How globalized supply chains contribute to the growth of regional clusters?

The clusterization of companies and its effects on their competitiveness and growth has been widely researched in developed economies. Successful national industries are based not on individual firms, but on clusters of competing firms. Creative clusters can be viewed as a sub-set of business clusters which include more than the traditional taxonomy of suppliers, providers and similar firms in close proximity to each other. Moreover, they might include a number of different actors who make up the creative economy: non-profit enterprises, cultural institutions, art venues, SMEs, and individual artists. Industries co-locate but operate and compete internationally and most of them are integrated in global supply chains. Turkish culture and creative sector is growing much faster compared to other European countries. Between 2008 and 2011 the sector has experienced a growth of 38%, where the growth rate in countries such as Spain and Italy has been below 10. Turkey has approximately 191,000 employees working in creative sector, and have generated 1.7% of the total employment in 2011. The creative industry clusters are mostly concentrated in Istanbul and Ankara, with the film industry being the largest contributor to the economy estimated to be worth around 400 million Euros in 2008. However, there is still limited knowledge related to the composition of the creative sector in Turkey and how they are integrated into global supply chains. This paper suggests a methodology to analyse how the creative industries in Turkey are embedded into national and international supply chains, drawing from the methodologies that have been widely used in the United Kingdom, therefore, providing a framework of analysis that can be used by researchers to further expand the knowledge in this area. The framework can be equally applied by scholars or governmental organizations with the purpose of measuring the impact of the actions and policies aimed at developing and strengthening the creative clusters in Turkey.