Research On The Industrial Divergence Based On The Information Industry

The phenomenon of Industrial Differentiation has always been accompanied by the development of the industry. Since the Handicraft Industry separated from the Agriculture, after the Industrial Revolution, the Industry separated from the Handicraft Industry, and with the development of the Division of Labour, resulting in a myriad of new industries. From originally one single industry, Agriculture, to the thousands of industries today, the pace of Industrial Differentiation has never stopped. With the further development of the Division of Labour, it will produce more and more new industries, these industries must be differentiated from the existing industry, so systematic study of the characteristics, mechanism, law, impact of Industrial Differentiation, will help understand the new industrial structure and its variation, as well as further enrich the industrial theory. However, domestic and foreign researches in Industrial Differentiation are both rare, and nearly all concentrated on Agriculture Industrial Differentiation. Research based on Agriculture is necessary, because the role of Agriculture in the whole human society is essential, and Industrial Differentiation originated from the differentiation of Agriculture. But with the social and economic development, the Information Industry is playing an increasingly important role, the theory of economic and industrial theory applied to the Agriculture, whether it also applies to the rapidly changing Information Industry, is worth further studying. Based on the Information Industry to study Industrial Differentiation, we can better understand the Industrial Differentiation, including reason, mechanism and its impact on the Industry. It is not only of theoretical significance to study industry evolution theory, but also has practical value for the development of China’s Information Industry.On the other hand, in recent years, academia and industry have set off a wave of study on Industrial Convergence. Research have been in many aspects, and have achieved fruitful results, but in the course of study, we found that the industry seems to have been constantly differentiated. Since human civilization, the Division of Labour has been affecting the industry and economic development. The emergence of Industrial Convergence seems to be the biggest challenge for the Division of Labour. Does Industrial Differentiation really negative the Division of Labour? Has the Division of Labour come to an end? Those are the problem produced in the process of research on Industrial Convergence.Industrial Convergence and Industrial Differentiation seems to be two different directions of industry evolution, then whether the evolution of the industry is combined or divided? Is it alternate of both or even other form? What’s the exactly kind of relationship between Industrial Convergence and Industrial Differentiation? Are they oppositions or what? Simultaneously study the Industrial Convergence and Industrial Differentiation, has important significance to help to answer these questions. Research of the industrial structure from two directions, will also conducive to understanding the law of the evolution of the industry.Start from the basic research of Industrial Differentiation, this paper at first redefined the definition of the Industrial Differentiation, and proposed that Industrial Differentiation means a new industry bred, developed and separated from old industries, till grown into an independent new industry. From the perspective of the Division of Labour, Industrial Differentiation is actually that a Division of Labour within the enterprise or the industry became inter-industry division.Secondly, building the Industrial Differentiation classified system. From the aspect of the evolution direction, it can be divided into vertical differentiation and horizontal differentiation. Vertical differentiation refers to the increased length of the industry value chain, and the newly added segment form a new industry. Horizontal differentiation is from the horizontal direction. Horizontal differentiation can be differentiated from the whole industry chain, or it can be just one industrial chain segment. From the differentiation content, it can be divided into technical differentiation, personnel differentiation, market differentiation and product differentiation. From occurring field, it can be divided into Agricultural Industrial Differentiation, Industry Industrial Differentiation, and Services Industrial Differentiation and so on. In addition, in accordance with the degree of differentiation, it can be divided into fully differentiation and partially differentiation.This paper detailedly analyzed the factors affecting the Industrial Differentiation, and extracted the three most important reasons from these factors, which are the Division of Labour, reduced transaction costs and technological innovation, then focus on the analysis of these three reasons. Pointed out that the Division of Labour is the root cause and important foundation of industrial differentiation, also can be promoted by the development of the industrial differentiation. Through New Classical Economics analytical framework, it analyzed the mode that the Division of Labour made the industry generated. The Development of division of labour is restricted by the transaction cost, so lower transaction costs will directly contribute to the vertical Industrial Differentiation. Using the Inframarginal Analysis, importing the transaction costs, building a Game Theory model, it analyzed the mechanisms how transaction costs affected vertical Industrial Differentiation. The basic characteristic Horizontal Industrial Differentiation is the emergence of new products, and the new technologies is one of the important causes of new products. Using the Prisoner’s Dilemma model analyzed the innovation decision model, pointed out that innovation is the optimal strategy for both the monopolies and oligopolies company.From the industries, companies, consumers and regulators these four aspects, detailedly analyzed the impact brought about by the Industrial Differentiation. Pointed out that Industrial Differentiation will make the future industry more and more, and becoming smaller, meanwhile companies will become smaller and much more, small and micro enterprises will become the future mainstream. With the further development of the Industrial Differentiation, the physical boundaries of the enterprise will gradually shrink, but the ability border will extends. Industrial Differentiation will increase the product kinds to meet the diverse needs of consumers. Consumers and producers will become increasingly blurred boundaries; everyone is both a producer and consumer. Meanwhile, Industrial