The Role of University-Industry-Government Relationship in Cluster Development: The Case of MSC Malaysia

Abstract

Malaysia is a transition economic country that aims to be a developed country by 2020. In realising this mission (Vision 2020), the cluster concept has been an interest and adopted by the central authorities. There are few years ahead to reach the targeted year and it interest of this study to investigate the relevant development on its own engineered cluster of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) that was put forward on the success of Silicon Valley in the US. This thesis focuses on the development of the MSC cluster in the Malaysia context. It examines and measures the state of the cluster, the role played by its core actors (from Triple Helix perspective) and their relationship in the MSC. The role of collaboration has been used to measure the relationship among actors with the key determinants of cluster formation. A mixed data collection method was used to answer the research question and objectives involved. A conceptual model for analysing the MSC cluster is proposed, bringing together insights from the literature on clusters, role of actors, collaborative relationship and the complex systems of innovation approach. This conceptual model uncover the weaknesses of social dimension (social infrastructure) in Porter’s diamond model and the general approach of Triple Helix model in the cluster development. The cluster lifecycle model is used to add the depth to the analysis on the condition of cluster development.