IDENTIFYING REGIONAL CLUSTER MANAGEMENT POTENTIALS EMPIRICAL RESULTS FROM THREE NORTH RHINEWESTPHALIAN REGIONS

The development and support of clusters is an issue that became quite popular by players dealing with regional economic policy. But before a regional development agency can start to implement a cluster-oriented strategy there a two question that have to be answered: 1. What are the regional fields of competence (cluster potentials) that fulfill the requirements for a cluster-oriented regional development policy? 2. If you find such regional fields of competence, are the enterprises willing to cooperate in a network? The present paper describes an approach used in several analyses. On the one hand fields of competence were identified by a two stage procedure. On the other hand the firms that were identified in that procedure were questioned about their willingness for networking. The results of the surveys show the interest of the firms for networking and give some additional information on the subjects and partners for networking.