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Clusters, Networks, and Entrepreneurship

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Encyclopedia of Creativity, Invention, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Synonyms

District; Hub; Milieu ; National system of innovation; Park; Regional innovation system

Innovation processes often depend upon the availability or constitution of a critical mass of knowledge, (multidisciplinary) competencies and (entrepreneurial, managerial, and human) resources that are complex, cumulative and, for the most, still embryonic or difficult to access. Considerable efforts must be also devoted for mobilizing and training of the manpower, acquisition of new knowledge and know-how, and informing employees about new technologies and services, as well as their market potential. Equally important here is the need for a close coordination among a great number of heterogeneous and geographically dispersed actors. The potential for innovation and the competitive positioning of actors “depend increasingly on their differentiated abilities to collaborate with a wide range of partners – those with key complementary competencies and significant specific resources, and/or...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Poitiers, CRIEF, IRIAF, 11 rue Archimède, Poitiers (campus of Niort), 79000, France

    Marc-Hubert Depret

  2. University of Tours, Tours, France

    Abdelillah Hamdouch

Authors
  1. Marc-Hubert Depret
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  2. Abdelillah Hamdouch
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Correspondence to Marc-Hubert Depret .

Section Editor information

  1. Decision Support Systems Laboratory, School of Production Engineering and Management, Technical University of Crete, University Campus, Kounoupidiana, 73100, Chania, Greece

    Evangelos (Vangelis) Grigoroudis

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Depret, MH., Hamdouch, A. (2017). Clusters, Networks, and Entrepreneurship. In: Encyclopedia of Creativity, Invention, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6616-1_199-2

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