Business Commons^™

Geographic Clusters And Firm Innovation, Alex Vestal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Scholars dating back to the early 1900s have been interested in the idea that organizations benefit from locating in close proximity to other similar organizations (Marshall, 1920). Largely, this research suggests that economies of agglomeration accrue to clustered organizations which create performance advantages when compared to more isolated organizations. Recently, agglomeration theory researchers have focused on high technology clusters where the primary benefit of collocation is argued to be access to knowledge spillovers from local organizations. This dissertation argues that in order to access local knowledge, firms must be active participants in the local research community. Furthermore, in clusters where …