Title: A roadmap of industrial cluster development: a case study of Thailand's HDD cluster

Authors: Pattravadee Ploykitikoon, Tugrul U. Daim

Addresses: Department of Engineering and Technology Management, Portland State University, Oregon, USA. ' Department of Engineering and Technology Management, Portland State University, Oregon, USA

Abstract: The formation and sustainability of industrial clusters have been a challenge for governments all over the world. It has been accepted that industrial clusters need to have strong linkages among Industry-University-Government (IUG) and can act as catalysts and be utilised as strategic tools to stimulate technology commercialisation. However, formation of a common vision and a strategy from these three different sectors is not easy since they are different in culture, objective and mindset. This research paper presents the formation of Thailand Hard Disk Drive (HDD) cluster. It reveals that IUG are involved in every step of cluster development in sharing visions, developing objectives and setting goals and finally designing roadmaps of activities, including funding allocation. All of these are important steps to develop industrial clusters, especially, innovation clusters which require a common ownership of strategies. This paper applies decision-making tools, Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) and Pairwise Comparison Methodology (PCM) to prioritise strategic actions and to develop a roadmap of HDD industrial cluster development in Thailand.

Keywords: AHP; analytical hierarchical process; industrial cluster formation; innovation clusters; Thailand; hard disk drives; funding allocation; strategy; roadmaps; pairwise comparison methodology; cluster development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJFIP.2009.026402

International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy, 2009 Vol.5 No.4, pp.244 - 259

Published online: 09 Jun 2009 *

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