For the German cases, the authors may have underestimated public agency, since they did not investigate the role of state governments (Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg) within the country’s system of multilevel governance, which is key to understand cluster policies in Germany (cf.
A substantial body of literature has grown on the back of seminal contributions by Edquist (1997), Freeman (1987, 1988, 1995) with reference to Japan, Lundvall (1992), and Nelson (1993).