Over the past two decades, the notion of ÔemergenceÕ has attracted increasing attention and controversy across the social sciences, as par of a growing interest in the applicability of complexity theory to socio-economic-political systems. Within this context, as economic geographers, our...

There is increasing recognition that the existence of clusters can only be understood when studying their dynamics over time (Audretsch and Feldman 1996; Pouder and St. John 1996; Swann et al. 1998; Maggioni 2002; Brenner 2004; Iammarino and McCann 2006; Menzel and Fornahl 2010; Ter Wal and Boschma 2011). In fact, clusters...

Although the literature on the evolution of industrial clusters is not vast, a preferred approach has already become evident, based around the idea of a cluster 'life-cycle'. This approach has several limitations. In this paper we explore a different conception of cluster evolution drawing on...