Methods to identify clusters of small and medium-sized businesses
Importance The paper studies methods and procedures to identify and study clusters of small and medium-sized businesses. Objectives The paper aims to generalize the international and domestic experiences to identify and study clusters of small and medium-sized businesses. Methods The work uses comparative, descriptive, system, and analytical methods of research, the main of which are synthesis, comparison, and classification. Results We summarized the existing theoretical approaches to the study of clusters. In the article, we present a classification of clusters by level of development and corresponding classification methods of detecting them. As well, we offer a modified method for calculating the localizations, proven by the example of the car industry. Conclusions and Relevance We conclude that a maximum developed cluster is a group of interacting firms concentrated in one area, that are of one or more technologically interrelated sectors within a single research-and-production complex management structure, forming a system with high efficiency. Approximately 95% of all clusters, studied in scholarly sources, do not correspond to this definition. Our cluster classification and methods of cluster identification can be the basis for establishing a new methodology in the future.