgency of promoting new and more robust Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), due to the rise of enormous global markets and the emergence of a new industrial system originating from the distinctly different business culture of the Far East. A “road map” for the survival of SMEs in Europe must be based on an accurate analysis of the most significant causes behind the weaknesses of SMEs. Several research projects conclude that SMEs must join together to create “networks”. Yet the majority of the existing networks suffer from a lack of real coordination: it is clear that a method for analyzing the governance of the network and its collaboration efficiency is essential for assuring effective performance. “A Road Map to the Development of European SME Networks” addresses this task: describing the method of analysis, allowing comparisons to be made between SME networks in different European countries, and providing information on a supporting web site.
Download or read book Industrial Innovation Networks and Economic Development written by Anant Kamath and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-11-27 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an innovative examination of how ‘low–technology’ industries operate. Based on extensive fieldwork in India, the book fuses economic and sociological perspectives on information sharing by means of informal interaction in a low-technology cluster in a developing country. In doing so, the book sheds new light on settings where economic relations arise as emergent properties of social relations. This book examines industrial innovation and microeconomic network behaviour among producers and clusters, perceiving knowledge diffusion to be a socially-spatial, as much as a geographically spatial, phenomenon. This is achieved by employing two methods – simulation modelling, and (quantitative, qualitative, and historical) social network analysis. The simulation model, based on its findings, motivates two empirical studies – one descriptive case and one network study – of low-tech rural and semi-urban traditional technology clusters in Kerala state in southern India. These cases demonstrate two contrasting stories of how social cohesion either supports or thwarts informal information sharing and learning. This book pushes towards an economic-sociology approach to understanding knowledge diffusion and technological learning, which perceives innovation and learning as being more social processes than the mainstream view perceives them to be. In doing so, it makes a significant contribution to the literature on defensive innovation and the role of networks in technological innovation and knowledge diffusion, as well as to policy studies of Indian small firm and traditional technology clusters.
Download or read book Clusters Networks and Innovation written by Stefano Breschi and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-12-22 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining the role of the much-vaunted concepts of regional clusters in the prosperity and economic expansion of countries, this work looks at the different experiences of industrial districts and high-tech regions such as Silicon Valley, Boston's biotech region, and Hsinchu-Taipei.
