Innovation in Clusters

Estelle Vallier is a sociologist at the Gustave Roussy Institute, France, and works within the Research Chair on Social Issues in Personalized Medicine and Innovation in Cancerology, part of the Centre Léon Bérand and Université Lyon 1. She is also an associate researcher at the Centre Pierre Naville at the Université d’Évry–Paris Saclay.

• Foreword ixPhilippe BRUNETIntroduction xiiiPart 1 Persistence and Renewal of the Cluster Concept in Contemporary Innovation Policies 1Chapter 1 From Industrial Districts to Knowledge Valleys: the Legacy of the Cluster 31.1 The industrial district: the oldest ancestor of the cluster 31.1.1 The economic approach of industrial atmosphere 31.1.2 The first Italian districts and their influence in France 51.1.3 The rise of districts: the end of the Fordist enterprise? 71.2 Spatial concentrations of technological activities 101.2.1 The time of technopoles: reconciling regional planning and innovation 101.2.2 A spontaneous and innovative environment conducive to a “technological atmosphere”? 131.2.3 The era of cognitive capitalism: the race for creativity of individuals and territories 151.3 The valleys of knowledge: interindividual relations as a source of innovation 171.3.1 Informal links in the heart of Silicon Valley 171.3.2 The relational logic essential to geographical proximity 191.3.3 Social capital as a driver of innovation 21Chapter 2 The Management Roots of the Cluster and Its Worldwide Dissemination 252.1 An economic and management concept destined to become a public action mechanism 252.1.1 Porter’s cluster: the rapid spread of success stories 252.1.2 Knowledge management and its workers as a dominant paradigm 292.1.3 A theoretical and practical toolkit provided by researcher-experts in clustering 332.2 Global dissemination of good clustering practices 362.2.1 A paradigm born in the United States and forged at the heart of the OECD 362.2.2 To adopt OECD recommendations, or have them imposed? 382.2.3 The European Union, sponsor of the race to the knowledge economy 402.3 The French legislative framework from the 1980s to the 2010s: a favored coming together of science and industry 432.3.1 Researchers converted into entrepreneurs 442.3.2 The university: a link in the cluster supply chain 462.3.3 A cluster for every territory 49Chapter 3 The Cluster Imaginary: Tools, Local Narrative and Promise 533.1 Performative instruments: benchmarking, territorial marketing, visual instrumentation 533.1.1 Benchmarking or territorial mimicry 543.1.2 Territorial marketing: asserting the cluster’s symbolic capital 553.1.3 Visual instrumentation: the image of a dense, expanding campus 573.2 The construction of a narrative 603.2.1 Evry, the French cradle of human genomics 603.2.2 Industrial renewal: the cluster as a solution to local economic development 623.2.3 The rhetoric of technological backwardness: overcoming French scientific slowness 633.3 Promises of innovation and employment at the territorial level 653.3.1 The promise of the biocluster: a sustainable environment and the medicine of the future 653.3.2 Becoming the capital of genobiomedicine, creating jobs for innovators 683.3.3 The naturalization of the cluster effect: an unquestionable concept? 71Part 2 Prevented Synergies: the Case of a Biotechnology Cluster 75Chapter 4 Networking Systems: Repeated but Hindered Initiatives 774.1 Scientific and industrial administration: establishing a recurrent event 774.1.1 The emergence of an intermediary figure: the cluster administrator 784.1.2 Networking and renewing acquaintances among cluster members through regular events 804.1.3 Fostering communities of practice: the creation of thematic bodies 834.2 Sharing a technology platform: mutualization or collaboration? 874.2.1 Resources as an intermediary: a policy of sharing expensive equipment 884.2.2 Platform usage: service provision before collaboration 914.2.3 Equipment demonstrations: connecting or making visible? 944.3 The institutionalization of conviviality: “la vie de site” 984.3.1 Bringing together and involving employees from different backgrounds 984.3.2 Building emotional and community connections through volunteering and sport 1014.3.3 L’Escale, a space of sociability revealing professional hierarchies 103Chapter 5 Scientific Competition and Economic Competition: Social Fields Spanned by Internal Struggles 1075.1 Asynchronous organizations and work rhythms 1075.1.1. Dissonant work schedules between companies and laboratories 1085.1.2 Belonging to the large biotechnology family or disciplinary demarcation logics? 1125.2 A scientific field built from struggle and precarity 1145.2.1 A workforce that is becoming precarious 1145.2.2 Scientific work destabilized and concealed by competition 1175.2.3 Researchers and industrial collaboration: an unequal commitment 1215.3 An unstable relationship between economic development and industrial secrets for companies 1245.3.1 Individuals are increasingly encouraged to start a business to escape unemployment 1245.3.2 The fragility of the male 30-something entrepreneur 1275.3.3 Intense activity marked by the search for financing and competition 131Chapter 6 The Avoided Cooperation 1376.1 A patchy local network 1376.1.1 What type of organizations for what type of interactions? 1376.1.2 Scientific and market relations behind informal interindividual exchanges 1416.1.3 More outwardly looking organizations 1446.2 Cooperation prevented by paradoxical demands 1466.2.1 Additional time pressure 1476.2.2 A disembodied objective between prescribed program and real work 1496.2.3 Loyalty and performance objectives towards the employer 1526.3 Avoidance strategies 1556.3.1 Avoiding scientific and technological issues 1556.3.2 Cluster administrators: between belief and lucidity 158Conclusion 161References 165Index 197