Role of Regional Institutional Entrepreneurs in the Emergence of Clusters in Nanotechnology

In the case of new technologies like nanotechnology, institutional entrepreneurs have to act at different levels (organizational, regional, national) at the same time, according to the authors. This paper reconstructs, in some detail, the history of two cases, in Grenoble and in Twente/Netherlands. They report an intriguing finding: institutional entrepreneurs build their environment before changing their institution.