Identifying and Prioritizing Factors Affecting the Creation of Industrial Clusters Using Analytic Network Process (Case Study: Saravan Dates Industrial Clusters)

Approaches to economic and industrial developments changed enormously in late twentieth century. And cluster-based industrial development attracted the attention of planners and policy makers from developing and industrialized countries as a new strategy. The purpose of this study was to identify and prioritize the factors affecting the creation of Saravan Dates industrial cluster. This is an applied quantitative study and was conducted by a descriptive survey in Saravan region. Judgment sampling was used and the statistical population was 56 experts of Saravan dates industrial clusters. To identify the factors that created the cluster، library studies and a structured interview (Delphi method) were used with the assistance group of experts and to mitigate the factors، we used the software spss19. And because certain factors were interdependent with each other، the technique of network analysis was used to examine the relative importance of these factors and then they were prioritized using Super Decisions software. The results showed that geographic focus and communication between the entities were the most and the least influential factors on the creation of dates industrial cluster in this region.