How emergence conditions of technological clusters affect their viability? Theoretical perspectives on cluster lifecycles

The widely studied concept of clusters has been usually treated as pre-established and successful structures. We argue that clusters are not pre-established but emerge through a double competition process of technological and regional nature. Moreover, faced to a changing environment they are not always successful. Their long-term evolution depends on their viability capacities. We show that viability is dependent on the emergence conditions, because different forms of emergence create clusters with different structures.