From free to fee: a behavioural perspective on why companies avoid paying for cluster services

Clusters and cluster policy are central to smart specialisation strategies across Europe. Smart specialisation strategies can succeed only when their fundament, namely the clusters, survive in the long run. Whether clusters manage to survive strongly depends on their ability to uncouple from initial public funding. This is the current problem of clusters and cluster policy, since companies are not willing to contribute to the clusters with an adequate level of payments. This article critically discusses why clusters struggle to overcome extreme changes in their funding policy by shedding light on why member companies avoid paying for cluster membership and services and by offering possible explanations for companies' behaviour as well as problem-solving strategies for cluster managers and politicians. Based on the classical net value concept, this article discusses various behavioural and economic perspectives that help shed light on the phenomenon.