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ICC Advance Access published online on July 22, 2009
Industrial and Corporate Change, doi:10.1093/icc/dtp036
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Associazione ICC. All rights reserved.

Cluster life cycles—dimensions and rationales of cluster evolution

Max-Peter Menzel and Dirk Fornahl

Correspondence: Max-Peter Menzel, Alt Wieven 19, D-49326 Melle, Germany. e-mail: max-peter.menzel{at}web.de

Correspondence: Dirk Fornahl, BAW Institut für regionale Wirtschaftsforschung GmbH, Wilhelm-Herbst-Straße 5, D-28359 Bremen, Germany. e-mail: d.fornahl{at}baw-bremen.de

We present a model that explains how the very cluster dynamics is both the driver for the movement of a cluster through a life cycle and the reason why this movement differs from the industry life cycle. The model is based on two key processes: the first is that the emergence, growth, decline and renewal of the cluster depend on the technological heterogeneity of firms; the second is that firms have a larger relative absorptive capacity, when they are in the same location, and thus especially localized learning changes heterogeneity: it leads to a technological convergence when learning takes place within the cluster and technological divergence, when learning takes place outside the cluster, yet in the same region. We derive hypothesis from the model regarding different phases of the cluster life cycle.

Received for publication November 29, 2007. Revision received March 12, 2009. Accepted for publication June 20, 2009.


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