Perspectives of SME innovation clusters development in Russia

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to develop and test models explaining the unsatisfactory innovation activity of Russian firms and the main obstacles to innovation cluster development. Design/methodology/approach -Based on statistical analysis and the results of a pilot survey of 192 local businessmen, followed by imitation modeling analysis, the study tests hypotheses regarding the impact of unsatisfactory institutional environments, including weak property rights protection, on innovation cluster development in Russia. Findings -The analysis shows that the impact of adverse factors on innovation activities of cluster members is crucial, and estimates to what extent the negative factors' influence should be reduced to prevent cluster degradation processes.Research limitations/implications -The models provide a number of sensitivity tests of the parameters; however, data from clusters with different levels of support and protection need to be obtained. Government experiments could be conducted to test the models and find ranges of optimal parameters for cluster development. Short of this, examination of actual data from different cluster in similar environments would allow estimated of optimal strategies for support. Longitudinal data can also help determine the actual cause and effect of successful innovation cluster development. Practical implications -The paper provides managerial implications for organizations involved in innovation clusters, which can be used to improve cluster members' performance and collaborative innovation activities by means of creating acceptable institutional environments. Originality/value -The paper provides evidence of the connection between collaborative activities of clustering organizations in Russia and their performance caused by expectations concerning institutional conditions on the macro level in Russia.

A Systematic Review of the Literature on Open Innovation in SMEs

“…Securing beneficial network positions is not only up to the networking skills developed by SMEs but is also the responsibility of the (large) network orchestrator at the helm of the network, where this leader is in a position to stimulate value creation at the level of the network as a whole by putting SMEs in strategic positions (Lecocq and Demil, 2006). Similarly, Bek et al (2013) and Omta and Fortuin (2013) have highlighted the important role of effective network management in SMEs realizing their OI potential. Nordman and Tolstoy (2016) emphasize on the role of collaborations with foreign partners to be innovative and capitalize on the home and international market opportunities.…”

“…This seems to be particularly the case in transitioning economies as evidenced by studies of Serbian SMEs (Dukic et al, 2015) and Hungarian SMEs (Torok and Toth, 2013). Bek et al (2013), in their analysis of Russian SMEs and their positions in OI clusters, conclude that there is an important role for the government in disseminating best practices regarding entrepreneurs that have managed to secure valuable OI network positions based on their skills, in providing training in networking to SME leaders, as well as in carrying out/ensuring network management that safeguards SMEs' positions and roles.…”

Clusters: Distinctive Features and Implementation Mechanism in the Russian Federation

“…Let us try to analyze the extent to which the territorial development entities that are currently implemented in Russia as clusters match the cluster's distinctive features described above. Having researched the sources available to us (regretfully, mainly in the Russian language), we can state that there are significant differences between those entities and the classical clusters (see Table 2) (Bek et al, 2013). Mainly, commercial entities, with a weak presence of companies from the related and supporting industries.…”

“…This gave rise to a number of publications in which the nature of the cluster was researched as a special form of organizing economic activities on the territorial network basis (starting with Michael Porter's ground-laying work (Porter, 1998), and the cluster implementation practice was analyzed in terms of fostering regional development and improving operational efficiency of its member enterprises (Schmitz & Nadvi, 1998;McCann, Arita & Gordon, 2002;Bek et al, 2013& Hashino & Otsuko 2013.…”

Agent modelling of cluster formation processes in regional economic systems

“…The bibliographic survey reveals that in recent years, some attempts have been made to simulate the basic parameters of clusters [1], processes of their formation [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9], including the problems of their self-organization [10][11][12], intracluster interactions [13][14][15][16], cluster functioning [17], the systems of intracluster objectives [6], their life cycle [18][19][20][21][22][23], entropy processes, degradation and collapse of cluster structures [7,21,24], etc.…”