Firm‐specific cluster effects: A meta‐analysis

The aim of this paper is to investigate the alleged effect of clusters on firm performance and the moderating influence of the specific context by conducting a meta-analysis of the relevant empirical literature. Therefore four different performance variables from four separate publication databases are considered. The final sample of the meta-analysis consists of 168 empirical studies. The statistical integration of the corresponding results of these empirical studies indicates that there exists relatively weak evidence for a pure firm-specific cluster effect. Instead, it can be asserted that several variables from different levels of analysis directly or interactively moderate the relationship between clusters and firm's success.