The Roles of Intermediaries in Clusters: The Thai Experiences in High-tech and Community-based Clusters

Industrial clusters are geographical concentrations of interconnected companies, specialised suppliers, service providers, firms in related industries, and associated institutions (for example, universities, standard agencies, and trade associations) that combine to create new products and/or services in specific lines of business. At present, the concept of industrial cluster becomes very popular worldwide, policy makers at national, regional and local levels and business people in both forerunner and latecomer countries are keen to implement the cluster concept as an economic development model. Though understanding of clusters and related promoting policies varies from one place to another, the underlying benefits of clusters from collective learning and knowledge spillovers between participating actors strongly attract the attention of these people. In Thailand, a latecomer country in terms of technological catching up, the cluster concept has been used as a means to rectify weakness and fragmentation of its innovation systems. The present Thai government aspires to apply the concept to promote both high-tech manufacturing clusters, services clusters and community-based clusters at the grass-root level. This paper analyses three very different clusters in terms of technological sophistication and business objectives, i.e., hard disk drive, software and chili paste. It portrays their significant actors, the extent of interaction among them and the evolution of the clusters. Though are very dissimilar, common characteristics attributed to qualified success are found. Main driving forces of the three clusters are cluster intermediaries. Forms of these organizations are different from a government research and technology organization (RTO), an industrial association, to a self-organised community-based organization. However, they perform similar functions of stimulating information and knowledge sharing, and building trust among participating firms/individuals in the clusters. Literature in the cluster studies argues that government policies need to be cluster specific. In this case, the best way to design and implement cluster-specific policies is through working closely with intermediaries and strengthening their institutional especially in linking member firms/individuals to other actors in clusters such as universities, government R&D institutes, and financial institutions.