Knowledge sourcing and cluster life cycle – a comparative study of furniture clusters in Italy and Poland

ABSTRACT

Clusters are places that facilitate knowledge sharing and dissemination among firms and institutions working in functionally-related fields. Structural changes that take place within clusters over time influence knowledge-related processes and require new approaches towards external knowledge sourcing. In this paper, we use a mixed-method approach to investigate different knowledge sources that firms use at different stages of a cluster life cycle. The empirical research comprises the investigation of two clusters that specialize in the same kind of economic activity, i.e. in the furniture industry, but are at different stages of their life cycle. These are, a mature cluster – the Livenza district in Italy and a growing one – the Kępno cluster in Poland. The analysis revealed that firms in a mature cluster use a greater variety of external knowledge sources and more knowledge-intensive sources than those in growing clusters do. This may be explained by more homogeneous and well-established knowledge pools at later stages of a cluster life cycle and/or by higher competition between firms offering similar products.

KEYWORDS:

• Knowledge sourcing
• clusters
• cluster life cycle
• industrial districts
• furniture industry

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for the comments and suggestions that helped to improve the earlier version of the paper. Cooperation between the authors was also facilitated thanks to the START scholarship of the Foundation for Polish Science.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The term industrial districts dates back to Marshall (1890) and was popularized in the 1990s in reference to the ‘Third Italy’ area, i.e. the regions in north-eastern part of Italy, characterized by many prosperous small and medium-sized firms in traditional industries (Becattini, Bellandi, & De Propris, 2009; Becattini, 1990), whereas the concept of cluster is rather associated with the studies by Micheal Porter (1990). Although there is an ongoing debate on the subtle differences between the two terms (De Marchi & Grandinetti, 2014b; Ortega-Colomer, Molina-Morales, & Fernandez de Lucio, 2016; Porter & Ketels, 2009), in this paper we are going to use the term cluster and industrial districts as synonymous.

2 It seems that the cluster life cycle concept was developed based on the prior concepts of a product life cycle (Vernon, 1966) and an industry life cycle (Klepper, 1997).

3 Data retrieved from Eurostat (https://ec.europa.eu).

4 Data on firms in Livenza cluster were received from the Chamber of Commerce Treviso-Belluno.

5 Data on firms in Poland were received from Emmu B2B. Public statistics in Poland are not precise, and regional chambers of commerce do not gather detailed data on firms. Therefore, the database on furniture firms is obtained from a private company specializing in business statistics and it is only approximate.

6 It must be noted that it was difficult to encourage entrepreneurs from Kępno to participate in this research. It was prepared by a public university representative, conducted by a local firm, with the letter of recommendation from the regional chamber of commerce and the assertion that the answers will be processed anonymously. However, most company representatives replied that they do not cooperate with universities because they do not have time or do not see the purpose of such surveys. Some were suspicious about the real aim of such analysis. It proves that firm-university cooperation in Poland is still difficult. 100 answers (a minimum number of answers assumed before the research) must be treated as a large number.

Additional information

Funding

The research was financed by the National Science Centre in Poland [grant agreement no. 2015/17/N/HS4/00205].