Hard endogenous factors include: distinct diversification of technical and telecommunication infrastructure, incentives for businesses, proximity to large markets, inadequate enterprise promotion and support policies, bureaucracy, high business set-up costs, and lack of support. Soft factors are: industrial traditions, diversified access to a qualified workforce, low level social confidence, and the fact that scientific and research institutions usually prefer teaching to research and development activities. Hard exogenous factors include a developed technical-infrastructure, proximity to absorptive domestic and foreign markets, special economic zones the existence of big enterprises (vendors, customers), attractive real estate prices, poor transport infrastructure, the unclear legal status of real estate and land, a lack of spatial development plans, and bureaucracy. While soft factors involve the active engagement of local governments to attract foreign capital, culture, and industrial traditions, a lack of cooperation between enterprises, scientific and research and development institutions, and distrust of external investors, particularly in regard to foreign capital.
Stachowicz (2008) describes the integration levels of following factors or driving forces to establish the formation process of entrepreneurial regions and clusters. Organisational factors include the character and level of political authority, relations with the national centre (self-government level), forms and the range of financial support for research and development units, organizational participation and mechanisms for capital and technology transfer located outside the region, organization of the research and development sector in the region, number and condition of entities for innovation support (technology parks, entrepreneurship incubators, technology incubators, etc.), system of education, as well as social factors and the potential for social capital in enterprises and organisations. Cognitive factors are the quantity and quality of knowledge cumulated in units including research and development entities, the structure of knowledge development, and level of knowledge transfer channels, and institutions. Lilla Knop, Marek Krannich, and Slawomir Olko (2011) identify the factors affecting success at each development stage of industrial cluster divided into six aspects: (1) awareness; (2) goal of industrial cluster development; (3) innovation; (4) knowledge; (5) structure and (6) trust, which are applied in this research for the investigation of factors that affect success in each stage of industrial cluster development.