Assessing the Success of an Industrial Cluster

Industrial clusters have received considerable attention as a regional development strategy. While their efficacy has been debated by academics, clusters have become popular among practitioners. Despite clusters’ acceptance, there have been few attempts to measure their success or their impact on constituent firms. This paper outlines and discusses the metrics developed to evaluate the success of the northwest Ohio greenhouse cluster. The cluster was launched in 2004 to help the industry become more competitive though collaborative problem solving. In identifying success metrics, the authors were cognizant of the fact that they had to reflect the cluster’s objectives and goals. Thus metrics that measured the impact of branding and marketing efforts, reducing energy costs, and increasing collaboration among cluster stakeholders were developed. The work reported in this paper is only the beginning phases of a longer-term, on-going effort to track the progress and success of the northwest Ohio greenhouse cluster. DOI: 10.4018/jagr.2012070102 22 International Journal of Applied Geospatial Research, 3(3), 21-36, July-September 2012 Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Despite the acceptance of clusters by many academics and policy makers, there have been few attempts to objectively measure the success of clusters or the impact of a cluster on the constituent firms (Feser et al., 2008; FromholdEisebith & Eisebith, 2005; Schmiedeberg, 2010). Sölvell (2008) reported that only five cluster organizations out of 50 he surveyed had completed cluster evaluations. A few academic researchers have investigated the impact of clusters on specific economic conditions. For example, Feser et al. (2008) analyzed the affect of clusters on job growth and new business formation in Appalachia. Also Delgado et al. (2010) investigated the relationship between clusters and entrepreneurship. As a final example, Fowler and Kleit (2010) assessed the impact of cluster activity on areas’ poverty rates. While such studies contribute to our general understanding of regional development, they do not necessarily inform about measuring the success of a specific cluster project. Fromhold-Eisebith and Eisebith (2005) suggested that the heterogeneity of clusters leads to intricate methodological issues that inhibit evaluation. Schmiedeberg (2010) and Sölvell (2008) discuss a variety of such problems in their overviews of cluster policy evaluation. Moreover, Fromhold-Eisebith and Eisebith (2005) noted that there may be a vested interest on the part of cluster management and public officials not to have an evaluation because it may yield undesirable results. Nonetheless, for those persons managing a cluster, an evaluation of the progress of a cluster is necessary in order to attract funding and participants (Sölvell, 2008). Those were the motivations behind the greenhouse cluster management team developing measures to assess the success of the northwest Ohio greenhouse cluster.