On The Interaction Between TNCs And Clusters

In the research of industrial district, from Marshal to contemporary economists, the small corporations' cluster is always the important study object. Although multinational companies'(MNCs) participation is more pervasive in some clusters, they are been ignored. Recently more and more foreign scholars begin to recognize and pay attention to this problem and the international business research scholars as leaders exploit the research area. So this article is intent to answer follow questions: first, what is the difference between them? What is the interrelation between multinational companies and cluster? This research not only can develop the theory of cluster and multination companies, but also has great practice meaning for regional economic growth of undeveloped counties.Based on analysis of theory and cases, this article compares the difference of opening multinational companies' cluster and small firm' cluster from forming principle, outside contacting and inside network three aspects. The multinational companies' cluster is exogenous, exoteric and the embeddedness is relatively low. Because the multinational companies' cluster is various, this article divides it to three types: operative cluster, technical cluster, market cluster and compares the difference among them from local advantage, geographical location, dominant industry, mode of multinational companies' participation and organizational structure.As an important carrier for globalization, MNCs not only take part in cluster, but also become the ligament between cluster and the world. The positive effects of MNCs include follow aspects: MNCs are primary members in cluster; they devote capital, technique, marked information and etc; they bring providers and promote the forming of industry network; they attract and train lots of people for cluster; their demands boost the growth of local enterprises; they turn cluster into opening system and bring it into global divided network; they impact the culture and institution of cluster. The article also indicates that MNCs may have some negative effects. They may leave cluster because of their low embeddedness. Their grading structure may aggrieve the cluster' network.In multinational companies' cluster, some local enterprises grow rapidly and expand internationally. For explaining this phenomenon, this article point out it doesn't refute the viewpoint that enterprises internationalization is the process about gaining, absorbing and exerting the international management knowledge. It is the MNCs in cluster providing and training lots of advanced persons who have enough international experience for local enterprises. The MNCs in cluster also bring their global business network for local enterprises. Hence the internationalization speed of local enterprises increased greatly.Cluster also has some effect on MNCs in it. Above all this article analysis threeaffects which cluster influence MNCs' competition advantage. First, because cluster network advantage has the characteristic of endogenesis, unreproduced and evolvement, other resources cannot substitute it. So it may completely be the source of competition advantage of MNCs. Second, on the contrary of interior scale economic and scope economic which are embodied by enlarging manufacturing size and multi-industry expanding, the specialization of cluster network makes the MNCs to carry the exterior scale economic and scope economic. They acquire local advantage such as area trademark, convergence of human-resource, focus of information and the subsidiaries' scale is not expanding excess. Third, on the contrary of internalization advantage, MNCs in cluster do not deal with all manufacturing process, they just do the core production and make the periphery value chain outsourcing.This article point out that the subsidiary in cluster have two strategic roles. First it acquires knowledge and transforms it to its own competition advantage. Second, it transfer the advantage to other units include headquarter and other subsidiaries through the network of MNC. B...