Do clusters capabilities matter? An empirical application of the resource-based view in clusters

Abstract

The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm has been applied to territories, although academia has not frequently undertaken exploration of RBV applied to clusters in an empirical base. The goal of this paper aims at empirically translating RBV to the territory with a double objective. First, the work seeks to understand which are the cluster's resources and capabilities. Second, the paper evaluates whether a cluster's unique set of resources and capabilities could influence a cluster's performance. Research is applied to leading European ceramic tile clusters located in Spain (Castellon) and Italy (Emilia-Romagna). Comparing clusters in the same industry allows benchmarking and the metrics make more sense. Secondary data and face-to-face semi-structured interviews with managers from the R&D Institutes, institutional agents and Castellon (59) and Emilian (19) firms assess a cluster's resources and capabilities. The employed variables address skilled labour availability, social capital, linkages, business sophistication and network effects. In addition, and through the utilization of financial and productivity data the work analyses whether there are performance differences. Results indicate that clusters have a unique set of resources and capabilities and a certain performance level. On the whole, a cluster's unique set of resources and capabilities matter. The paper offers a methodological approach to tackle empirically the RBV application to clusters.

Keywords:

• cluster
• resource-based view
• territorial performance
• ceramic tile industry
• Spain
• Italy

Acknowledgements

This research was partially carried out within the MONOTONE project funded by European Commission VI R&D Framework Program. The authors would like to thank Michel Toumi, the CEO from ASCER for arranging contact with firms as well as all firms involved in this study. In particular, we are profoundly grateful to the Generalitat Valenciana for funding the project through an Accion Especial and to the Institut Ignaci Vilallonga d’Economia i Empresa, an institution focused on EURAM for additional funding and support. The authors have also much benefited from the comments of anonymous referees in the revisions of this paper.

Notes

Notes

1.  In this work, clusters and the industrial district concept will be used without distinction, although we recognize differences in both concepts especially due to the social aspects frequently observed in industrial districts.

2.  The Global Competitiveness Index unifies the two indexes currently produced by the World Economic Forum: the Business Competitiveness Index (Porter 2001); IMD, Institute for Management Development (2004), The World Competitiveness Yearbook, IMD, Laussane.

3.  Emilia-Romagna (Italy), Castellon (Spain), three Brazilian regions (Criciuma, Mogi-Guaçu and Santa Gertrudis) and five regions in China (Foshan, Shangai, Shandong, Fujian and Chongqing). Also in Portugal we identified the cluster of Aveiro.

4.  Porter (1990) points out the Italian cluster as a case study to illustrate the role of cluster improving national competitive advantage.

5.  MONOTONE Project funded by the European Commission VI R&D Framework Program. Part of this programme in which authors participated is presented in Ceramic World Review, 2003, 52: 48–49.

6.  Interesting to get to know more about clusters classification in Iammarino, S. and McCann, P. (2006). The structure and evolution of industrial clusters: Transactions, technology and knowledge spillovers, Research Policy in press (forthcoming).

7.  In the Italian case the sample is overcharged with medium firms due to the restrictions for entering the files of the Amadeus database. Population is more in the range of 100–200 employees.

8.  This concept is different to the cluster one and is frequent that the RIS contains several clusters. To get to know more see Cooke (1998, 2005).

9.  Statistically we have a matrix of manager's perceptions (raws) and variables (columns), although the performance variable is only one (the average of all cluster firms’ performance) per year. So, statistically any connection is not possible. In other words, if we tried to make a correlation between each manager's perception about the overall cluster context or regional space with this specific firm's performance (all in the same raw state in the data matrix) what really is connected is the perception (what managers believe) and the firm's result (what firm's do and its result) which does not make any sense in this study.