Clusters and Innovation: a Case of the Colchagua Wine Cluster

ICT-enabled clusters are increasingly being employed to gain competitive advantage. Through the formation of relationships, participants of clusters share knowledge and expertise to collectively seek new markets and opportunities that would be otherwise unattainable on their own. This paper presents a research in the field of innovation clusters applied to the Chilean wine industry. The Innovation Value Chain is used as the basis for analysing processes of a wine cluster in Chile. Preliminary results from published data show that relationships formed by the structure of the cluster have enhanced the overall performance of the cluster. The Innovation Value Chain can be a useful strategic tool for management decision-making as organisations can identify areas for improvement through the threephase process of innovation. The paper also concludes that a geographic based wine cluster fosters the surge, development and implementation of innovation activities to some degree. Future work involves conducting in-depth interviews with participating wineries to further verify the framework.