13: Native American Entrepreneurship: Locating Your Business^☆

Although previously overlooked as a factor in Native American entrepreneurship, there has been a relatively large amount of attention paid to the effects of economic clustering on entrepreneurship within the general US population. The current conceptualization of economic clusters is the product of several streams of economic theory.

Clusters Defined — Clusters are described as geographic concentrations of interconnected companies and institutions in a particular field or as groups of related industries located in the same region. More specifically, the National Governors Association defines a cluster as a geographically bounded concentration of similar, related or complementary businesses, with active channels for business transactions, communications, and dialogue that share specialized infrastructure, labor markets, and services, and are faced with common opportunities and threats. Thus, clusters represent geographic concentrations of businesses that share related production inputs, specialized labor pools, distribution and communication channels, and network associations.