TITLE:
How Can the Governance of the French Clusters (Pôles de Compétitivité) Improve SME’s Competitiveness?
AUTHORS:
Martine Gadille, Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay, Alena Siarheyeva
KEYWORDS:
Clusters, Competitiveness, Cooperation, SME, Knowledge, R&D, Innovation
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.9 No.3,
March
12,
2021
ABSTRACT: This paper focuses on Pôles de
compétitivité—the French competitiveness clusters (FCC)—which mobilize national and regional actors and resources
for innovation. By reviewing the literature (academic, web and news articles,
and official reports) published on the subject, the synthesis emphasizes a
collective learning process leading to institutional change reflected by
legitimation of SMEs as full-fledged innovation actor. Through reflexive
governance of certain poles, centered on
their own sustainability, the policy has produced learning at local and national level. It has generated
knowledge that has brought transformation of operational tools and
societal representations in support of innovation of SMEs. The originality of
the article is to show that in the French societal context, new place
dependencies within the Pôles are characterized by emergence of a new
innovation model of SMEs mainly through collaboration with public research.
This model differs from the innovation model of SMEs staying outside of the
poles. It is built through intermediary organizations that offer regional
filters for national and regional policy adaptation. A major limitation of the
policy is the difficulty to enhance cooperation between innovative SMEs and
leader firms in the territory mainly because of a lack of social regulation
over the protection and share of knowledge assets. The paper contributes to the
research on clusters in general.