Searching for Crisis-Proof Business Models: The Case of Romanian Industrial Clusters

Over the last almost two decades, clusters have established themselves as drivers of industrial ecosystems boosting SME competitiveness based on innovation and internationalisation. Their prompt response to the current COVID-19 crisis has already proven their short-term flexibility in adapting production to the urgent (medical) needs and placed them in pole position as economic policy instruments in the recovery and repositioning process of international supply and value chains, if seen from a medium- and long-term perspective. While economists, policymakers and practitioners share similar views on their national and regional economic role, not so much has been debated on internal factors leading to cluster success or failure. We argue that the cluster business model, the excellent management, the type of actor driving the cluster (industry/research/policy) and the membership to a strong cluster association are more important than other external factors such as the availability of public funding. We take the example of Romania, a country characterised by an incoherent economic support policy, ranking on the last places in European charts of innovation and competitiveness. Still, the 58 bronze-, 17 silver- and 3 gold-labelled clusters by the European Secretariat for Cluster Analysis have seen accelerated dynamics over the last 6 years, in terms of number of enterprises (+144%), employees (+165%), turnover (+98%), exports (+41%) and RDI expenditures (+156%). The analysis is based on the results of the Analysis of Cluster Competitiveness performed regularly by the Romanian Cluster Association, combining quantitative and qualitative indicators at national, regional and cluster levels.