Communication And Collaboration Barriers

In a cluster, where value is traditionally intended to accrue from the exchange and the strategic alignment of knowledge, skills and information between players (so-called positive externalities), the nature of the information and communication infrastructure would seem to be crucial. Yet despite investment in putting the pieces in place, there was often little evidence of any coherent strategy for connecting them up, either to support knowledge transfer, or collaboration in the creation of shared value. The chapter looks at key interfaces between players, and shows how the barriers to communication, collaboration and coproduction impacted on the competitiveness of companies and the cluster, and points to the lessons from other clusters and other sectors if clusters are to generate the benefits promised in the cluster rhetoric.