Differentiation can increase employment opportunities, optimize the industrial structure, and bring more difficulties for regulators. Earlier identificating of new industries, learning the rules of them, and guiding them to become healthy and orderly become the key point of the industry regulation. The most important regime is to protect and encourage innovation in the patent system, as well as the property rights system to protect the rest rights of entrepreneurs.By studying the relationship between Industrial Convergence and Industrial Differentiation, this paper believed that the Industrial Convergence does not negate the Division of Labour, negation is impossible. Whatever Industrial Convergence or Industrial Differentiation, the Division of Labour is still their foundation. Moreover, the Industrial Convergence will promote the Division of Labour.Technological change and deregulation are considered the main reasons of Industrial Convergence. But this paper argued that these factors are only external reasons for Industrial Convergence:Technological innovation is the Technological guarantee of Industrial Convergence and deregulation is its external environment guarantee. The true intrinsic motivation of Industrial Convergence is the expansion desire of the enterprise, and the key factor that these industries enable enterprises successfully to expand is the economies of scope. The subject of Industrial Convergence is actually the enterprises in the industries; Industrial Convergence is usually due to corporates’diversification strategy. Two industries must have common characteristic which can enable they converge together, and this common characteristic, that is, the economies of scope. Computer Industry, Printing Industry, Radio Industry and the Financial Industry, Logistics Industry, Information Industry, the Energy Industry and other industries which Industrial Convergence occurs in, all have the economies of scope, which is not a coincidence.Take Internet Finance for example, analyzed the relationship between Industrial Differentiation and Industrial Convergence. Pointed out that Industrial Convergence, in fact, is a course that industries mutually penetrate and integrate, which generates new set-industry. This set-industry is not simply due to different criteria for the classification through addition and subtraction, but by a more complex combination of new industries developed in the convergence course. This new set-industry will contain some new sub-industries, and these sub-industries are actually differentiated from several different industries. The differentiation of sub-industries, due to having the characteristics of several industries, is a more special form of differentiation. In some sense, Industrial Convergence is actually a special kind of Industrial Differentiation. Industrial Convergence is the convergence from the horizontal direction, and vertical Industrial Differentiation will promote horizontal Industrial Convergence. Vertical Industrial Differentiation generated various industries which are discrete but interrelated; these vertical industries converged with other industries in horizontal expansion and then developed the Industrial Convergence, so that the Vertical Industrial Differentiation is the basic of Industrial Convergence. And take the currently most subversive Internet Finance products-Yuebao for example, to illustrate its nature is still Monetary Fund, but because of its sales channels differentiation and converged with the Internet Industry, there came this new financial products, and has become one of the most important sub-industry of Internet Finance.Refer to the the idea of Industrial Differentiation, this paper classified the Information Industry in both directions from the vertical and horizontal. First, according to the production and distribution process of information products, from the longitudinal, Information Industry can be divided into:research and development, equipment manufacturing, production, distribution and circulation, provide and other industries; secondly from the horizontal, based on attributes and characteristics of information products, the Information Industry can be divided into Telecommunications Industry, Computer Industry, Radio and Television Industry, the Publishing Industry and others.After reviewing the Development history of the Information Industry, from the perspective of economic analysis, this paper believed that the main characteristics of the Information Industry include the economies of scale, the economies of scope, high level of technical innovation, and low transaction costs. Economies of scale are the Information Industry’s most important economic characteristics, mainly due to its huge fixed costs and few marginal costs. In order to compare with the traditional industries, this paper presents the concept of economies of scale parameter ps, the value measured by the quotient of fixed costs FC and the marginal cost MC of business or industry, smaller ps means more significant economies of scale. High level of technical innovation is mainly reflected in Moore’s Law, the anti-Moore Law, Andy-Bill’s law and other laws.As it can be seen from the development process of the Information Industry, each stage is actually developed with the Industrial Differentiation. The two fastest growing industries of Information Industry are Computer Industry and Communications Industry, which are all developed with the Industrial Differentiation. The differentiation process of these two industries is similar. In the early stages of industrial development, the industry has shown a vertically integrated structure, the enterprises product all products by themselves, including intermediate products and final products; With the expansion of the market scale and mature of industrial development, the vertical integration structure is gradually disintegrated, and industry is gradually vertical differentiated; when vertical differentiation developed to a certain extent, all aspects of the industry chain to form a separate but interrelated industries, which began the process of horizontal differentiation. Both vertical and horizontal differentiation made the nowadays industry structure.By using the study result on Industrial Differentiation, analyzed the inevitability of network and operational separation. Development of Internet technology and software technology allows businesses to significantly reduce dependence network, is technology ensure of the separation. Operators’ internal management costs rise, while the external transaction costs continue to decline, the separation accord to the enterprise interests. Therefore, the network and operational separation is the main direction of the future communications industry vertical differentiation.