The Tortoise and the Hare: Industry Clockspeed and Resilience of Aerospace Production and Knowledge Networks in Montréal

Keywords: cluster, resilience, industry clockspeed, aerospace
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Monday
Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 03:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 05:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 61

Abstract

How to build local production and innovation ecosystems resilient to external shocks represents a central challenge for entrepreneurs and policymakers in the current context. We study the Montréal aerospace cluster which has exhibited remarkably stable performance in the wake of two industrial disruptions and find that a low speed of aircraft development and production, or a low industry clockspeed, stabilizes local production and knowledge networks through five mechanisms: long-term contracting, R&D cost sharing, production planning, social networking, and technology solidifying. We argue that industry clockspeed can be important to understand firm relations in clusters and thus their capabilities to respond to external changes.