From success to failure, the disappearance of clusters: a study of a Norwegian boat-building cluster

摘要

The article analyses the decline and disappearance of regional clusters, with an empirical investigation of why a boat-building cluster in Norway failed after the 2008 financial crisis. The article combines insights into lock-in processes that take place at the cluster and regional innovation system level with lock-in processes at the entrepreneur and firm level. The latter level focuses on the development of local conventions of how production activities should occur as a potential key lock-in process. The failure of the boat-building cluster is explained by a convention supporting artisan craft production and little support from the regional innovation system.