Publications

19 Oct 2015
Research & Ideas

Business Research that Makes for Smarter Public Policy

the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor—who had done extensive research examining the benefits of clusters—to speak to the governor’s cabinet and the legislature in support of the idea. “That was the real reason the legislature voted in the View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

09 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 9, 2008

of one of the largest semiconductor clusters in Europe. Contrary to conventional wisdom in the semiconductor industry, the Dresden team only copied from its home corporate locations in the United States those processes and practices that... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2004
Background Note

Emergence of "Silicon Wadi", The

By: Paul A. Gompers and Sara Bergson

Provides background information on the high-tech industry in Israel. View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Industry Clusters; Information Technology Industry; Israel

09 Jan 2019
Research & Ideas

The UK Needs a Bold Strategy Around Competition to Survive Brexit

an advantage over European competitors. It also needs a more proactive approach to identifying and upgrading its areas of strength outside of London. The UK has strong biosciences and information technology clusters around Cambridge and... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

14 Nov 2006
First Look

First Look: November 14, 2006

source software ("OSS"). What drives companies with large, proprietary software portfolios to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in OSS? We approach this question by grouping a sample of OSS projects into clusters and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2017
Article

High-Skilled Migration and Agglomeration

By: Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr, Çağlar Özden and Christopher Parsons

This paper reviews recent research regarding high-skilled migration. We adopt a data-driven perspective, bringing together and describing several ongoing research streams that range from the construction of global migration databases, to the legal codification of... View Details

Keywords: Migration; Talent; Diaspora; Agglomeration; Diasporas; Industry Clusters; Talent and Talent Management; Immigration

Find at Harvard

May 2010 (Revised August 2013)
Case

Delta Electronics Hybrid Power Train

By: Willy C. Shih and Jyun-Cheng Wang

Delta Electronics, the world's largest manufacturer of switching power supplies, hoped to enter the market for gasoline-electric hybrid power trains for automobiles by being a major component and subsystem supplier. While most public awareness of hybrid vehicles fell... View Details

Keywords: Investment Return; Intellectual Property; Emerging Markets; Industry Clusters; Partners and Partnerships; Electronics Industry; China

14 Nov 2005
Research & Ideas

How Can Start Ups Grow?

that benefits from knowledge spillovers explain why firms in an industry cluster in specific geographical areas—think Silicon Valley. In the advertising industry, however, knowledge spillovers within the industry are not as important as... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Advertising

September 2009 (Revised August 2013)
Case

Colombia: Organizing for Competitiveness

By: Jorge Ramirez-Vallejo and Michael E. Porter

The case is designed to explore the process of building competitiveness, particularly in an unstable environment, with a focus on organizing for competitiveness. View Details

Keywords: Microeconomics; Industry Clusters; Competition; Competitive Strategy; Colombia

01 Jul 2014
First Look

First Look: July 1

structure shapes performance in problem-solving tasks. Problem solving, we argue, involves both search for information and search for solutions. Our results show that the effect of network clustering is opposite for these two important... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

12 Sep 2011
Research & Ideas

The Untold Story of ‘Green’ Entrepreneurs

In the 1920s, on pitch black nights in rural eastern Montana, the farmhouse owned by the parents of brothers Marcellus and Joe Jacobs stood out for one reason: it had light, although located far from power lines and gasoline supplies. It was a beacon in the dark that... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

31 Jul 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, July 31, 2018

of Manufacturing Clusters By: Buciuni, Giulio, and Gary P. Pisano Abstract—Over the past two decades, the greater prevalence of global supply chains has had contrasting effects on Western manufacturing clusters. While some of them... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

June 2015
Case

Silicon Fen

By: Tom Nicholas, David Chambers and Matthew G. Preble

Keywords: Information Technology; Industry Clusters; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Technology Industry; England; California

2015
Chapter

Agglomeration and Innovation

By: Gerald Carlino and William R. Kerr

This chapter reviews academic research on the connections between agglomeration and innovation. We first describe the conceptual distinctions between invention and innovation. We then describe how these factors are frequently measured in the data and some resulting... View Details

Keywords: Industry Clusters; City; Innovation and Invention

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06 Dec 2010
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Doing Business in Emerging Markets

Although this interview dates back to 1999, Porter's points about the importance for companies to establish "home bases" in the countries they operate, and take advantage of local knowledge clusters, are still valid today. Key concepts include: By taking advantage of... View Details

April 2000
Background Note

Market Failures

By: Bharat N. Anand, Tarun Khanna and Jan W. Rivkin

Examines the role of transaction costs in impeding the functioning of markets and shows how the concept of transaction costs sheds light on a broad range of issues in strategy. View Details

Keywords: Competitive Strategy; Competition; Corporate Strategy; Cost; Market Transactions; Industry Clusters; Failure; Internet

2007
Working Paper

What Causes Industry Agglomeration? Evidence from Coagglomeration Patterns

By: Glenn Ellison, Edward Glaeser and William R. Kerr

Many industries are geographically concentrated. Many mechanisms that could account for such agglomeration have been proposed. We note that these theories make different predictions about which pairs of industries should be coagglomerated. We discuss the measurement of... View Details

Keywords: Geographic Location; Labor; Industry Clusters; Transportation; Manufacturing Industry; United States