Promoting Silicon Valleys in Latin America

Ciravegna (strategy and international business, Royal Holloway School of Business, U. of London, UK) examines the promotion of information and communication technology (ICT) clusters in Latin America by analyzing the development of the successful Costa Rican cluster and the lessons learned from it. Costa Rica lobbied Intel to establish its only Latin American plant there in 1996, and by 2011, hosted 200 local companies, 40 multinational corporations, two research universities, two incubators, and several public sector agencies. Drawing on four years of research in the country, Ciravegna considers how it became the top ICT producer in the region, the obstacle for Latin American countries in developing clusters, how Costa Rica is addressing them, and the implications for other countries. He provides a socioeconomic explanation of network formation and network failure in the ICT clusters of Latin America, by combining the ideas of new institutional economics and sociological literature on networks. He discusses the incentives that explain the network decisions in Costa Rica and whether social ties affect the outcome, especially the need for domestic companies, investors, universities, and research centers to find and negotiate with potential partners at home and abroad. He considers all organizations in the cluster and the networks that connect them to each other and organizations abroad, focusing on the entrepreneurs, academics, and policy makers who formed the cluster, and aspects such as foreign direct investment, financing networks, and innovation networks. He also draws on studies of successful clusters in India, Israel, and Taiwan. Annotation Ac2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Luciano Ciravegna is Lecturer in Strategy and International Business, Royal Holloway School of Management, University of London, Visiting Professor, INCAE Business School, Costa Rica and Visiting Fellow, The London School of Economics