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Health care ecosystems instantiate different innovation trajectories, driven either by science-/techno-push or user-centric rationales. This article focuses on organization intermediaries (OIs), respectively, active in health care ecosystems driven by science- and techno-push versus user-centric innovation processes; it aims at characterizing their operation and intervention modes. The analysis elaborates on network and content brokerage. Innovation also needs to consider various challenges associated with physical vicinity. The authors check whether territorial anchoring plays a role in brokerage, depending on the innovation model.

The article offers an investigation of eight French organizations matching the definition of OIs and active in different areas of health care-related innovation. It follows a qualitative and abductive research protocol adhering to the precepts of grounded theory.

First, the authors show that content and network brokerage specialize in specific activities in each innovation model. On network brokerage, the authors show that OIs foster the development of communities of practice in the science-/techno-push model, while they nurture communities of innovation in the user-centric model. Services materializing content brokerage are typical consequences of activities performed in each model. The second contribution deals with physical vicinity. In the science-/techno-push model, OIs install a physical space (the “internal” dimension) to support the development of communities of practice, while the “external” dimension copes with agglomeration effects. In the user-centric model, OIs deliver services thanks to the “internal” space; communities of innovation create a leverage effect on the physical space to operate their activities that are supported by “external” network effects.

The originality of the article lies in the description of the alternative roles plaid by organization intermediaries in the science-/techno-push versus user-centric approaches of innovation. In these two approaches, (contents and network) brokerage and physical vicinity play different roles.

This paper aims to analyse how local agri-food systems (LAFS), compared to other production models, can offer innovative responses to the important environmental challenges facing food production under the twin transition. These responses are more conducive to community inclusion and local development.

The paper combines territorial development, clusters and industrial districts literature with studies on agri-food industry environmental problems and twin transition technologies to develop an agri-food systems typology. This typology is based on a territorial approach to environmental challenges of food production and serves to illustrate the ways in which LAFS can provide innovative responses to these challenges.

The study allows to visualise the differences between LAFS and other agri-food production models, showing how the operationalisation and implementation of digitisation occur at territorial level and how rural communities are involved in the process. The theoretical proposal emphasises not assuming that technology is inherently beneficial but ensuring that its implementation is inclusive and generates social value for the communities.

The paper aims to enrich future research by adopting a territorial perspective to study the twin transition challenges associated with food production systems.

The purpose of this paper is to verifying the economic resilience of islands and, in particular, the role of the tourism sector in the reaction to the most recent economic crisis. The analysis concerns insular contexts, such as the greater island regions in the Mediterranean basin.

Static and dynamic panel data techniques are used for a sample of 13 island economies over a period of 16 years.

Results show that the growth factors for regional islands are similar to the ones usually considered for other regions, but the tourism-led growth hypothesis is highly supported. Tourism demand more than supply plays a role together with accessibility. The crisis has reduced the importance of tourism supply, while tourism demand and accessibility have remained crucial for growth together with other traditional engines of growth.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, none of the current works has considered territorial determinants and tourism indicators inside the same framework analyzing growth in island economies by considering the changes occurred during the crisis explicitly.

This paper aims to know the dimension and scope that research on the district effect has had in the literature about industrial districts, as well as to shed some light on the connection between industrial districts and business results; or expressed differently, on how being located in an industrial district or not affects or might influence the performance of the firms located therein.

The purpose of this paper has been achieved through an exhaustive review of the empirical literature dedicated to the so-called district effect. The papers selected in the analysis were selected on the basis of the following criteria: (1) publications in scientific journals; (2) studies carried out in Spain and Italy; and (3) works published between 1994 and 2017.

The outcome of the literature review suggests, on the one hand, that the debate on the extent to which the territory influences the competitiveness of firms located in industrial districts still remains a topic of great interest. It can additionally be observed that most of the works dedicated to measuring the district effect have done so using three dimensions: (1) productivity/efficiency; (2) international competitiveness; and (3) innovation.

From a theoretical perspective, the findings of this paper make it possible to carry out an integrating proposal for the measurement of the district effect which revolves around three dimensions (productivity/efficiency; international competitiveness; and innovation).

This paper makes a twofold contribution to the literature: (i) it brings together the most important empirical contributions that measure the competitive advantages obtained by firms located in industrial districts through the district effect; and (ii) it theoretically and empirically establishes the essential dimensions of that effect.

This paper aims to address a central question in strategy: how do internal resources firms mediate the effect of the external resources on the firms' performance?

