Learning Hi-tech and Knowledge in Local Systems: the Otigba Computer Hardware Cluster in Nigeria

Conventional wisdom would suggest to the fact that relatively poor countries are unlikely to host a “high-technology” sector. This paper examines an unusual phenomenon of industrial organization in an African setting; the emergence of a small and medium enterprise (SMEs) information technology hardware cluster in a very late industrializing country, Nigeria. The evolution of the Otigba Computer Hardware Village (OCV) has proceeded largely without direct support from the state and indeed within a decidedly hostile institutional and arid infrastructural environment. Yet the cluster has thrived, thus far, with institutional support from a local trade and manufacturing association. The study is as much about learning in late industrialization as it is of how an informal institution fills the hiatus in the absence of required state support.