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Cluster Initiative
Cluster development (or cluster initiative or economic clustering) is the economic development of business clusters. The cluster concept has rapidly attracted attention from governments, consultants, and academics since it was first proposed in 1990 by Michael Porter. Clusters One of the most well-known clusters is the California Wine Cluster. It is a mass of interrelated businesses including, but not limited to commercial wineries, independent wine grape growers, suppliers of grape stock, irrigation, and harvesting equipment, barrels and labels, public relations and advertising agencies, and publication firms involved with consumer and trade audiences. Another example is the Italian Leather Fashion Cluster. Like the California Wine Cluster, this also includes an array of interrelated businesses including world-famous brands Ferragamo and Gucci. Several chain industries make up this cluster including leather goods producers (clothing, belts, footwear, handbags), specialized servi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Economic Development
In economics, economic development (or economic and social development) is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation, region, local community, or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and objectives. The term has been used frequently in the 20th and 21st centuries, but the concept has existed in the West for far longer. "Modernization", "Westernization", and especially "industrialization" are other terms often used while discussing economic development. Historically, economic development policies focused on industrialization and infrastructure; since the 1960s, it has increasingly focused on poverty reduction. Whereas economic development is a Public policy, policy intervention aiming to improve the well-being of people, economic growth is a phenomenon of market productivity and increases in GDP; economist Amartya Sen describes economic growth as but "one aspect of the process of economic development". Definition and terminolo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Projects
A project is a type of assignment, typically involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a specific objective. An alternative view sees a project managerially as a sequence of events: a "set of interrelated tasks to be executed over a fixed period and within certain cost and other limitations". A project may be a temporary (rather than a permanent) social system (work system), possibly staffed by teams (within or across organizations) to accomplish particular tasks under time constraints. A project may form a part of wider programme management or function as an ''ad hoc'' system. Open-source software "projects" or artists' musical "projects" (for example) may lack defined team-membership, precise planning and/or time-limited durations. Overview The word ''project'' comes from the Latin word ''projectum'' from the Latin verb ''proicere'', "before an action", which in turn comes from ''pro-'', which denotes precedence, something that comes before ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Economic Geography
Economic geography is the subfield of human geography that studies economic activity and factors affecting it. It can also be considered a subfield or method in economics. Economic geography takes a variety of approaches to many different topics, including the location of industries, economies of agglomeration (also known as "linkages"), transportation, international trade, development, real estate, gentrification, ethnic economies, gendered economies, core-periphery theory, the economics of urban form, the relationship between the environment and the economy (tying into a long history of geographers studying culture-environment interaction), and globalization. Theoretical background and influences There are diverse methodological approaches in the field of location theory. Neoclassical location theorists, following in the tradition of Alfred Weber, often concentrate on industrial location and employ quantitative methods. However, since the 1970s, two major reactions ag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Village Earth
Village Earth: The Consortium for Sustainable Village-Based Development (CSVBD) DBA: Village Earth is a publicly supported 501(c)(3) non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Fort Collins, Colorado, US. The organization works for the empowerment of rural and indigenous communities around the world with active projects with the Oglala Lakota on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the Shipibo-Konibo of the Amazon region of Peru, India, Cambodia, and Guatemala. Village Earth is associated with the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) at Colorado State University. Village Earth is also the publisher for The Appropriate Technology Library and The Appropriate Technology Sourceboo a low-cost rural-development resource initiated by Volunteers in Asia in 1975 but transferred to Village Earth in 1995. Objectives The roots of Village Earth's approach to community development grew from the reformist tradition of development which emerged in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Innovation System
The concept of the innovation system stresses that the flow of technology and information among people, enterprises, and institutions is key to an innovative process. It contains the interactions between the actors needed in order to turn an idea into a process, product, or service on the market. Development and diffusion of the concept Systems of Innovation are frameworks for understanding innovation which have become popular particularly among policy makers and innovation researchers first in Europe, but now anywhere in the world as in the 1990s the World Bank and other UN-affiliated institutions accepted. The concept of a 'system of innovation' was introduced by B.-Å. Lundvall in 1985; "however, as he and his colleagues would be the first to agree (and as Lundvall himself points out), the idea actually goes back at least to Friedrich List's conception of "The National System of Political Economy" (1841), which might just as well have been called "The National System of Innovatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North East Of England Process Industry Cluster
