From Temporary Market to Temporary Cluster: Evolution of the Canton Fair

Abstract

This paper shows how the nature of a trade fair can change over time from a temporary marketplace and field-configuring event towards a temporary cluster and complex learning space. Drawing from market-oriented and knowledge-based conceptualizations of trade fairs that analyze the different dimensions, interaction processes between participants and impacts of these events, this paper suggests that trade fairs are highly flexible organizational forms which need to be analyzed through integrated trade and knowledge perspectives. This argument is illustrated in a qualitative case study of the Canton Fair in southern China.