Innovation in Clusters. Estelle Vallier

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Innovation in Clusters - Estelle Vallier


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turn leads to greater flexibility in the overall network of enterprises, which is then likely to offer a wide range of products to the market (Durand 1991, p. 48).

      These SMEs, each specialized in a different segment of production, constitute a system that adapts to technological developments. For some authors, this specialization comes at a time of crisis for the mass consumption model: the rise of individualism leads the consumer to no longer want uniform goods (Capecchi et al. 1987). The weakening of these standardized goods markets has disrupted the large Fordist enterprises, the symbol of which being the automobile industry. Slow growth marked by weak demand would have determined the “shift of centrality” from large industry to small production units considered more flexible and more responsive to demand surges (Vercellone 2003). On the other hand, others consider that it is more a question of an entrepreneurial thrust that sought to express itself outside the conditions of domination of big business. Unable to compete on the basis of production costs, new production models were invented, based on product diversification (Durand 1991). Some observers agree that this post-Fordist bifurcation is embodied in the shift from an economy of quantity to an economy of variety, under the pressure of the relaxing of borders and increased competition (Veltz 1996). Hatchuel refers to this as a “Taylorism of variety” (Hatchuel et al. 2002, p. 32). Moreover, the flexible specialization model combines the advantages of the large enterprise (economies of scale) and those of the small business (productive flexibility), allowing for a better capacity for innovation (Garofoli 1992).

      Literature on the district, and its variants, analyzes spatial concentrations of businesses that have formed on their own, based on family or neighborhood ties, or even with the aim of integrating the production chain of a territory. In this sense, Bagnasco evokes a “spontaneous social capital” specific to the Italian district1, that is, “accumulated over the course of history within networks that define local society” (Novarina 2012, p. 21). He contrasts it with the “created social capital” that public authorities try to reproduce. Indeed, while the models we have just seen are the result of local initiatives, the spatial concentrations intended to rapidly bring science and industry together are the result of public policies, whether they be French technopoles or American science parks.

      The second half of the 20th century brought about, on the academic side, mainly economic concepts of territorial innovation systems, as well as several policies promoting the bringing together of science and industry at a local level.

      1.2.1. The time of technopoles: reconciling regional planning and innovation

      In France, the technopole concept was part of the vast policy of decentralization that began in the 1950s and continued until the decentralization acts of the 1980s. The first attempts to create technopoles emerged in the 1970s, as in the case of the Meylan innovation and scientific and technical research zone (Zone d’Innovation et de Recherche Scientifique et Technique, ZIRST) in the Grenoble area and, especially, Sophia Antipolis near Nice, which remains the most striking French example. However, it was during the following decade that technology parks appeared all over France:

      Following the decentralization of 1982, the idea that development and coordination actions can promote the constitution of technological poles, and thus the economic development of cities or regions, spread among local elected officials, who were strongly encouraged in this by companies specialized in the development of business parks (Grossetti 1995, p. 3).

      In their book, Technopoles of the World: The Making of 21st Century Industrial Complexes, Manuel Castells and Peter Hall analyze the different forms of industrial organization that technopoles can take (Castells and Hall 1994). Based on an empirical study of the principal global concentrations of technological activities, they distinguish between different types of technopoles, which show how broad the reference can be: high-tech industrial complexes (Silicon Valley, Route 128); science cities, where scientific research predominates, but where the link with the local industrial fabric is weak (the example of Tsukuba in Japan is highlighted); technology or science parks, which, for the authors, are the result of public initiatives for the economic development of the territory (Sophia Antipolis in France, Cambridge in the United Kingdom); even metropolitan areas such as Paris, Tokyo and London. From all these case studies, Castells and Hall identify three main motivations for technopoles: reindustrialization, regional development and the creation of synergies. The authors specify the long time needed to achieve these three objectives: 20–30 years to see the first effects.

      Thus, the technopolitan space is embodied in:

      A place of spectacular urban planning, high-end leisure facilities, and cultural events […]. Indeed, creation is not limited to discoveries and applications in the scientific and industrial fields […]. It is the sum of human activity which is carried along in the wake of the intelligence revolution. A revolution which, in order to bear all its fruits, must in fact encompass all spheres of existence, which supposes that intelligence does not remain limited to the economic field alone (Garnier 1988b, p. 169).

      The technopole is therefore seen as a “new city in which the informal contacts generated by cultural, sporting and civic activities would have contributed to cross-fertilization” (Rasse


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