How is firm innovation affected by location in an innovation cluster? How does the interplay of firm and cluster characteristics matter? We examine these questions by conducting an empirical analysis of firm innovation performance in regional innovation clusters. Our theoretical framework is based on a synthesis of the literature on industrial clustering, regional agglomeration economies and social networks. We test the framework empirically through the analysis of data on patent citations from 578 firms located in 26 European regional clusters in the information technology industry over 10 years. We find that location in these clusters offers benefits and at the same time poses certain constraints. One of the central findings is that connectedness to highly performing firms (in horizontal relationships), research institutions and universities located in a cluster moderates the onset of diminishing returns between firm innovation performance and research and development effort, and helps firms cope with the negative effects of locating in clusters.

We use a new panel dataset to study the network of formal firm linkages within and across 52 aerospace clusters in North America and Europe. Our theoretical framework, built upon the knowledge-based cluster and global value chains literature, suggests that a reduction in spatial transaction costs has induced clusters to specialize in increasingly fine-grained value chain stages. This should cause the overall network to evolve from a geographically localized structure to a trans-local hierarchical structure that is stratified along value chain stages. Applying community structure detection techniques and organizing sub-networks by linkage type, we find empirical evidence in support of this proposition.

Innovation ecosystems have increasingly been studied from various perspectives, including connecting innovation ecosystems to sustainable development. Extant studies have found that innovation is important for sustainable development, collaboration is important for innovation, and intermediaries create necessary links and opportunities for the development of relations and cooperation between different actors in an ecosystem. What has been missing, however, is an explicit analysis of the process of collaboration in innovation ecosystems to ensure sustainability and the role of intermediaries in the process. To fill this void, this paper studies six organizations that act as intermediaries, using a multiple-case design approach. It analyzes the process of collaboration in innovation ecosystems and elucidates the role of intermediaries in the development of sustainable ecosystems. The findings indicate that the process of collaboration between actors in innovation ecosystems is an iterative process facilitated by intermediaries. By connecting different actors, intermediaries support the diffusion of innovation that has important implications for building sustainable innovation ecosystems and achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

(2018). The importance of networking to entrepreneurship: Montreal's artificial intelligence cluster and its born-global firm Element AI. Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship: Vol. 30, Social networks in entrepreneurship and business development. Guest Editor: Ekaterina Turkina, pp. 1-8.

This article contributes to the growing literature on a broader understanding of new industry path creation shaped by regional preconditions as well as multi-actor and multi-scale interventions. Using the case of Montreal’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry as its testing ground, the findings point to the significance of pre-existing industrial structures and knowledge base, as well as the importance of new innovative entrepreneurship, institutional entrepreneurship and coordinated multilevel policy initiatives directed at nurturing the new industries, and collective place-based leadership.