Croatian defense industry competitiveness cluster : knowledge management and innovation perspective

Background: Industry clusters and their relationship with the organization's success, competitive advantage and innovations have been gaining research interest for decades, with the recent focus on defence industry. Objectives: The aim is to investigate how Croatian Defense Industry Competitiveness Cluster (CDICC) fosters the knowledge management and innovation performance of its members. Methods/Approach: Survey has been performed on a portion of CDICC members, and responses have been analysed using the factor analysis and the correlation analysis. Results: The results indicate that CDICC actively contributes to knowledge creation and acquisition, innovation performance and market performance of its members. However, the analysis revealed that knowledge storage and knowledge dissemination are not sufficiently supported by CDICC. Conclusions: The current problems with the various aspects of knowledge management within a cluster provide a direction for overcoming possible obstacles for further development of industrial clusters.