Download or read book Clusters as an instrument to bridge institutional voids in transition economies written by Tine Schrammel and published by Springer Science & Business. This book was released on 2014-04-24 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transition economies, such as the countries in Southeast Europe, face an expeditious institutional transition from a centrally planned to a market economy. The state withdraws from its monitoring function, which results in institutional voids that affect the economy in general and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in specific. With a qualitative case study approach Tine Schrammel develops a scheme to detect institutional voids as one source of competitive disadvantages of SMEs in transition economies. In a second step she demonstrates that specific cluster services bridge institutional voids and improve the competitive position of SMEs in environments of institutional voids. The findings add to the understanding of institutional voids and to the role of clusters in transition economies.