stock repurchase announcements: a test of market ... - Asbbs.org

Walecki
Commerce, 2007a & 2007b). It is not clear what kind of concepts and theoretical foundations
have exactly been used in those regional development programs.
The supporters of the cluster based development will most likely continue to face serious
challenges in a real life with the application side of the theory. Gollub insists that for regional
development to be successful it must move to the second stage, which he calls Clusters 2.0. He
sees the first stage of cluster based development strategies as more of a ‘wishful thinking’, which
was often limited to a mere description of the existing clusters. Gollub suggests that the second
stage should focus on implementation and it must not only include a better understanding of the
overall regional performance, but also a solid assessment of other competing regions. He sees all
regional economic actors working together and supporting each other (Gollub, 2004). In that
sense, the Green Valley Initiative may have a potential to advance to that second generation of
clusters as it seems to satisfy some of the above conditions, but a strong leadership and political
will would still be needed to bring all participants together to agree on common regional goals
and necessary actions to implement future recommendations.
If Clusters 2.0 are capable of adding a better understanding of the region’s geographic space and
its competitive position, then there is perhaps already a need for Clusters 3.0, which would fully
integrate geographic and economic spaces of individual regions and also its main economic
actors. Clusters 3.0 would require government agencies and other stakeholders to go beyond
traditional regional interests and invest more in learning about economic spaces of all regional
agents, including business firms and other stakeholders. They would need to incorporate current
and future environmental concerns and focus on sustainable development. Clusters 3.0 would
have to consider new trends in location patterns in their geographic territory, as well as within
competing regions, countries and even trade/ economic blocs. A very little progress has been
made so far trying to predict future shifts in comparative and competitive advantages of particular
regions and individual firms, which is crucial to regional- as well as business sustainability and
prosperity. More than a quarter century ago Welles suggested that: “the most difficult factor to
weigh is an area’s future, because high-growth areas can change overnight” (Welles, 1981, p.
163). This observation is as true today as ever before, and would have to be taken seriously by all
economic actors.
Finally, regional development faces new challenges today that are often international in nature. A
rapid progress in both globalization and regionalization demonstrate the need to understand
important changes within geographic and economic spaces. At the international level Fujita
identifies three cores of the regional integration as NAFTA, EU, and East Asia (Fujita, 2007b),
rather than one unified global market. These powerful regional cores will continue to have
serious implications for business expansion and economic development. Rather than fighting
regionalization and globalization all levels of governments need to learn how to adapt better to
those new trends and how to identify new opportunities, as suggested by Peter Drucker over ten
years ago (Drucker, 1997). Unfortunately, the continuous lack of sufficient attention to
geographic space is also clearly demonstrated by an enormous economic progress in some
countries and regions and a disturbing increase in poverty in other areas. Governments will have
to move beyond the investigation of the existence of industry clusters to be able to understand
their economic and geographic environments and to plan for sustainable future development.
CONCLUSIONS
There is sufficient evidence and many empirical studies that clearly show the benefits and even
the necessity of including geographic space in business education and management decision
ASBBS E-Journal, Volume 4, No.1, 2008 190