clusters? There are already many studies conducted on this subject and the most important factors of these studies will be discussed below. The contribution of this study to the already existing studies will be on the role of leader firms in innovative regions. Leader firms Leader firms of a region can be described as important employers in the region with a large impact on the economic performance of a region. Often these companies are closely associated with the region or main city of the region. Examples of such firms are; Philips in the Eindhoven region, BASF in the Ludwigshafen region and the ABB group in the Zurich region. These firms attract suppliers to the region and are, to a large share, responsible for the forming of a cluster (He & Fallah, 2011). Innovative firms are often leader firms of a region as they come up with new technologies and products and therefore lead the market. Therefore a way to locate leader firms in regions is to look at patent applications by firms done in the region. Leader firms often have the majority of patent applications done in the region. For some regions this is one firm, for other regions more firms are leader firms in the region while yet other regions don’t have any leader firms at all. One of the important features of leader firms are their substantial R&D budgets (Segerstrom & Zolnierek, 1999; García-Manjón & Romero-Merino, 2012). This can be expected as the development of new products has made them leader in the first place, but R&D expenditure is still high after the development of new products. One of the main reasons according to Segerstrom & Zolnierek (1999) for this high amount of R&D expenditure is that leader firms can more easily improve their products than other firms can as knowledge of the developed product is very high. Another explanation is that some companies are more focused on the development of new technologies and therefore will always have high R&D expenditure. In the book of van Winden et al. (2014) the role of Anton Philips
clusters? There are already many studies conducted on this subject and the most important factors of these studies will be discussed below. The contribution of this study to the already existing studies will be on the role of leader firms in innovative regions. Leader firms Leader firms of a region can be described as important employers in the region with a large impact on the economic performance of a region. Often these companies are closely associated with the region or main city of the region. Examples of such firms are; Philips in the Eindhoven region, BASF in the Ludwigshafen region and the ABB group in the Zurich region. These firms attract suppliers to the region and are, to a large share, responsible for the forming of a cluster (He & Fallah, 2011). Innovative firms are often leader firms of a region as they come up with new technologies and products and therefore lead the market. Therefore a way to locate leader firms in regions is to look at patent applications by firms done in the region. Leader firms often have the majority of patent applications done in the region. For some regions this is one firm, for other regions more firms are leader firms in the region while yet other regions don’t have any leader firms at all. One of the important features of leader firms are their substantial R&D budgets (Segerstrom & Zolnierek, 1999; García-Manjón & Romero-Merino, 2012). This can be expected as the development of new products has made them leader in the first place, but R&D expenditure is still high after the development of new products. One of the main reasons according to Segerstrom & Zolnierek (1999) for this high amount of R&D expenditure is that leader firms can more easily improve their products than other firms can as knowledge of the developed product is very high. Another explanation is that some companies are more focused on the development of new technologies and therefore will always have high R&D expenditure. In the book of van Winden et al. (2014) the role of Anton Philips