Bringing "Place" Back In: Regional Clusters, Project Governance, and New Product Outcomes

The authors examine new product outcomes in the context of regional clusters. On the basis of prior research on marketing relationships, clusters, and social networks, they propose that the overall configuration of a cluster helps promote particular governance practices among its members. These practices have distinct value-creating properties, and when they are brought to bear on a specific new product development project within a cluster, they promote performance outcomes such as product novelty and speed to market. Ultimately, these performance effects are reinforced by the configuration of the cluster itself. In general, the authors propose that new product outcomes result from complex interactions between a cluster's macro-level configuration and its micro-level governance processes. More broadly, their framework points to the importance of geographical variables and to the role of "place" in marketing decision making.