Importance of Openness for Production and Innovation in Informal Sector Cluster

The study investigated the role of openness, networking, and partnership on production and innovation among firms within the Otigba ICT cluster in Nigeria. A questionnaire were administered on 200 purposively selected business owners/leaders of informal tech-based enterprises in the cluster. The results showed that there were simultaneous occurrence of competition and co-operation within the cluster. Modes of openness within the cluster were by exchanging information and sharing experience with other technicians. Firms were majorly (70%) involved in process and marketing innovations (30%). Openness, networking, and partnership played a very significant role on access to information, customers, new domestic market, tools/technology, suppliers of raw materials, and inputs among the enterprises. A majority (95%) of the respondent enterprises which exhibited cluster attributes were involved in one form of innovation or the other. The study concluded that openness, networking, and partnership had engendered scaling-up among the enterprises.

An Anatomy of Bengaluru's ICT Cluster: A Community Detection Approach

ABSTRACTWe use community detection analysis to investigate the structure of Bengaluru's ICT cluster's inter-organizational network during the period 2015–2017. Building on the knowledge sourcing literature, we conjecture that cluster firms primarily build knowledge-seeking horizontal linkages with technologically similar companies, and that this splits the network into multiple technological communities within which firms are tightly connected, but between which linkages are scarce. We further propose that community-spanning firms which build horizontal linkages that bridge technological communities are more likely to conduct radical innovation than their peers. We finally argue that no relation exists between technological proximity and community formation in the network of vertical buyer-supplier relations. Using a voltage-based algorithm for community discovery, we draw empirical support for these predictions. We discuss the implications of our findings for Bengaluru's upgrading potential.

Measuring Social Capital with Twitter within the Electronics and ICT Cluster of the Basque Country

Social network sites like Twitter enable the creation of virtual environments where online communities are formed around specific topics. Lately, due to their increasing success, these platforms are turning out to be effective for electronic word–of–mouth communication since they can be used as another means to spread information and build a network of contacts. In this paper, Twitter is used as a proxy to measure social capital in the electronics and ICT cluster, one of the 22 clusters integrated in the Basque cluster policy. Tweets were extracted through REST and Streaming API and later on studied using Social Network Analysis, both from the static and dynamic perspective. Above all, I highlight a strong correlation at the structural and relational level, intra and inter dimensionally. The social and organizational proximity may explain the tighter relationships among affiliates, where the association that rules the cluster and other firms play an important role.

The Planetary Alignment Was Right

This chapter provides an historical perspective on the growth of Nokia and the co-evolution of an emergent ICT cluster in Finland. It carefully distinguishes what is unique and idiosyncratic and what is generalizable from that co-evolution. It explores how Nokia’s early leaders relied on smart opportunism, rather than a grand strategy, to drive the firm’s adaptation from traditional industries to mobile telecoms, and how the group took advantage of unique features of the geopolitical, institutional, and industrial contexts of Finland post-World War II. It highlights the dominant logics and heuristics from formative experiences in the early evolution of the company.