ABSTRACT
The explanation of drivers and outcomes of cluster change is necessary for planning
regional innovation policy as well as strategies of regional enterprises. Recent studies in
regional development and change indicate a refocus from territories and institutions as
objects of analysis to investigating spatial dynamics from the perspective of an individual
company growth (Frenken, 2007; Frenken & Boschma, 2007; Menzel & Fornahl, 2010,
Ter Wal & Boschma, 2011). Evolutionary economic geography holds that an individual
company and its industry life cycle determine the life cycle of the entire regional agglom-
eration and focus on the internal forces leading to its evolution. These forces are described
with the use of such theoretical constructs as co-evolution, path dependence, myopia and
lock-in (Martin & Sunley, 2006; Maskell & Malmberg, 2007; Menzel & Fornahl, 2010;
Ter Wal & Boschma, 2011). Another group of studies focuses on the external forces,
specifically internationalization, cost and technology competition and digitalization of
economic activity as determinants of cluster dynamics (Samarra, 2005; Alberti, 2006; Big-
giero, 2006; Samarra & Belussi, 2006; Lorentzen, 2008; Propris et al., 2008). This per-
spective also puts emphasis on cluster lead companies as units of analysis, but here
they are treated as agents affected mainly by these external forces instead of internal
characteristics and processes taking place in the industrial agglomeration (Li et al.,
2012). At the same time, in the current debate and empirical evidence, cluster is increas-
ingly analysed as a part of global value chains with a focus on choices the cluster compa-
nies make when internationalizing, specifically about their linkages with other industrial
agglomerations in less-developed, low-cost countries (Humphrey & Schmitz, 2004b;
Gereffi et al., 2005; Saxenian, 2007). This translates into the opposition between up-
grading and locking-in of clusters in developing countries, which attract foreign invest-
ment due to prevailing cost advantages. The latter phenomenon is affected by technologi-
cal change in the form of modularization of production networks, which occurs at the level
of industry.
