Innovation clusters: virtual links and globalisation

The concept of market boundaries is vital for any researcher confronted with the task of analysing the structure and the conduct of a firm or a group of firms. Rival approaches to identify such boundaries exist and have different methodological foundations mainly depending on the many possible purposes of the study to be carried on. None of these purposes have logical priority or methodological superiority over the others, therefore it is particularly difficult to make a point by point comparison between alternative approaches. The key to the choice of an appropriate tool for analysing the motivations and the constraints facing firms in the market (as a result of being in an industry) is the “need” of the researcher and, since it varies enormously, it is not possible to choose by proxy for researchers with different needs, even if the choice can be facilitated by comparative analysis and critical commentary. Therefore, in the following work the attitude adopted is that different levels of analysis reflect different purposes and, having different traditions in the literature, we want to point out the benefits emerging from the present approach compared with other contributions in the same area of study. All this takes into account that contributions are often originated from very different traditions spanning from economic, management and sociological approaches to theoretical and empirical ones and static or dynamic analysis. The need of the contribution is to identify the sources of innovation, in particular pointing out the role performed by the research and technology organisations. The cluster is the level of analysis chosen for this task and the exemplification refers to telecommunications.