What Was New About the Cluster Theory?

Abstract

Michael Porter's cluster theory became popular at both the academic and policy levels as well as received a series of critiques. This article provides a synthetic view of those critiques. In addition, it reveals two new fundamental limitations of the theory. First, the descriptive and static nature of the theory limits the ability to replicate a successful cluster in practice. In other words, the current theory is more focused on describing how a cluster is organized today rather than how a cluster emerged. Incorporating historical process can strengthen the practical application. Second, the interconnectedness of a cluster is hard to measure empirically, and moreover, the theory does not explain how exactly the public sector can strengthen this aspect. A dialogue with networking theories can potentially improve the application.