This article explores the impact of regional innovation policies in the upgrading of multinational subsidiaries. To this end, it analyses the design and implementation of a cluster organization, the Andalusian Plastic Innovation Technology Centre, created in 2005 by the Regional Government to support the technological development of firms located in an Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)-generated agglomeration. Nowadays, ANDALTEC has ‘de facto’ turned into the research and development department of Valeo lighting Spain, playing a key role in the upgrading of the subsidiary and acting as a barrier to avoid relocation. Through this narrative, we shall witness how subsidiary managers, as policy entrepreneurs, enrolled and mobilized local actors to promote into the political agenda the creation of the innovation centre. The case illustrates that cluster policies are far more complex than portrayed in conventional accounts based on the heroic policy maker. They are designed and implemented in extremely uncertain and complex multi-actor and multi-level environments easing the way to customization or capture by special interests.
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