Network Capacity‐building in High‐tech Sectors: Opening the Black Box of Cluster Facilitation Policy

Abstract

Countries increasingly bring in facilitators for managing high‐tech networks. Facilitators are broadly defined as experts who take on a central position in the network with the goal of connecting various stakeholder groups. They also receive public funding and pose as a communication link between stakeholders and government. However, the use of facilitators challenges government to identify their benefits. Based on three case studies and interviews in biotechnology networks, the article opens up the black box of facilitation. It addresses the evaluation challenges by establishing a conceptual framework based on collaborative and absorptive capacity‐building theory to identify the elements relevant to facilitation. The analysis of Chicago (USA), Medicon Valley (Denmark/Sweden), and Singapore shows that facilitators not only create capacity‐enhancing elements within networks, they also occur in varying forms, including a government‐ and stakeholder‐funded model in European countries, an independent model in North America, and a government‐financed model in Asia.

Artificial intelligence for the public sector: opportunities and challenges of cross-sector collaboration

“…(6) Expertise: Overall, the manager's mind-set determines the choices about when and how to use analytical tools and strategies needed for the transfer, receipt and integration of knowledge across the network [39]. More generally, hiring tech-savvy network managers and shepherding the efforts of field experts within the network can both induce trust based on their competencies, as well as improve the quality of service [63]. From an operational standpoint, Chen [38, p. 15] exemplifies that 'the appropriate use of relevant technology can significantly improve performance in data quality, data integration, data analysis, and visualisation'.…”

Innovation-Centric Cluster Business Model: Findings from a Design-Oriented Literature Review

“…Only 19 papers provided some insight into the implications of the national context for cluster innovativeness (e.g. Isaksen 2007, Arthurs et al 2009, Calzonetti et al 2012, Gebhardt 2013, Gebhardt and Pohlmann 2013, Giest 2015. In most cases, these implications were related to the fact that the studied clusters were supported through targeted cluster or innovation policies of their national governments.…”

“…Again, only a limited number of studies (14 papers) offered a detailed insight into the implications of the sectoral specifics for cluster innovativeness. Two sectoral factors influencing cluster innovativeness emerged from these studies: (1) sectoral knowledge bases defining the key sources of knowledge needed for innovation (Renko et al 2005, Viljamaa 2007, Burger et al 2015, Aslesen and Isaksen 2016, Wannenmacher and Antoine 2016, Aslesen and Pettersen 2017 and (2) sectoral trends towards vertical disintegration and collaborative innovation (Fromhold-Eisebith and Eisebith 2005, Burger et al 2015, Giest 2015, O'Dwyer et al 2015 or, on the contrary, towards secrecy (Mendel and Bardet 2009). These studies show that although collaboration is often considered a pre-condition for innovation, it is necessary to understand the dynamics of the sector and the distribution of innovation activities within it to design cluster interactions accordingly.…”

“…These suggested that the roles played by the cluster actors as well as the geography and type of knowledge flows and resources needed for cluster innovativeness significantly vary at the different stages of cluster evolution. Finally, three articles explicitly focused on clusters' institutional modes or the predominance of the private ("bottom-up") vs. public ("top-down") sector actors (Fromhold-Eisebith and Eisebith 2005, Connell et al 2014, Giest 2015. These suggested that the level of involvement of private and public actors shapes the interests at play, the goals of the cluster actors and the approaches to cluster development.…”

Trust Dynamics in Innovation Networks: The Chicago Life Science Cluster

“…In fact, many of these relationships require a large amount of brokerage effort to form alliances and ultimately share information (Gulati, 1995). The broker within a network is in a position to enhance the collaborative capacity for stakeholders working together as well as supporting the absorptive capacity for knowledge exchange (Giest, 2015; Klijn et al, 2010; Klijn et al, 2016).…”