International strategies and networks: a dynamic theory of Italian clusters

The purpose of this paper is the study the decline of industrial clusters. The most important contributions in the literature on plasters and districts provide an explanation for cluster performance and, more broadly, a rationale for their success. Other contributions focus their attention on the origin of clusters and how they can evolve. Our perspective is symmetric and aimed at understanding the mechanisms that lead to cluster decline and death. The focus of our attention is on the effects of internationalization strategies of companies upon the industrial cluster they belong to. We define this process of slow death of clusters as declusterization, a term that refers to the slow emptying of the cluster that involves, at different stages, the various actors within the cluster. The research question we address in this context is “why do cluster die/declusterize?”