No 135.1 Dominika Kuberska Warsaw 2014 Justyna Kufel
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Agri-food clusters in Poland Szczepan Figiel no 135.1 Dominika Kuberska Warsaw 2014 Justyna Kufel ISBN 978-83-7658-524-6 Agri-food clusters in Poland Agri-food clusters in Poland Authors: dr hab. Szczepan Figiel, prof. IERiGŻ-PIB dr Dominika Kuberska mgr Justyna Kufel Warsaw 2014 7KHZRUNZDVFDUULHGRXWXQGHUWKHIROORZLQJWKHPH $SSOLFDWLRQRIHFRQRPLFPRGHOOLQJLQWKHDQDO\VLVRIWKHSUHPLVHVRIFRPSHWLWLYH GHYHORSPHQWRIWKHDJULIRRGVHFWRU LQWKHWDVNClusters’ mapping in the agri-food sector for the purpose of modelling their development 7KHSXUSRVHRIWKLVPRQRJUDSKLVWRLQYHVWLJDWHNH\DVSHFWVRIHPHUJHQFHDQGSRWHQWLDO GHYHORSPHQWRIDJULIRRGFOXVWHUVLQ3RODQGLQWKHFRQWH[WRISROLF\LPSOLFDWLRQV 5HYLHZHU dr hab. Wojciech Kozáowski, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn 3URRIUHDGHU Joanna Gozdera 7HFKQLFDOHGLWRU Joanna Gozdera 7UDQVODWHGE\ Summa Linguae S.A. &RYHU3URMHFW AKME Projekty Sp. z o.o. ,6%1 Instytut Ekonomiki Rolnictwa i Gospodarki ĩywnoĞciowej – PaĔstwowy Instytut Badawczy ul. ĝwiĊtokrzyska 20, 00-002 Warszawa tel.: (22) 50 54 444 faks: (22) 50 54 636 e-mail: [email protected] http://www.ierigz.waw.pl Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 7 1. Selected aspects of the business cluster concept ............................................................... 10 1.1. Origin and essence of the cluster concept .................................................................. 10 1.2. Competition and cooperation within cluster structures .............................................. 23 1.3. Clusters and cluster initiatives ................................................................................... 28 2. Determinants of emergence and development potential of agri-food clusters in Poland . 40 2.1. Economic determinants .............................................................................................. 40 2.2. Institutional determinants ........................................................................................... 59 2.3. Regional differentiation of cluster development potential related to employment and number of entities ....................................................................................................... 65 3. Mapping agri-food clusters in Poland ............................................................................... 71 3.1. Methodological aspects of cluster mapping ............................................................... 71 3.2. Regional distribution and strength of the agri-food clusters ...................................... 84 3.3. A comparison of the Polish and the EU member countries agri-food clusters .......... 99 3.4. Regional specializations in the Polish agri-food sector ........................................... 104 4. Polish agri-food cluster initiatives versus cluster development potential ....................... 112 4.1. Methodological assumptions of assessing compatibility of occurrence of cluster initiatives with cluster development potential.......................................................... 112 4.2. Distribution of cluster initiatives across regions and evaluation of their profiles.... 113 4.3. Compatibility assessment of occurrence of cluster initiatives with cluster development potential .............................................................................................. 164 4.4. Consistency of public support and economic foundations for cluster development 168 5. Impact of clusters on competitiveness of agri-food sectors in Poland and in the EU member countries ............................................................................................................ 172 5.1. Theoretical premises of the impact .......................................................................... 172 5.2. Empirical evidence of the impact ............................................................................. 186 5.3. The role of cluster policies and related recommendations ....................................... 204 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................ 224 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 228 Introduction The topic of business clusters is debated in various dimensions both in scientific literature and in the sphere of policy making. Such a broad interest in development of business clusters has been inspired quite recently by a strong belief promoted prominently by M.E. Porter that not the companies themselves but strong clusters are the key engines of competitive and innovative economies. According to Porter clusters have a positive impact on job creation, innovative- ness, wages, and consequently by boosting emergence of new companies, or even new branches, they help increase economic welfare. This view has been acknowledged for example in some strategic documents formulated by the European Commission1,2 and consequently becomes an intellectual rationale of some public policies meant to support cluster development in the EU countries. The issue of competitiveness is also a part of the ongoing debate on desired character of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). It is stressed very clearly that tools of this policy, especially related to its second pillar, are supposed to be oriented towards strengthening competitiveness and stimulating innovativeness of the agri-food sectors in the EU countries. Therefore, development of strong agri-food business clusters should be an obvious objective of the CAP. Follow- ing this conjecture the current state and potential development of agri-food clus- ters in Poland is discussed in this monograph. In the period of 1995-2013 the Polish agri-food sector enjoyed a very dynamic growth in foreign trade, especially visible on the export side. Value of that export increased from around 2 to around 18 billion euros. The economic crisis caused a slight decrease in the agri-food industry export and import in 2009, but in subsequent years the rates of both export and import growths re- covered to the levels prior to 2008, which was even almost 40% a year. In the period of 1995-2013 agri-food products constituted 8-13% of the total Polish export. Thus, the agri-food sector plays an important role in Poland’s exports and development of strong traded clusters related to this sector seems to be a natural policy direction. The concept of business clusters has a fairly long history, which goes back to the end of the 19th century when Alfred Marshall laid the foundations of the theory of clusters in his Principles of Economics (ed. I – 1890) referring to thickly peopled industrial districts. Presently, the most widely accepted 1 A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, COM (2010) 2020 final, 3 March, 2010, Brussels. 2 Towards world-class clusters in the European Union: Implementing the broad-based inno- vation strategy, COM (2008) 652, 17 October, 2008, Brussels. 7 approach to study business clusters in various countries stems from conceptual and methodological works by Porter and his team at Harvard Business School. The main utilitarian objective of these research studies is to validate assump- tions of economic development policies formulated and implemented at various decision levels (i.e. country, state, region, etc.). Especially, so-called cluster pol- icies could serve as a specific example in this regard. However, the problem is that implementations of cluster development policies are usually based on super- ficial interpretation of the cluster notion and suffer from a lack of analytical rig- our necessary to appropriately determine directions of the public support. The monograph, intended to address key aspects of emergence and poten- tial development of agri-food clusters in Poland, consists of five chapters fo- cused mainly on several research questions in the context of policy implications. The first part is devoted to clarification of terminology and proper understanding of the business cluster concept and its usefulness in shaping economic develop- ment. The second part presents results of an analysis of factors determining emergence and development potential of the agri-food clusters in Poland. In this part main attention is paid to economic and institutional determinants of agri- -food clusters emergence in Poland and their development potential related to employment and number of entities. The third part includes analytical results of cluster mapping carried out with regard to the Polish agri-food sector, as well as to the other EU member countries, using Porter’s notion of business cluster and derived from it method- ology applied by the European Cluster Observatory (ECO). In the fourth part of the monograph the results of cluster mapping are confronted with the results of an empirical study on regional distribution, organizational structures and eco- nomic profiles of cluster initiatives associated with various branches of the Polish agri-food sector. This comparison gives an insight into compatibility of occurrence of cluster initiatives with cluster development potential and provides some guidelines for policy recommendations. Finally, in the fifth part of the monograph the impact of clusters on com- petiveness of the agri-food sectors in Poland and the EU member countries is examined. It begins with a brief discussion of theoretical premises of a potential impact and