The North East of England Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC) is an economic cluster developed in accordance with Michael Porter's theories and strategies regarding industrial clusters. The chemistry-using sectors in North East England, where more than 1,400 businesses are headquartered in the industry's supply chain, formed this Process Industry Cluster. In the north-east of England, the industry employs approximately 35,000 direct workers and around 190,000 indirect workers, who collectively account for more than one-third of the area's industrial economy. Companies in the cluster produce 35% of the pharmaceuticals and 50% of the petrochemicals used in the UK, making this area the only net exporter of goods from the country. The area has more than £13 billion in exports. NEPIC was created in 2004 by the leaders of local chemistry based process industry companies that are based in the north-east of England. The aim of the organisation being to represent and coordinate indu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Directorate-General For Enterprise And Industry (European Commission)
Within the European Union (EU), Directorates-General are departments with specific zones of responsibility. Within the European Commission specifically, Directorates-General are the equivalent of national-level ministries. Most are headed by a European commissioner, responsible for the general direction of the Directorate-General, and in charge of (politically responsible for) the corresponding policy area; and a director-general, responsible for the management of day-to-day affairs, who reports to the European Commissioner. Nearly all of the top-level organisational divisions of the Secretariat of the European Parliament and the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union are also termed Directorates-General. The European Patent Office (part of the European Patent Organisation, separate from the EU) also has Directorates-General, which are administrative groupings of departments. Directorates-General of the European Commission The Directorates-General of the Europ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foreign Direct Investment
A foreign direct investment (FDI) is an ownership stake in a company, made by a foreign investor, company, or government from another country. More specifically, it describes a controlling ownership an asset in one country by an entity based in another country. The magnitude and extent of control, therefore, distinguishes it from a foreign portfolio investment or foreign indirect investment. Foreign direct investment includes expanding operations or purchasing a company in the target country. Definitions Broadly, foreign direct investment includes mergers and acquisitions, building new facilities, reinvesting profits earned from overseas operations, and intra company loans. In a narrow sense, foreign direct investment refers just to building new facility, and a lasting management interest (10 percent or more of voting stock) in an enterprise operating in an economy other than that of the investor. FDI is the sum of equity capital, long-term capital, and short-term capital as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Business Incubator
A business incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a fullscale range of services, starting with management training and office space, and ending with venture capital financing. The National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) defines business incubators as a catalyst tool for either regional or national economic development. NBIA categorizes its members' incubators by the following five incubator types: academic institutions; non-profit development corporations; for-profit property development ventures; venture capital firms, and a combination of the above. Business incubators differ from research and technology parks in their dedication to startup and early-stage companies. Research and technology parks, on the other hand, tend to be large-scale projects that house everything from corporate, government, or university labs to very small companies. Most research and technology parks do not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Market Intelligence
Market intelligence (MI) is gathering and analyzing information relevant to a company's market - trends, competitor and customer (existing, lost and targeted) monitoring. It is a subtype of competitive intelligence (CI), which is data and information gathered by companies that provide continuous insight into market trends such as competitors' and customers' values and preferences. MI along with the marketing capabilities of an organization provides a guideline into the allocation and implementation of resources and processes. It is used for the purpose of continuously supplying strategic marketing planning for organizations to gauge marketing positions in order for companies to gain competitive advantage and best meet objectives. Organizations can develop MI frameworks and models that are suited to financial capabilities and desired market sectors but are mainly based on the four-step process of collection, validation, processing and communication of MI. The gathering of M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informally known as "commissioners") corresponding to two thirds of the number of Member state of the European Union, member states, unless the European Council, acting unanimously, decides to alter this number. The current number of commissioners is 27, including the president. It includes an administrative body of about 32,000 European civil servants. The commission is divided into departments known as Directorate-General, Directorates-General (DGs) that can be likened to departments or Ministry (government department), ministries each headed by a director-general who is responsible to a commissioner. Currently, there is one member per European Union member state, member state, but members are bound by their oath of office to represent the genera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
