RT info:eu-repo/semantics/article T1 Clusters, industrial districts and strategy T2 Clusters, distritos industriales y estrategia A1 Puig Blanco, Francisco A1 González Loureiro, Miguel K1 Clustering K1 Industrial cluster K1 Industrial district K1 Strategy K1 Competitiveness K1 Clustering K1 Clúster industrial K1 Distrito industrial K1 Estrategia K1 Competitividad K1 L10 K1 L20 K1 M1 K1 R11 K1 O33 K1 O25 K1 Economía K1 Economics K1 Geografía K1 Geography K1 Sociología K1 Sociology AB This introductory paper opens the Special Issue on "Clusters, Industrial Districts and Strategy", based on the debate and comments arisen during the 2016 Conference on Clustering. After some brief notes on the need and the intended scope from a multidisciplinary approach (Regional Science, Economic Geography,Sociology and Business Management), we argue why the knowledge of the context is increasingly relevant for competing successfully in the global marketplace, since context-firm’s strategy is a two-way relationship. Cooperative efforts in the forms of clusters, industrial districts or agglomerations can spontaneously arise from a dense population of firms belonging to multiple industries or to thesame and related industries along with public actors, or they can be a deliberative, planned and managed effort, which will require the intervention of a governance mode. Whatever the choice is, the result is not always the same. Accordingly, and in light of the pervading differences found across literature and papers presented in this Special Issue, it seems plausible that clustering can be idiosyncratic to the location. Further efforts should be devoted to find contingent recipes for fostering competitiveness in light of the context and the firms collaborating. At the end, we introduce the nine papers of this Special Issue, while encourage scholars to continue this academic conversation. PB Asociación Española de Ciencia Regional (AECR) SN 2340-2717 YR 2017 FD 2017 LK http://hdl.handle.net/10017/31336 UL http://hdl.handle.net/10017/31336 LA eng DS MINDS@UW RD 28-mar-2024