Entrepreneurship and Cluster Dynamics.

The purpose of this book is to provide a guide to understanding the sig - nificance of the role of strategic entrepreneurship in the change and devel - opment of clusters contexts. Both topics, entrepreneurship and cluster dynamics, and the way they are addressed in this book may capture the interest of readers. The origins of this collection are the 30th EGOS Colloquium, Reimagin - ing, Rethinking, Reshaping: Organizational Scholarship in Unsettled Times , which took place in Rotterdam (the Netherlands) from July 3–5 of 2014. This book represents the main proceedings of the sub-theme Entrepreneurs, Networking and Clusters: A Multi-level Perspective included in the collo - quium program. There has been much advocacy of the idea that economies where stra - tegic entrepreneurship is present provide a recipe for economic and social success. On the other hand, a general consensus was finally reached on the importance of geographical proximity for firms in terms of competitiveness. Although separately, entrepreneurship and cluster have already attracted the attention of academics and practitioners, we aim to go further and offer an integrated and interactive view of both topics. The majority of existing research was focused on specific or partial aspects of these topics, such as: the cluster and their policy implications, entrepre - neurship and industry development with reference to different regional areas, and other similar issues. Based on our knowledge, our book is probably the only one that addresses the interaction between entrepreneurship and clus - ter evolution by appreciating their reciprocal influence and co-evolution. A cross-cutting approach is one of the main attributes of the book. In fact, the book involves a great range of organizational and economic perspectives, from social psychology to conventional applied economics disciplines. More - over, these topics allow the use of different levels of analysis, from the indi - vidual entrepreneur behind a start-up to the structure of cluster networks, including the organizational levels. Particularly, the book Strategic Entrepreneurship and Cluster Dynam - ics collects contributions from different provenances, including outstand - ing authors from representative universities and research centers. The book Preface 15032-0037-1pass-r02.indd 7 18-04-2016 16:39:46 viii Preface is a unique opportunity to learn about relations and interactions between entrepreneurship and cluster perspectives, providing both new and original theoretical propositions and also rigorous conclusive empirical exercises. In other words, we would like to answer some relevant research questions, such as: how does a cluster affect entrepreneurship? How do entrepreneurs create and use networks? How do entrepreneurs create and impact on clus - ters through the network? To sum up, thanks to the nature of the topics and the way they are addressed throughout the book, we are convinced that the book goes further than a narrow community of specialists or experts and may capture a much larger audience. The structure of the book was developed from the argument that clusters and entrepreneurship are mutually connected. On the one hand, clusters are more than pure functioning structures, and on the other, entrepreneurship can interfere with the cluster development and change it in many different and even contradictory ways. In a more systematic way, the book presents as a general aim to analyze the change and development of clusters from the entrepreneurship perspec - tive. This general aim can be divided in several more specific ones: (1) an analysis of the change and development of clusters going further than pure functioning, as most literature has done; (2) offer an explanation of how entrepreneurship can foster, but perhaps also inhibit, cluster development and change; (3) claim for strategic entrepreneurship that is able to identify and create opportunities for business and innovation and development and competitive advantage creation based on these opportunities; and finally, (4) theorize about the role of strategic entrepreneurship in developing start- ups inside already established companies, which can play the role of broker in the cluster. We are indebted to a number of people, starting with the organizers of the 30th EGOS Colloquium, who considered our proposal interesting enough to be presented as a sub-theme. Also, and particularly, we would like to express our gratitude to all the contributors. They generously provide us high-quality research and have patiently considered the different rounds of reviews, making generous additional efforts on their works, resulting much better-quality final chapters.