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What Was New About the Cluster Theory?

What Could It Answer and What Could It Not Answer?

University of California, Irvine

Michael Porter's cluster theory became popular at both the academic and policy levels as well as received a series of critiques. This article provides a synthetic view of those critiques. In addition, it reveals two new fundamental limitations of the theory. First, the descriptive and static nature of the theory limits the ability to replicate a successful cluster in practice. In other words, the current theory is more focused on describing how a cluster is organized today rather than how a cluster emerged. Incorporating historical process can strengthen the practical application. Second, the interconnectedness of a cluster is hard to measure empirically, and moreover, the theory does not explain how exactly the public sector can strengthen this aspect. A dialogue with networking theories can potentially improve the application.

Key Words: economic development • cluster • competitiveness • regional economy

This version was published on November 1, 2008

Economic Development Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 4, 353-363 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0891242408324373


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