The research was conducted in a sample of 173 Spanish innovative firms located in the Valencia region. Following the literature, the growth of the firm has been used as the main performance indicator. The paper considers the application in this context of the particular and new analysis techniques to combine mediator and moderator effects.

The research shows firms with higher internal resources exploit better external resources. The results confirm that knowledge intensive business services providers, as a form of external resources, exercise a positive influence on innovative firms' performance through the mediating effect of firms' internal assets.

First, the study uses only two well‐known internal resources and capabilities indicators. Second, the paper applies a strict and simple measure to the growth of innovative firms. Third, another limitation of this research relates to the sample and population of companies.

The study shows that the partial mediating effect exercised by internal resources and capabilities on growth, becomes more intense when new firms benefit from cluster location.

This study represents a new step toward closing the analytical gap in the existing literature on the potential interactions between external resources and new firm's internal attributes, and their combined effects on performance.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the competitiveness of the Brazilian ceramic tile industry using a conceptual model that the authors developed which integrates two contemporary approaches: industrial districts and the resource‐based view.

A quantitative study was carried out, using a survey with firm CEOs.

The results indicate that companies present in industrial districts have greater access to the strategic resources they share, such as knowledge transfer, access to information, and collective reputation. This fact results in higher levels of competitiveness, from the resource‐based view, since companies outside the district do not have the same resources available to them.

Idiosyncratic characteristics of the industry can limit our results. For further discussion, we suggest studies with other industries and local players and the positive effect of the social capital.

One contribution from our work is linking the resource‐based view to industrial district dynamics, which can help to develop local industrial policies.

This paper aims to analyse the impact of clusters on development and growth at the firm and regional level in Latin America (LA). The past 20 years have witnessed an acceleration of cluster initiatives, assuming their positive impact on firm performance and regional development. However, theoretical development and empirical meta-studies in emerging countries to validate this assumed relationship are scarce.

This paper reviews empirical evidence from a population of 123 studies and a sample of 45 empirical studies including 216 clusters in LA.

It concludes that clusters contribute to both development and growth at the firm- and regional-level contingent to factors such as cluster stage of development, collective efficiency, the pattern of governance of the value chain and the sector in which the firm operates; however, clusters are also a potential source of socio-economic divides.

Therefore, these results qualify the conclusions of studies of clusters in developed countries (Porter, 2003; Delgado et al., 2010).

The purpose of this paper is to provide a quantitative approach to measure industry clusters competitiveness.

An attempt has been made to construct a composite indicator backed up by a conceptually grounded framework, by means of Analytical Hierarchical Process technique. Four industry clusters from auto sector in India are chosen for manifestation of the methodology.

The proposed methodology sufficiently emphasises on the order of significance of the factors/indicators that make a cluster competitive. The study demonstrates the comparative competitiveness performance of four select industry clusters from India.

The methodology only focusses on auto clusters from India, application of the model/methodology needs to be extended to other set of industries that follows tier structure, or belong to other developing nations to corroborate the findings.

The proposed approach is a useful tool to provide guidance to policy-makers and in monitoring industry clusters progress.

The paper offers an empirical approach for measuring competitiveness of industry clusters. So far there has been only a minuscule research on cluster competitiveness using empirical methods specifically in case of developing countries like India. Because of the heterogeneity of actors in industry clusters and absence of cluster relevant databases, its performance has been mostly captured via means of case studies. This study is one of its kind that renders comparison of competitiveness across industry clusters by combining secondary data with the perception of cluster actors.

This paper aims to analyze the effects of inter-organizational relationships with core and peripheral partners on innovation in heritage tourism clusters.

The empirical analysis uses original data (collected by means of a postal questionnaire) based at UNESCO World Heritage Cities in Spain. The sample consists of 215 companies, and the methodology used is hierarchical linear regression.

The authors identify divergent effects of relationships with core and peripheral partners on innovation. In particular, the effect of core partners has an inverted U-shaped form, while that of peripheral partners is U-shaped.

The results may be extrapolated to other heritage tourism clusters located in World Heritage Cities with some precaution. The paper does not jointly analyze the effects of relationships with core and peripheral partners on the innovation of firms in tourism clusters.

Clustered tourism firms should not rely only on relationships with core agents, because beyond a critical threshold, returns in terms of innovation diminish. Firms should strive to establish relationships with peripheral agents in spite of the initial difficulties and the costs associated with network building, because positive returns soon materialize.

This paper contributes to the literature on inter-organizational relationships by analyzing the impact of relationships with core and peripheral partners on innovation in clustered firms. The authors highlight the existence of the divergent curvilinear effects of these relationships on heritage tourism clusters.