Organizational forms of cooperation in clusters in the metal manufacturing sector in Poland

The purpose of the paper is presentation of wider tendency that occur in economy (and particularly in metal manufacturing sector): creation of ecosystems of cooperating entities, emerging in specific organizational forms. Progressive specialization of manufacturing entitles causes the formation of networks of actors in place of large organizations producing a diverse range of products. While in the early stages of the metal manufacturing we can observe a tendency to concentration of ownership, production of final products made of metal takes place in a networks of many smaller entities. The producers in clusters and networks establish different organizational forms of cooperation. The scientific goal of the paper is to show existing forms of cooperation on the base of the research conducted in Polish clusters in the end of 2015. Against this background the forms of cooperation in metal manufacturing clusters in Poland have been presented. Conducted analysis showed it is important to distinguish the organizational form of cluster coordinator and cluster itself.