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Regional Clusters in a Global Industry: ICT Clusters in Canada

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 17; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09654310802553415

1469-5944

Matthew Lucas, Sands Anita, David A. Wolfe,

Business Strategy and Innovation

Abstract This paper reports the results of a 5-year study of eight information and communication technology clusters across Canada. It summarizes the key findings from the individual cases and poses several questions: What are the critical factors that contributed to the emergence and development of the individual clusters in their specific locations? What is the relative importance of local versus non-local factors in supporting the overall dynamism of the clusters? And what are the most important factors that contribute to the ongoing competitiveness of the clusters? In conclusion, it summarizes the import of our findings for the cluster literature in general and sets out the main policy implications. Acknowledgements The research reported on in this paper was conducted with the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada under its Major Collaborative Research Initiative Grant No. 412-2000-1002. Additional support was provided by the Ontario Ministries of Economic Development and Trade and Research and Innovation, which is gratefully acknowledged. The authors would like to thank their fellow investigators in the Innovation Systems Research network whose collective work is summarized in this paper, Nabil Amara, Allison Bramwell, John Britton, Tijs Creutzberg, Charles Davis, Tyler Chamberlin, Jêrome Doutriaux, the late John de la Mothe, Rod Haddow, Harvey Johnstone, Mélanie Kéroack, Réjean Landry, Cooper Langford, Mathieu Ouimet, Norbert Schaefer, Jaime R. Wood and Terry Ross. They are particularly grateful for the insightful comments of John Britton, Charles Davis and Cooper Langford on earlier drafts of the paper. Responsibility for any remaining errors or omissions rests with the authors alone. Additional informationNotes on contributorsMatthew Lucas Matthew Lucas is currently at Industry Canada and Anita Sands is with Citigroup. They contributed to this paper during their period as Postdoctoral Fellows with the Munk Centre at the University of Toronto. Anita Sands Matthew Lucas is currently at Industry Canada and Anita Sands is with Citigroup. They contributed to this paper during their period as Postdoctoral Fellows with the Munk Centre at the University of Toronto.