Sergey Boltramovich, Grigory Dudarev, and Vladimir Gorelov ... - Etla

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• Consumers – the main consumers of primary goods manufactured
by the companies of the cluster.
An analysis and understanding of the cluster and its structure can help
companies to create focused development strategies, and authorities to
identify the sources of competitiveness in their particular regions, and to
create on the basis of this an efficient and active system of general development,
of infrastructure and operational environment improvements,
including relevant regulatory acts, actions and decrees of the legislative
power.
Although there is an extensive body of theory and research behind the
matters presented in this chapter we do not dare to bother readers with
further explanations and would like to proceed to the analysis presented
in the following text. Those who are interested to learn more we ask to
refer to the forthcoming book “Advantage Northwest Russia” by
Grigory Dudarev, Hannu Hernesniemi and others where these issues will
be addressed in more detail. A short summary of theoretical routes used
as knowledge basis for the study is presented below in Box 2.1.
Box 2.1 Theoretical Routes
It was long time a widely accepted fact that national and regional location is central
to growth, increased welfare and well-being. Already in the end of the 19th
century Alfred Marshall introduced “industrial districts”, later Joseph Schumpeter
– “innovation clusters”, Eric Dahmen – “development blocks”, François
Perroux – ”development and growth poles”, economic geographers – industrial
and “high-technology” agglomerations. These concepts assessed the geographic
concentration of economic activities and innovation from different perspectives.
Going here deeper into the intellectual history underlying these approaches and
the difficulties of making the above concepts analytically operational is beyond
the scope of the present review. Nevertheless we will touch upon their implications
that were integrated into the approach used in our study. The reason why
these concepts were not successful was not because policy makers did not consider
them important: the source of growth and the origins of disparities have
remained central to the preoccupations of policy makers and analysts. The unresolved
issues that underlie the wide use of the “cluster” concept are related to
the following questions: Why do activities cluster? Why is clustering important?
How can the clustering process be managed? Is that possible? What are the possible
tools and factors that could influence clustering in certain regions? Can,
and should, one do something about it?
Michael Porter in his book “The Competitive Advantage of Nations” presented
some answers and explanations for many of the above questions. He
incorporated implicitly many previous developments, mentioned above in the
knowledge base (Rouvinen and Ylä-Anttila, 1999). Although, according to
these authors, the framework presented by Porter is rewrap of old ideas, they
agree that the “diamond” model is internally consistent and in the line with