Measuring structural social capital in a cluster policy network: insights from the Basque Country

ABSTRACT

Cluster Associations (CAs) attempt to promote competitiveness through inter-firm collaboration, and are generally seen as drivers of social capital formation in the region. We map in this paper, by using Social Network Analysis, the cluster policy network of the Basque Country in 2013, which may be considered a proxy of the structural dimension of social capital in the region. Besides, we identify the central agents of this network and attempt to explain the reasons for their centrality and the roles that they play. We take the affiliation of an organization to at least two CAs as a first indicator of the overall pattern of connections within the cluster policy network. Later on, we filter it with data about the Boards of Directors of CAs, and the Basque Contact Points created to concur with the Seventh Framework Programme for Research launched by the European Commission. We contend that those organizations that are present in these three networks form a ‘small world’ that numerous studies have shown to be favourable for creative output, where they might play a dual role of gatekeepers of knowledge and innovation within and between clusters and drivers of bridging social capital formation in the Basque Country.

KEYWORDS:

• Social capital
• clusters
• networks
• social network analysis

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Joan Crespo of URU (Urban and Regional research centre Utrecht) at Utrecht University and the staff of LEREPS (Laboratoire d'Etude et de Recherche sur l'Economie, les Politiques et les Systèmes sociaux) at University Toulouse I Capitole, and the editor and the anonymous reviewers of EPS for critical and helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Igor Etxabe http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2925-7382

Jesús M. Valdaliso http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3219-8301

Notes

1. Based on Mujika, Ayerbe, Ayerbe, Elola, and Navarro (2010), a questionnaire was designed with indicators for measuring social capital within the 12 CAs considered in this paper. Data were collected during April–July 2014 and 171 agents participated of the total population of 1186 (with an answer rate of 14.42%).

2. These interviews were originally conceived to undertake a case study on the Basque energy cluster and dealt with different questions, but all of them dedicated one section to the evaluation of Basque cluster policy and the role of CAs.

3. The original terms used by the author are local clustering and global separation, respectively, but we have adapted them to avoid misunderstandings with the Porterian cluster approach and local/global interpretations.

Additional information

Funding

This paper has received financial support of MINECO (HAR2012-30948) and Basque Government (IT807-13).