Towards greater economic competitiveness: business clusters and cluster policy in Lithuania and Poland
LTThis book, which is a summary of the work of the team involved in the Strengthening business performance management in economic networks project imple- mented within the framework of the Leonardo da Vinci Transfer of Innovation programme, describes the transfer of innovative methods for managing business networks in the UK to two countries of Central and Eastern Europe – Lithuania and Poland. In both these countries similar problems can be encountered. Clus- ters and business networks are a relatively new phenomenon in their economic reality and they often face competence barriers on the part of managers and fa- cilitators. The project involved transferring innovative methods for managing clusters and stimulating their activities, selecting a set of competences that pri- marily need to be improved. The participants in the project were provided with intensive training within five training modules relating to strategic management, finance, online marketing, member services and internationalisation. In addition, a Managerial Toolkit relating to training was prepared as part of the project, which should serve the managers of all clusters (not only those in Lithuania and Poland) as a useful tool in their daily work. This publication discusses the main problems faced by network managers and facilitators, as well as more general rules and principles resulting from the cluster policy at the regional, national and European levels.
ENThe research team involved in the Leonardo da Vinci project hopes that the publication will be useful to anyone involved in cluster activities across Europe because it not only presents the current trends with regard to clus- ter policy, but it also summarises the fundamental problems which need to be solved in order for clusters to be able to play the role for which they are perfectly suited: generators of innovation, technology transfer and the commercialization of knowledge, serving to improve the competitiveness of the European economy.
- P. 9-16. European business clusters: policy and practise
- P. 37-55. Polish national policy on business clusters
- P. 57-77. Strengthening business performance management: the need for the professionalization of cluster management
- P. 79-96. Clusters and business networks in Poland - an overview of concepts and research results
- P. 97-113. A Cluster initiative as an effective instrument for building partnerships between business and the research and development sector - the perspective of Polish micro-enterprises
