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Approaches to Clustering and Market Creation in the Dot-Com Economy

Clustering is high on the agenda of policy makers these days. Much of the attention has stemmed from the apparent success of firms linked together in a Porterian mould in specific regions. Hence the range of examples from the traditional industrial districts in Italy, the innovative milieux in France and Switzerland, and Silicon valley in the USA. The clusters agenda has moved on from consideration of spatial agglomeration issues to discussions on the convergence of technologies, skills, and resources, learning and knowledge, and interconnectedness between disparate industries resulting from convergence and learning opportunities. In the complex web of dynamic socialization and technological sophistication that characterizes clusters, a relatively new player, the Internet, has started to redefine cluster-based interconnectedness. Paradoxically, the Internet both challenges the role of space and geography in clusters and reinforces the value of human interaction between customers and suppliers, buyers and producers, and between consumers and sellers in defined spaces. The ‘net’ effect is often the creation of a new space of virtual interconnectedness for both physical buying and selling and intangible value generation in a ‘new economy’.