Dear Colleagues,

Industrial clusters represent an important driver of growth and innovation in both developed and transition economies, where their study continues to attract the interest of the scientific community. As a result, multiple recent investigations are identified from different disciplines or approaches. As can be seen, the advantages derived from co-localization are constantly being refined with contributions aimed at deepening the study of the structural heterogeneity of cluster firms, the analysis of social networks, the access to global value chains, or the evolutionary trajectory of the cluster and its resilience capacity to manage new challenges and changes.

In short, and in spite of the fact that its relevance in certain academic forums is sometimes questioned, the analysis of the micro-mechanisms that underlie these productive systems anchored to the territory continues to represent a subject of interest in the literature. This aspect opens up countless research opportunities at the level of company strategies, roles of the different actors, differences in terms of behavior, specificities from the sectoral perspective or particularities at the macroeconomic level.

Within this contextual framework, this special issue of the Social Sciences Journal aims to be an opportunity to open debates and introduce new lines of research. Thus, contributions of a theoretical or empirical (qualitative or quantitative) nature, both at company and systemic level, are welcome. Given the multidisciplinary nature of the object of study, approaches from areas that are not strictly economic, such as geography or sociology, are particularly interesting. In this way, some topics of interest, among others, could be:

• Agglomerations and creative industries
• Network dynamics and evolution in clusters
• Clusters and their evolutionary trajectory: decline and resilience
• The related and unrelated variety in the present and future reality of clusters.
• Clusters in developing and transition economies.
• Industry 4.0 and clusters
• Formal and informal institutions in the trajectory of the industrial cluster
• Clusters, economic policy and its evaluation.
• The role of multinationals in industrial clusters.
• Clusters and the influence of global value chains
• The role of big data and crowdfunding in cluster research

Dr. Manuel Expósito-Langa
Dr. José-Vicente Tomás-Miquel
Dr. José A. Belso-Martínez
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• Clusters
• Regional Development, Inter-organizational Networks
• Transition Economies
• Global Value Chains
• Institutions