A Stakeholder Approach to Branding Clusters: Pointers to a Research Agenda

K<sc>asabov</sc> E. and S<sc>undaram</sc> U. A stakeholder approach to branding clusters: pointers to a research agenda, <italic>Regional Studies</italic>. This paper addresses gaps in the research of clusters and place brands by proposing the analysis of clusters as place brands and arguing for the adoption of stakeholder management approaches for such a purpose. Analysis should also recognize the role of diverse stakeholders with potentially incompatible interests in cluster branding initiatives and the associated, processual issues of power application, discord and disagreement in clusters. By addressing these issues, two areas of academic enquiry, clusters and place branding, that share common object and aims of enquiry but which rarely recognize one another can be integrated. The call for a combined look at the two areas is driven by a belief in their complementarities and common inadequacies, and it provides an integrative platform, a dialogical platform as a theoretically enriched basis upon which to open up future research avenues.