Small business clusters focus of a new book

Dec 01, 2006

Two academics at the University of Wollongong have edited a new book which focuses on the development and use of small business clusters.

The editors are Associate Professor Rob MacGregor (School of Information Technology and Computer Science) and Associate Professor Ann Hodgkinson (School of Economics and Information Systems).

Professor MacGregor’s research interest is in E-commerce adoption and use in small/medium enterprises and he has published extensively over the years in this area.

He is the former Head of Information Systems at UOW and was the founder and editor of the Australasian Journal of Information Systems. In 2004, Professor MacGregor received the NSW Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Business Community Partnerships.

Professor Hodgkinson’s research covers a range of theoretical and applied topics in the broad area of organisational change in a regional context.

This has included studies of regional export strategies, innovation strategies and employment and industrial relations, looking at these issues from economic and strategic management perspectives.

The book’s editors said the authors used a variety of case studies to illustrate cluster concepts in a practical way.

It is the first book to investigate how different academic disciplines analyse the concepts related to small business clusters, and finds significant evidence of synergies among the different approaches illustrating that clustering is truly a multi-disciplinary concept.

“The book presents a wide-ranging examination of cluster interventions including government programs, private sector programs and big business initiated programs,” they said.

Small Business Clustering Technologies: Applications in Marketing, Management, IT and Economics (350pp) has been released by Idea Group Publishing.