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Int. J. Technology Management, Vol. 63, Nos. 3/4, 2013

Organising deliberate innovation in knowledge clusters: from accidental brokering to purposeful brokering processes Philippe Lefebvre
Mines ParisTech (CGS), 60, bd Saint-Michel 75272, Paris, Cedex 06, France E-mail: philippe.lefebvre@mines-paristech.fr
Abstract: This article focuses on how to boost innovation by stimulating the emergence of joint R&D projects within cluster initiatives. Based on empirical studies on R&D-oriented cluster initiatives, it sheds light on cluster R&D management, a key but hardly ever studied issue, and explains how cluster managers attempt to stimulate and to intermediate innovation by applying three central tactics, possibly enriched by other ex ante and ex post peripheral tactics. Drawing on these empirical results, tested on 15 cluster managers, the article then illustrates that the encompassing model of upstream innovation intermediation process proposed by Sieg et al. (2010) addresses in fact only one among the several possible forms of such processes. Then, splitting Notebooms notion of optimal cognitive distance into two different dimensions, it shows that this refined notion of cognitive proximity/distance between actors helps understand such a diversity of innovation intermediation processes and their varied efficiencies. Keywords: cluster management; innovation intermediation; joint R&D projects; optimal cognitive distance; C-K theory; economies of proximity; sub-cluster communities; gatekeepers; systemic intermediary; cluster initiatives. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Lefebvre, P. (2013) Organising deliberate innovation in knowledge clusters: from accidental brokering to purposeful brokering processes, Int. J. Technology Management, Vol. 63, Nos. 3/4, pp.212243. Biographical notes: Philippe Lefebvre is an Assistant Professor at Mines ParisTech, Paris, France and Senior Researcher at the Center for Management Studies (Mines ParisTech). His research deals with the history of management thought and practices in relation to the rise and decline of dominant organisational forms (from guilds to cottage industries, manufactures and factories to large integrated firms in the early 20th century; and from late 20th century firms to inter-firm cooperation projects, networks and cluster initiatives). He is the Head of the French Observatory on Cluster Initiatives, a platform of exchanges and reflections for cluster managers, policy makers and researchers. He has written and contributed to several reports on cluster initiatives. The research presented in this article was funded by a grant from the French National Research Agency (ANR). This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled Organizing deliberate innovation in knowledge clusters: from accidental brokering to purposeful brokering processes presented at 2012 R&D Management Conference, Grenoble Ecole de Management (GEM), France, May 2012.

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