Resituating Proximity and Knowledge Cross-fertilization in Clusters by Means of International Trade Fairs

Abstract

This paper elaborates a proximity framework and provides empirical evidence of how knowledge cross-fertilization is instigated at international trade fairs (ITFs) and continued in a cluster network. This paper applies a case study method relying on social network analysis to explore the knowledge cross-fertilization initiated at ITFs and furthered at a Swedish cluster. The findings suggest that firms participating at ITFs translate and re-articulate the acquired external knowledge through their interactions in the cluster network. Creating awareness of the ITFs' influence on innovation is significant for policy-makers and scholars.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to the editors of this special issue of the Fifth Proximity Congress held at the Université Montesquieu Bordeaux IV in Bordeaux, France for their comments on her work. Thanks also to conference reviewers for their comments on previous drafts. The author is also grateful to Gösta Karlsson for his support with the social network analysis.

Notes

1. Other activities include information and communication technologies (ICT), global oriented customers and relocation strategies. These activities are not addressed in this paper.

2. Clusters are conceptualized as geographical concentrations of social and economic activities operating in the same, related and non-related industries. This statement means that clusters include horizontal and vertical networks of relations like the traditional definitions of clusters but also lateral relations. The horizontal relations of clusters include the interaction, cooperation and competition between firms producing similar goods. The vertical relations of cluster correspond to the interactions, cooperation and competition between firms in networks of suppliers or customers. Clusters here also rely upon lateral networks of relations between and within members of non-related industries.

3. This statement does not mean that local relations last forever, but it does mean that once they are established, they tend to last long (e.g. Uzzi, 1997).

4. Transnational relations refer to non-local foreign linkages.