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The main problem addressed by this research is the current debate between the negative and positive effects of industrial clusters. This debate is a result of gaps between theoretical implications and empirical evidence in both the classical agglomeration theory and the agglomeration lifecycle theory. The purpose of this study is to propose a framework for developing an index measuring both organizational cluster involvement and organizational supply chain including the three pillars (economic, social, and environmental). Furthermore, the index acts as a quantitative predictor of the stages of the life cycle of industrial clusters. Adopting a case study methodology, the applicability of the index development framework is demonstrated. First, cross-sectional exploratory interviews are performed to locate items measuring the three pillars of organizational sustainability within Egyptian communication industry. Second, an explanatory, cross-sectional approach is applied gathering data from eight professionals related to involvement and supply chain sustainability of their organizations. Analytical hierarchical process is used for weighting and aggregating individual item metrics into two indicators (Saaty, 1980). Measuring, managing, and controlling capabilities of organization's supply chains outweighs the need to manage risks. The proposed framework aids firms within a cluster in making timely decisions about what needs addressing to improve supply chain sustainability performance. Hence, all environmental, social, and economic capabilities can be effectively monitored and controlled.

Enterprise software is a predominant sector in the European software industry. Four of the five largest European software companies are found in this sector. Interestingly, two of these — among them SAP as one of the two global market leaders — are located within the same industrial agglomeration in South-Western Germany. This agglomeration, the SAP cluster, further consists of enterprise software SMEs forming a ‘satellite system’ centred around the large players, which fosters the formation of ‘mutualistic symbiotic’ relationships between large and small firms. At first sight, cluster formation in the context of the enterprise software industry might seem perplexing considering that traditional rationales of agglomeration economies seem obsolete in an environment where advances in communications technology would permit companies to locate in any location within a modern developed economy instead of concentrating in proximity to each other or to major players in the industry. This chapter explores possible explanations of this agglomeration phenomenon based on patterns of competition, collaboration and the formation of social capital between smaller firms and large anchor firms.

The findings of a comparative analysis between the SAP cluster environment and two categories of controls (firms in other agglomerated environments and those unaffected by agglomeration effects within Germany) show that SAP cluster SMEs might simultaneously benefit from heightened intensity of competition and a more pronounced inclination towards collaboration. Moreover, the role of social capital derived from SAP as anchor firm clearly differentiates SAP cluster participants from firms located within other environments.

From the intra- and inter-regional dimensions, this paper investigates the linkage between industrial agglomeration and inventory performance, and further demonstrates the moderating role of firm size and enterprise status in the supply chain on this linkage.

Using a large panel dataset of Chinese manufacturers in the Yangtze River Delta for the period from 2008 to 2013, this study employs the method of spatial econometric analysis via a spatial Durbin model (SDM) to examine the effects of industrial agglomeration on inventory performance. Meanwhile, the moderation model is applied to examine the moderating role of two firm-level heterogeneity factors.

At its core, this research demonstrates that industrial agglomeration is associated with the positive change of inventory performance in the adjacent regions, whereas that in the host region as well as in general does not significantly increase. Additionally, both firm size and enterprise status in the supply chain can positively moderate these effects, except for the moderating role of firm size on the positive spillovers.

In view of firm heterogeneity, managers should take special care when matching their abilities of inventory management with the agglomeration effects. Firms with a high level of inventory management are suited to stay in an industrial cluster, while others would be better in the adjacent regions to enhance inventory performance.

This paper is the first to systematically analyze the effects of industrial agglomeration on inventory performance within and across clusters, and confirm that these effects are contingent upon firm size and enterprise status in the supply chain. It adds to the existing literature by highlighting the spatial spillovers from industrial clusters and enriching the antecedents of inventory leanness.

The purpose of this paper is to theorize how the industry life cycle unfolds differently across places and how economic agglomeration varies over time.

The paper relies on literature review and conceptual analysis.

It generates a dynamic geographic concentration model (i.e. an industry’s degree of geographic concentration drops in the growth stage, rises in the mature stage, and drops again in the new growth stage) and a localized industry life-cycle model (i.e. temporal dynamics differ between the center and the periphery).

It makes contribution by theorizing that the extent to which an industry is geographically concentrated changes over time, and by demonstrating how an industry’s center and periphery may experience different temporal dynamics.

This article aims to explore informal entrepreneurial activities in ethno-cultural clusters in the Russian South. It evaluates the agglomeration economy efforts of ethno-cultural communities and the formation of a new operations of the informal sector. The transition of the ethnic project “Obukhovsky Choir” from an informal to a formal enterprise is considered as unfinished. The emphasis is pointed at the barriers affecting the process and extra-economic factors influencing entrepreneurship activities in ethno-cultural clusters in Russia.

For investigation of the informal entrepreneurship in the Southern Russian agglomeration, in-depth interviews method has been used. The paper researched concept of entrepreneurship and cultural entrepreneurship through the interviews, trying to distinguish the core factors influencing activities of Obukhovsky Choir. These questions concern motivation to enter entrepreneurship activity, regional and local policies affecting the overall situation, core values (ideology) of these types of activity, the role of institutional and other contexts, spatial distribution and social capital influence.

The case of the Rostov agglomeration demonstrates the delayed development of ethno-cultural clusters and attempts to closure activities of communities into local political space. Rostov agglomeration has not stepped through the threshold and involved ethno-cultural communities in the formation of the “common good” conception. While Rostov agglomeration is still attractive for labour migration and migrants' entrepreneurial initiatives, local government does not support such intervention into the stable regional market. These steps delay the development of ethno-cultural clusters and contradict communication between ethnic communities, autochthonic population and local administration.

