Network, The Embedded Cluster Life Cycle Study

Over the past decades, there has been a resurgence of interest in the nature of industrial clusters among researchers, discussion arising form quite different perspectives are sometimes complementary and sometimes contradictory. The aim of this dissertation is to present a new explanation to the life cycle of industrial cluster, including its developing, innovation and declining, from the perspective of new economic sociology."Embeddedness" is at the center of the conceptual framework in these studies, it can be traced back to K. Polanyi. It was revitalized by M. Granovetter and has since then become a central concept in the new economic sociology. Granovetter distinguishes between a relational embeddedness and a structural embeddedness, where the former describes the nature or quality of dyadic relation between actors—the actor is embedded in the networks of relation, and the latter refers to the network structure of relationships in the broader sense— networks belonging to actor are embedded in the social cultural background.This dissertation consists of six chapters. In chapter 1, we review systematically the history of researching on industrial clusters, and a literature review is presented, basing on this, we introduce the research task, plan and the methods will be applied in this dissertation.Chapter 2 expounds the theoretical development process of new economic sociology, then compares "new " economic sociology with "old" one, and discusses its three viewpoints and conceptual systems.Chapter 3 explores the developing of industrial with the framework of embeddedness. The neo-classical economic explains the existence of industrial cluster in terms of increasing returns to scale and forces of self-reinforcing. Contrary to this view, this paper argues that, the mode of the industrial cluster in itself can be interpreted as an institutional arrangement that cooperates the division of labor, and then emphasis is placed on why division of labor can happen in certain space and how transaction develops persistently and smoothly. This paper suggests that, industrial cluster emerges where firms or entrepreneurs, as agents, interact with others in ways regulated and influenced by the social, cultural, and political context. In a word, the developing of it is embedded in local cultural background and trust relation as well.On one hand, local tradition, level of trust, value and convention provide aculture basis for developing of industrial cluster. By the means of socialization, these factors exert great influence to actors' mental mode, knowledge structure and tendency of action, then the efficiencies of transaction therefore. On the other hand, trust and network are important mechanism in governing transaction within industrial cluster. Interpersonal trust is viewed as being a potential strength rather than a weakness, as in the case of incomplete contracts. It's the extension of trust that expands the scope of transaction and promotes the aggregation of division of labor.Chapter 4 discusses the innovation of industrial clusters. In terms of essence of innovation, industrial cluster is conceived as a network complex, which cooperate division of knowledge between firms in a limited space. So the efficiency of innovation in cluster depends on the capacity in acquiring, integrating information and to what extent the fruit of innovation on firm can be share by others within the cluster. In this way, this dissertation argues that, knowledge creation of clusters is a dynamic accumulation process, where social relations help transform individual knowledge to collective cognitive, and embed tacit information in the local business practices, networks, conventions, and norms utilized by firms.Local innovation melieux, including conventions, norms, and even industrial air or level of cooperation create incentives for innovation, support inventive and collective capacity building, and promote mutual the transmission of information between firms in industrial clusters. Furthermore, social interactions are critical means of learning and innovation is a process of interactive learning. In networks, social interactions enable learning and enhance tacit knowledge transmits between firms. It's social network embedded innovation of industrial clusters in local social culture structure, tradition and firm networks.Chapter 5 draws on an analysis of the declining of industrial clusters. Many literatures in the researching of clusters from the perspective of embeddedness often focus on various positive effects of embedded factors, celebrated advantages of embedded networks from the viewpoint of social capital, while these literatures in general largely neglect their negative aspects, known as the lock-ins of players. In this dissertation, the author holds that, as the "flipside", though the embeddedness can bring in a lot of flexibility in the networks as a social system, it can also put an enormous amount of constraint upon social actions of network players in industrial clusters. In order to better understand the reasons constraining firms to follow an old path rather than diverge from it, this paper put forward a new...