Knowledge, technology, and cluster-based growth in Africa

By D. Zeng. 2008

110 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Although Africa is falling behind in today's global economic race, it holds pockets of vital economic activity -- many in the form of enterprise clusters scattered across the continent's countries and industries. By clustering, enterprises are able to overcome constraints in capital, skills, technology, and markets. Enterprise clusters help their constituents grow and compete by encouraging more effective knowledge and technology diffusion and product specialization, leveraging local comparative advantage, fostering production value chains, and achieving collective efficiency. In so doing, they contribute significantly to Africa's economic growth. They provide jobs for the continent's growing population, thus enabling families not only to survive, but also to educate their children and perhaps move out of poverty. But in today's increasingly knowledge-intensive and globalized economy, these clusters also face serious challenges in the areas of technology, natural resources, infrastructure, skill acquisition, and quality control. This book aims to provide an understanding of how these dynamic enterprise clusters in Africa were formed and have evolved, and how knowledge, human capital, and technology have contributed to their success.

Subfields: Accounting, Business and International Management, Media Technology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5ef0d6f2d164c8aec86bb712259dee856a70b021

Citations in the corpus

• African Shenzhen: China's special economic zones in Africa (2011, unknown): “It is true that some African countries do have notable, market-driven, ‘bottom-up’ clusters of industries such as the footwear cluster in Aba and the vehicle parts cluster in Nnewi in Nigeria (Bra¨utigam 1997; Meagher 2010; Zeng 2008).”
• How do Special Economic Zones and Industrial Clusters Drive China's Rapid Development? (2011, unknown): “A study of 11 African clusters across several countries reveals that most of them formed spontaneously, with the exception of the Mauritian textile cluster, which evolved from an export-processing zone (Zeng 2008).”