Explaining Cluster Evolution from an Institutional Point of View: Evidence from a French Beverage Cluster

This study analyzes the evolution of a ‘protected label of origin’ cluster in France with a particularly homogeneous and explicit institutional framework, which has given birth to significant incremental and radical changes in recent decades. By providing insights into these change processes and their institutional preconditions, the study provides an operational framework that disentangles different types of institutional change that are shaped by preconditions in the cluster - but that also shape the cluster on an aggregate level. The study distinguishes between institutional triggers for change of incremental versus radical nature, mainly focusing on inefficiencies that emerge over time in a given institutional framework. It suggests that incremental change processes have their main origin in developments on the regulative and normative dimension of institutions within the cluster, whereas more radical change processes require a wider set of preconditions, of which change on the cognitive dimension is crucial.