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14 BizEd MARCH | APRIL 2015 research+insights PHOTOGRAPH BY ISTOCK Why Clusters Count A RECENT STUDY finds that regions with clusters of firms in any industry will see noted economic growth, in ar- eas such as job creation, patents, and even the creation of new industries. Using data from the U.S. Cluster Mapping Project from 1990 to 2005, researchers studied 41 industrial clus- ters, as well as 589 industry subfields, in 177 U.S. regions. Examples of clus- ters include the automotive industry in Detroit and the concentration of high-tech activity in Silicon Valley. They defined a cluster as having 15 distinct types of industries within it. For instance, the researchers discovered that industry specialization activity that's one standard deviation above the mean can equate to 1.3 per- cent annual employment growth, and in some scenarios, 1.2 percent annual growth in patents. Regions should not necessarily strive to become the next hotspot for tech startups or finance, the authors say. Instead, regions should build clusters based on their existing strengths. "Clusters, Convergence, and Economic Performance" is by Mercedes Delgado of Temple University's Fox School of Business in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Michael Porter of Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts; and Scott Stern of the MIT Sloan School of Management in Cambridge. It appears in the December 2014 issue of Research Policy. MILLENNIALS AT WORK MILLENNIALS VALUE personal development and work-life balance over money and status. However, they are still ambitious and believe in their own ability to steer their careers. These are among the findings uncovered in an inde- pendent study on millennials conducted by the INSEAD Emerging Markets Institute in Singa- pore, the HEAD Foundation, and Universum. Of the more than 16,000 global respon- dents in 42 countries, 73 percent said they would choose work-life balance over a higher salary, and 82 percent said they valued work- life balance over their position in a compa- ny. Forty-two percent agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that they would rather have no job than one they hate; respon- dents in Chile, Lebanon, and Peru felt particu- larly strongly on that question. Even so, they're ambitious. Forty-one percent of respondents say it's very important to them to become leaders or managers—35 percent for the money, 31 percent for the in- fluence, and 31 percent for the chance to have strategic roles. As always, there are regional differences. In Nigeria, for instance, 70 percent of millennials want to be managers because they want to lead people. "In the near future, millennials will occupy every consequential leadership position in the world, be it in business, academia, gov- ernment, or in the nonprofit sector," notes Henrik Bresman, the academic director of the HEAD Foundation and associate professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD. "Will they be ready to lead? If so, how will they lead? How can the preceding generations identify, understand, develop, and prepare them to take on the monumental challenges the world will be facing?" The study, he adds, seeks to answer those questions. B-SCHOOL DEANS LOOK TO THE FUTURE Last month, business deans from around the world convened in San Diego, California, to attend the annual Deans Conference spon- sored by AACSB International. The conference theme was "The Future of Work," and session topics covered the future of faculty, learning, and leadership. Plenary speakers were Andrew McAfee of MIT Sloan School of Management, who spoke on life in today's tech-enabled society; and Jennifer Chatman of the University of California, Berkeley, who discussed the latest research on creating organizational culture. Special coverage of the conference, including interviews with key- note speakers and reports about individual sessions, appears online at www.BizEdmagazine.com/deans2015. Conference coverage was made possible by the support of Sonic Foundry Inc., a video management platform for academic, enterprise, and event webcasting. 82% value a work-life balance Industry clusters can be a boon to regional job and patent growth