The Characteristics and Current Issues of 'TAMA Cluster Management' in Japan: A Case Study of TAMA Management

일본의 '산업 클러스터 계획 프로젝트'의 특징 및 시사점: TAMA산업활성화협회의 운영 사례를 중심으로

The similar point of the 19 regional industrial clusters of Japan is that all of the clusters are not limited to an administrational district but rather covers a larger area. When a cluster covers a larger area, there is problem of acquiring responsible businesses and interactive planing. In order to overcome such a problem, private coordinating organizations have been installed and operated to connect and manage inter-activities of industries, universities, and research institutes. TAMA, a private coordinating organization, differs from other associations in a way that it does not deal with one specific field or business. TAMA rather dealswith various product-developing small to middle size companies by offering strategic support for the development of new technologies and expansion of new businesses. Product-developing small to middle size companies comparatively have their own abilities for technological development and marketing which is quite different from other subcontract companies and their relations to large corporations. In such aspect, product-developing companies are actually similar to large corporations with competitiveness in the world market.