Characteristics of Industrial Clusters and Their Role in Regional Development

The aim of this paper is introducing industrial clusters by referring to its characteristics and analysis their role in regional development in order to firstly achieving to a framework for identifying industrial clusters and secondly determine the influence of industrial clusters on regional development. In this regard, in the first stage industrial clusters concept reviewed and in the second one the industrial clusters characteristics classified and in the last stage the role of them analysis. Results indicate that attention should be paid to the physical (geographical concentration, increased division of labor, existence of skilled workers, existence of technology and objective institutions and existence of infrastructure) and operational (economical linkage, technological linkage and institutional linkage) characteristics for identifying industrial clusters. In addition, industrial clusters have different economic, social and physical impacts on regional development such as more entrepreneurship, economic efficiency, competitiveness advantage in globalization process and finally institutional, social capital and civil society improvement.