Supporting sustainable technology cluster development: A performance measurement problem

Managers require metrics to measure organizational performance. However, metrics used by organizations that support technology cluster development are poorly understood in the literature. The most frequently referenced indicator for cluster development is regional economic and jobs data. These macro level indicators are not sufficient to measure the performance inside the cluster, leaving champions and policy makers to struggle with ad-hoc trial and error experimentation. The difficulty in defining and developing a performance measurement system is addressed. This paper lays the groundwork for improved approaches towards measuring the performance of technology cluster initiatives.