Brauchen regionale Wirtschaftscluster lebendige 'Kooperation'?: Ein Überblick anhand einer Auswahl empirischer Studien zu europäischen Hochschultechnologieclustern

Abstract: Regional high-tech clusters have gained importance in Austria as well as in other countries of the European Union over the past years. Following the explanatory concept of leading business theorist Michael Porter, vigorous clusters are characterised by busy co-operative exchange processes between the respective actors. This provides the basis for dealing with the question of the relevance given to intra-cluster co-operation by regional economic and social empirical research. Comparingthe results of several studies, a detailed overview of various co-operative exchange processes is given. This is followed by an analysis of the importance of informal and trust-based relationships to the initiation and realisation of cooperations within regional clusters. The article closes with an outline of what could potentially be an 'ideal' regional cluster and a suggestion on how to define a more tangible concept of co-operatively oriented regional clusters.;