Purpose

This paper aims to evaluate whether the integration of smart specialization strategies (S3) into clusters significantly impacts their efficiency for countries that still do not implement this policy. This study tests three effects: whether the kind of policies envisaged through an S3 strategy impacts cluster’s efficiency; whether this impact changes with the technological intensity of the clusters; to determine which S3 is more suitable for sub-clusters at different levels of technological intensity.

Design/methodology/approach

The Mexican economy is taken as case of study because it has a proper classification of its industries intro Porter’s cluster’s definition but still does not adopt the S3 policy. Through data envelopment analysis (DEA), this study evaluates the cluster’s efficiency increment when variables representing the S3 elements are included.

Findings

The results show that strategies following the S3 had a significant impact in all clusters, but when clusters were classified by technological intensity, the impact on efficiency is higher in clusters in the medium low-tech group.

Practical implications

According to the results in the DEA, it can be concluded that these S3 strategies have the potential to increase the clusters’ productivity significantly. These results make convenient the adoption of the S3 policy by countries that already count with a properly cluster definition.

Originality/value

These findings contribute to the lack of studies that analyze the join implementation of S3 on clusters.

中文翻译：

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智能专业化战略对子集群效率的影响：以墨西哥为例的模拟练习

目的

本文旨在评估将智能专业化战略（S3）整合到集群中是否会显着影响尚未实施该政策的国家的效率。本研究测试了三种影响：通过 S3 策略设想的策略类型是否会影响集群的效率；这种影响是否随着集群的技术强度而变化；以确定哪个 S3 更适合不同技术强度水平的子集群。

设计/方法/方法

墨西哥经济被作为研究案例，因为它有一个适当的产业分类，介绍波特集群的定义，但仍然没有采用 S3 政策。通过数据包络分析 (DEA)，本研究评估了当包含代表 S3 元素的变量时集群的效率增量。

发现

结果表明，遵循 S3 的策略对所有集群都有显着影响，但当集群按技术强度分类时，中低技术组的集群对效率的影响更大。

实际影响

根据 DEA 中的结果，可以得出结论，这些 S3 策略具有显着提高集群生产力的潜力。这些结果使得已经使用正确集群定义进行计数的国家可以方便地采用 S3 政策。

原创性/价值

这些发现导致缺乏分析 S3 在集群上的连接实现的研究。