Cluster innovation in the automotive industry. The case of German automotive clusters

The clusters represent geographical concentrations of companies that are interrelated, which have developed connections with other organizations, such as professional agencies, governmental agencies, research and development institutions and educational institutions. Possessing theirfeature of competences concentration poles, they nowadays represent key players on the international economic and competitiveness stage,promoting a series of objectives such as the development of industries, environmental technologies, the reduction of production costs and the mostimportant, the enhancement of the cooperation between the business environment, universities, research and development institutions andgovernmental institutions. Given the existing conditions in the actual period, the global automotive industry is mandated to continuously evolveand innovate the manufacturing technologies; thus, considering the reserves of fuel and the green-house effect, companies in the automotiveindustries have to continuously bring innovations regarding the low fuel consumptions of the vehicles, the safety technologies, the low emissionstechnologies and so on in order to resist on the international market and to meet the requirements of the demand. With a long tradition in theautomotive industry, Germany is one of the most representative players in the field, a feature that has determined the choice of the Germanautomotive industry, and namely, the innovation that the German automotive clusters, which we are going to discuss in this paper.

Keywords:

cluster , organization , innovation , technology , automotive , Germany