This conceptual paper focuses on the importance of extending the collaborative dynamic capabilities (C-DCs) view and its emphasis on the boundary spanning strategic communities (SCs) from firm-centric to the network-centric perspective. The C-DC view is an original theoretical perspective that offers a good explanation of corporate-level transformations in the context of cross-sectoral convergence. Although the focus of prevailing research on large firms as cornerstones of SCs is valid, it does not fully capture the more complex dynamics that take in the horizontal networks of firms. We show that C-DC and SC theoretical perspectives can be adapted to the context of regional industrial clusters and contribute to their strategic renewal. The paper conceptualizes the different challenges and nature of leadership that prevail in SC-based firms networks. It also presents the different enabling aspects of collaborative DCs (with regard to trust building, co-specialization and capability synthesis) in firm- vs. network-centric environments.

The question of the role of the state in the creation of competitive clusters and innovation systems has drawn increased attention in recent years. Drawing on Mariana Mazzucato’s concept of “the entrepreneurial state,” this article investigates the role of the public sector in the development of the Danish robotics cluster, a world-leading cluster for production of industrial robots that has developed after the closing of Maersk’s shipyard in the city of Odense. In what ways did public programs and actors contribute to the development of this cluster? In what ways did public programs facilitate entrepreneurs, and when did they function as agents or perhaps even risk-takers? To answer these questions, this article tracks three layers of public agency: the local, the national, and the European. This article concludes that there were crucial initiatives at all three levels and that these initiatives were not coordinated, but nevertheless connected by a certain zeitgeist—the idea of public institutions taking responsibility for the competitiveness of private companies, an idea that blossomed in the period of high globalization from the late 1980s to the 2000s. In other words, what united the efforts of the public sector was not any master plan but an underlying thought collective that made the workings of “the entrepreneurial state” flexible and fit for the unpredictable nature of innovation. Thus, this article argues that industrial policy did not wither away in the age of neoliberalism but changed its form in an increasing complexity of state-market relations.