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Clusters as an Environment of Competitive Collaboration. A Case Study on the Emerging Apparel Economic Cluster in the Republic of Moldova

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Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Management Science and Engineering Management (ICMSEM 2020)

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 1191))

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Abstract

The research aims to explore the drivers and barriers that influence the inter-firm competitive collaboration within clusters. In this view, a case study on the emerging apparel cluster in the Republic of Moldova was accomplished. It focused particularly on identifying the types of existing collaboration linkages between firms and evaluating the context-specific factors that inhibit or encourage these linkages. The results suggest that despite the relatively dense agglomeration of firms within the emerging cluster, this does not translate into extensive collaboration networks. Entrepreneurs manifest hesitation toward collaboration and the lack of relational capital, as a common feature of most post-socialist economies, remains a big issue in making the cluster work. This represents a missed opportunity for cluster performance, specifically as the social capital crucially matters for knowledge and innovation to be transferred more readily.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova, Chişinău, Republic of Moldova

    Elina Benea-Popuşoi & Ecaterina Rusu

Authors
  1. Elina Benea-Popuşoi
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  2. Ecaterina Rusu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Elina Benea-Popuşoi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Business School, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China

    Jiuping Xu

  2. Academy of Sciences of Moldova, Chisinau, Moldova

    Gheorghe Duca

  3. Faculty of Math and Science, Brock University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Syed Ejaz Ahmed

  4. ETSI Industriales de Ciudad Real, University of Castile-La Mancha (UCLM), Ciudad Real, Spain

    Fausto Pedro García Márquez

  5. Institute of Control Systems, Azerbaijan Natl Academy of Sciences, Baku, Azerbaijan

    Asaf Hajiyev

A Appendix

A Appendix

Table 1. The codebook (fragment) of the thematic analysis
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Benea-Popuşoi, E., Rusu, E. (2021). Clusters as an Environment of Competitive Collaboration. A Case Study on the Emerging Apparel Economic Cluster in the Republic of Moldova. In: Xu, J., Duca, G., Ahmed, S., García Márquez, F., Hajiyev, A. (eds) Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Management Science and Engineering Management. ICMSEM 2020. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1191. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49889-4_57

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