The case chosen for analysis is Cossack music entrepreneurial space as a salient sample of ethno-cultural cluster with powerful economic potential. It could be used for further consideration of ethno-cultural cluster as a source for socio-economic modernization of Russian multicultural agglomeration where established ethnic communities' communicative style strategically provides support or opposition to the local administration initiatives.

The purpose of this paper is to use case study evidence to explain that enterprise agglomeration in itself may not advantage business development. Agglomeration has the potential to bring enterprise advantage but whether this occurs depends on additional supportive conditions.

The paper re‐examines case studies of Indonesia clusters from a more critical perspective than adopted in their original presentation. This critical perspective follows a realist assessment of agglomeration in which advantages depend on specific business environments.

Five processes are identified that limited the advantage obtained from agglomeration: internal segmentation; enterprise independence; technological pooling; excessive competition and linkage dependencies. Three attributes that influence whether agglomeration assists business and regional development: enterprise diversification, entry barriers and cluster scale.

The paper is limited by its reliance on previously completed case studies rather than a set of purpose‐designed case studies.

Business promotion agencies should be aware that not all enterprise clusters have an equal likelihood of sustaining economic growth.

The combined evidence from previously published case studies of Indonesian cluster experiences adds to the understanding of the conditions required for agglomeration advantages to be realised.

The purpose of this paper is to offer clarity on a central concept introduced in Porter’s The Competitive Advantage of Nations, i.e. the cluster. The authors situate the concept introduced by Porter (1990) relative to two of its antecedents, the industrial district and industrial complex. Placing the cluster in a historical context permits consideration of the extent to which it, as a concept for analysis, may be differentiated from other geography-based approaches to economic phenomena. In this way, this paper examines the added value of the cluster concept derived from economic factors.

The paper provides a detailed literature review tracing the evolution of theories of location and agglomeration into which Porter’s cluster fits. The evolution of Porter’s own conceptualisation of the cluster and how this relates to theoretical clarity surrounding the concept is explored. Comparative analysis of theories of location, agglomeration and clustering is provided to identify similarities and differences across the approaches and identify the added value of the cluster concept in relation to other approaches.

Clustering represents a process associated with spatial organisational form which may offer advantages in efficiency, effectiveness and flexibility. Cluster benefits can be appreciated through the lens of Young’s (1928) identified sources of increasing returns. A key aspect in clustering is revealed in terms of its role in enabling four sources of increasing returns. The authors outline how these sources of increasing returns are related to “soft” processes of networking, interaction and individual and collective learning. Porter’s Diamond is a self-reinforcing system which can permit increasing returns and reinforce such tendencies of economic activity within agglomerations.

Added value from Porter’s cluster concept is identified in the context of both its locational anchoring and in terms of its potential for understanding the role of exploitation of increasing returns for development. This points to the importance of focusing on clustering as a process rather than on cluster within typologies of organisational form. This implies that the nature of relationships (and how they change) within and across markets, institutions and actors lies at the heart of clustering because of their roles in knowledge-generation, including innovation, knowledge sharing and upgrading.

The paper aims to investigate the role of specialization and agglomeration forces on industry performance in an emerging market, namely, Thailand. In particular, the impact of clusters and the influence of complexity will be tackled.

The methodology used is based on the work of Delgado et al. (2014). Industries and clusters are assigned to a certain category according to their respective level of specialization and complexity. Performance measures are then computed for each category.

It was found that the agglomeration of similar industries and co-located and related industries increase the performance of firms in terms of gross output per employee and remuneration per employee. Moreover, the increase of performance induced by the complexity level of an industry was closely related to the level of specialization.

Building on a cluster mapping, this study brings new insight on the effect of specialization and agglomeration on performance in emerging markets. In fact, the paper show how performance can be enhanced in less sophisticated and developed economies.

This paper aims to analyse which firm-level characteristics drive their location decisions when investing in a foreign country. Focusing on origin clusters, the authors will study the potential influence of the home country context and, in particular, the impact of firm-level factors, both investor- and investment-related, underlying heterogeneity in their location choice decisions.

The empirical analysis draws on data gathered from mainland Chinese MNEs that have invested in Germany between 2005 and 2013 (269 firms). The authors chose a single host (Germany) and a single home (China) country for their representativeness and for methodological reasons to control for country effects. The authors used a multinomial logit model to assess the effects of the independent variables on the probability that each of the three location possibilities would be selected.

The results suggest that investors preferring co-location in origin clusters have distinct structural and strategic characteristics. From a more structural point of view, Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) undertaken by smaller firms and those without prior experience in the EU prefer an area where there are other Chinese investors. From a more strategic perspective, these FDI flows are more likely to tap into industry agglomerations when the investors’ objective is strategic asset seeking, and they have less knowledge-intensive investments.

The findings may be of great practical value to practitioners and policymakers. Knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of the types of agglomeration networks can help managers to balance the rewards and risks in their decision-making and to select a suitable development path for their FDIs. For policymakers, an understanding of the structure and formation of different groups of firms in one location and the characteristics of investors who may enter the location can help them to improve their regulatory work and to develop policies to attract investments, thereby enhancing local economic development and community stability.

The research shifts the emphasis of the location choice decision beyond just where to locate toward with whom to collocate. It also contributes to the growing research on emerging market multinationals by providing further insight into understanding of FDI location behavior by firms from emerging economies.