![Sample our Built Environment journals, sign in here to start your access, Latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5926/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Built-Environment.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The question on how regional clusters renew themselves and start a new cycle of prosperity is of vital interest for affected companies, politicians and regions. Recently, the idea of renewing clusters has been conceptualized within the cluster life cycle (CLC) literature. CLC approaches generally assume that cluster renewal is widely driven cluster-internally through agent capability building processes and the systemic utilization of novelty. Critique from other authors highlights the neglected role of the external environment in the CLC literature. This article sheds light on renewal processes in two German agricultural engineering clusters. It is shown that in the case of a farm trailer cluster renewal can be widely explained cluster-internally, while in the case of a stable technology cluster that diversified into the field of biogas technology, internal factors played a less significant role and much of the development was driven externally by political decisions on the national level. Possible explanations for diverging roles of cluster-internal and external factors lie in the differences in the stage of the novel technologies’ development and the complexity of the novel technology.
Acknowledgements
The author thanks all interview partners for participating in the study and the referees for helpful comments. Furthermore, he thanks Alexander Barros for the transcription of interviews. This work was presented at the iino seminar in Bremen 2016. The author thanks the participants of this seminar for fruitful comments on an earlier version of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 An overview on early approaches is given in Bergman (Citation2008).
2 Although Ter Wal and Boschma (Citation2011) do only point to new geographic contexts, one could also think about the ability of agents to reproduce their routines into new thematic or social contexts.
3 However, Claas produces tractors in another location.
4 Co-evolutionary as in the sense of, for example, Murmann (Citation2003).
5 According to an interviewee more than 50% in spring 2013. However, the author is aware of the fact that this kind of information may be very subjective.
6 The use of ICT in the stable technology sector has a long tradition and dates back to the 1970s. Furthermore, it is strongly related to control technology in plants of other industries.