Entrepreneurship and regiona develpment: the role of clusters

ROCHA, H., STERNBERG, R

Conferencia; Kauffman Entrepreneurship research conference; 2004

This paper is about the moderating impact of clusters on the relationship between entrepreneurship and regional development. Although clusters and entrepreneurship face high visibility among academics and policymakers, research on clusters, entrepreneurship and regional development is scarce. On the one hand, the entrepreneurship literature uses concentration indexes as proxies for clusters, without considering that clusters and industrial agglomerations are different phenomena. On the other hand, the cluster literature lacks an agreement on the definition of clusters. Empirical studies focus on different phenomena such as industrial agglomerations and industrial districts, using as unit of analysis established small and medium-sized companies –i.e. focus on size- rather than on entrepreneurship –i.e. focus on new firms. The paper advances a theoretical model and an empirical research to explain the moderating impact of clusters on the relationship between entrepreneurship and regional development. Defining entrepreneurship as the creation of new organisations and cluster as a geographically proximate group of interconnected firms and associated institutions in related industries, the paper aims at answering three research questions: (1) Does the level of entrepreneurship within clusters contribute more to regional development than that not within clusters? (2) If clusters have a moderating impact on the relationship between entrepreneurship and regional development, what explain this impact? (3) What are the implications of the previous results for academics and policy makers?