New Industrial Development Policy: Kaizen Management Training as a Key to Cluster-Based Development

For the last 15 years, we have conducted well over 20 intensive case studies of the development of industrial clusters beginning with Northeast Asia (Japan, Taiwan, and China), moving to one part of East Asia (Vietnam) and South Asia (Bangladesh and Pakistan), and finally proceeding to SSA (Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania). Most of these studies are reported in Sonobe and Otsuka (2006, 2011) as well as in this volume. Although we did not conduct intensive surveys, we have also visited and explored the development process of several industrial clusters in the Philippines, India, and Sri Lanka. As was reviewed in Chapter 2, the first major finding of our entire study is the similarity of the process of the formation of industrial clusters across industries, countries, and even continents, which is commonly based on spin-offs. The second major finding was that typically two types of industrial clusters emerge in later stages of cluster development (i.e., dynamic and survival clusters, aside from jump-start clusters). Innovation is the key to the sustained development of cluster-based MSEs in developing countries, which determines the fate of clusters in the longer run. Thirdly, we found that adequate management capacity is indispensable for innovations. Fourthly, we found strong evidence that management capacity can be acquired by work experience, schooling, and, most importantly, training.