Bottom-up cluster branding through boundary spanners: The case of the Jingdezhen ceramics cluster in China

It is increasingly recognised that for clusters to evolve and initiate new developmental paths, they need to bring in various external resources, especially external human capital. However, external talent often has imperfect knowledge regarding distant places; hence, a key challenge for clusters is to overcome this lack of knowledge and unfamiliarity to ensure that external talent becomes aware of the cluster’s local assets and the possibilities for (re)locating there. It is thus important for clusters to engage in cluster branding: that is, to promote its assets ‘outwards’ and to build-up a positive, renowned brand-name. While place branding is already an established theme in urban geography, cluster branding has hitherto been under-examined in the extant cluster literature in economic geography. Moreover, both the well-researched place-branding literature and the limited cluster-branding literature tend to be primarily concerned with official, top-down branding, initiated by government agencies. This article, instead, shows that branding can also involve organic, bottom-up processes driven by the agency of diverse individual actors, working in tandem with governmental actors. Through a case study of an arts and creative cluster, the Jingdezhen ceramics cluster in China, it unpacks how resourceful individual actors – conceptualised as boundary spanners – have become powerful agents in increasing the cluster’s legitimacy and visibility in the relevant industries through their personal networks and mobility, thereby contributing to attracting external talent into the cluster. More specifically, the study identifies three bottom-up cluster branding mechanisms, namely: convening temporary clusters locally; participating in external temporary clusters; and representing through digital media.