Analyse On Temporary Clusters Development Based On International Trade Fairs

As the evolution of economic globalization, many scholars are working on why similar or complementary enterprises can form industry clusters and the process of this formation. Due to the relatively fixed members, knowledge lock-in effect is a real problem perplexes industry clusters. With the development of information age and global transportation networks, large space assemblies as represented by international trade fairs become the focus of some scholars. A new concept "temporary clusters" began to appear frequently in the field of economic geography. This kind of transient spatial agglomeration of enterprises create so much information buzz, to some extent, even more than that produced by traditional industry clusters. Although in the influence of the global economic crisis, temporary clusters still exhibit vigorous vitality.Dissertation based on "Network Power, Enterprise Innovation and Spatial Behavior" supported by Human Science Foundation of Ministry of Education of China. In2010, with international renowned economic geographer, Prof. Harald Bathelt of Toronto University, tutor Prof. Gang Zeng and other work teamof East China Normal University, totally8members embarked on different regions and types of temporary clusters in China. Empirical researches collected133effective interview questionnaires in12th China International Industry Fair,2010(CIIF) held in Shanghai and12th China International Exhibition on Gases Technology, Equipment and Application,2010(IG-China) held in Chengdu. Communication with foreign scholars and tutor about academic experiences and latest research developmemt of international temporary clusters is much helpful for the solid foundation of this dissertation.Analyzing of domestic and foreign researches, the author find out researches on temporary clusters are becoming popular in the fields of economic geography. The emergence of temporary clusters makes traditional industry clusters break the original territorial boundaries. That promote the integration of knowledge and information from different cultural and background. Temporary clusters have become a new platform of contacts between different enterprises. From the perspective of research fields, scholars pay much attention to European temporary clusters as the international trade fairs of Germany, Sweden, Italy, Spain et al.. From the perspective of research methods, analysis on temporary clusters changes from theoretical analysis to empirical investigation, and questionnaire interviews plus statistics. Research fields contain the characteristics of global buzz and the cycle of temporary clusters. From the time scale to the transformation of spatial scales, researches also include the relationship between enterprise network and the influence of employee's social networks by temporary clusters. However, compared to traditional industrial clusters, researches on temporary clusters are relatively few, especially less in Chinese. The study on generation, development, upgrade and evolution of temporary clusters are insufficient. And temporary gathering of research, China is lack of serious, this article intends to make up for this deficiency.This dissertation systematic review and sum up existing researches on temporary clusters, then define the concept and connotation of temporary clusters. Also author discusses the background, formation, phase characteristics, and driving factors of temporary clusters at the same time. On the basis of empirical researches of Shanghai and Chengdu, this dissertation concentrates on the evolutional process and geographic diversity of temporary clusters. Following several conclusions:First, governments and associations are two main driving force of temporary clusters'evolution in China's market. Different from developed countries, China's government plays an irreplaceable role on the formation and development of temporary clusters. Since the important effect in the economic and social life, China's government could easily make decision on infrastructure construction and promoting policy implementation on temporary clusters. That can also get community consensus rapidly and make the aggregation of a variety of resources. This kind of temporary clusters are easier to obtain the certification of international intermediary organization. That offers the entering opportunities for intermediary organization. Thereby China's governments make good contribution to the development of temporary clusters. The temporary clusters supported by associations have more professional background and efficiency of resource using. This kind of temporary clusters have flexible operations which are beneficial to the organization of specialized activities. That's good for the communication among enterprises from different regions. The unions of enterprises build cooperation networks which service temporary clusters. That could break the obstacles of communication and cooperation caused by regional segmentations. Have more specialization, the information and innovation exchange under association-driven temporary clusters is more frequent and fluent. That promotes the development of temporary clusters and technical progress of some industry. Supported by governments, China's temporary clusters have facilities boom in many cities. That's the reason why China's temporary clusters have rapid development recent years.Second, the development of temporary clusters experienced the process of one-way to bi-directional information flow. Temporary cluster requires enterprise or customer choose the eligible information in a relative short time. Information flow is mainly random and one-way transmitting from exhibitors to the market during initial stage, while purposeful bi-directional information flow will took place between enterprises and customers during later stage. During one-way information flow stage, exhibitors' characteristics are the lock-in position and the information diffusions, while the customers'(mostly attendees) characteristics are mobility and the ability of information capture. During bi-directional information flow stage, the information could transmit from enterprises to customers, while the requirement information of customers and innovative information of other competitors simultaneously flow back to exhibitors. In the perspective of time process, the exhibitors experience the process of only focusing on exhibit product information to attendees, to beginning to collect feedback from customers, and to the phase of paying attention to communicate with other competitors on innovative information exchange. That promotes information cooperation and exchange from different regions and make a huge contribution to the development and upgrading of industry clusters and regional innovation system.Third, there are three aggregations of temporary clusters with the center of Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou in China. The distribution of southeast Coastal temporary clusters are more concentrated and international. In the case of12th China International Industry Fair,2010(CIIF), this kind of temporary clusters has relatively perfect facilities, service and transportation networks. That is better for social influence and international profile and provides excellent conditions for Shanghai temporary clusters. While the case of12th China International Exhibition on Gases Technology, Equipment and Application,2010(IG-China), this type of temporary clusters has lower international degree. Have more professional and specialized level, it become the platform of information exchange between technology relatively laggard countries and China. That makes a good contribution to the development of regional temporary clusters. From a national perspective, the influence of China's temporary clusters is still limited, which has little influence on innovation and technical cooperation.Fourth, China International Industry Fair(CIIF), as represented of temporary clusters, is gradually entering the mature stage. With the perspective of evolutionary economic geography, China International Industry Fair can be divide into four phases as embryonic stage(1999-2002), growth stage(2003-), maturity stage and decay stage. Gained effective support from government, embryonic stage of temporary clusters grew quickly. Media publicity, the cooperation of exhibitors and attendees brings more social influence. At this stage, trade fairs and temporary clusters' influence are limited in Shanghai and its adjacent areas. The communication between exhibitors and attendees is limited in vertical contact. In the period of growth stage, Shanghai temporary clusters' hardware facilities greatly improved. The number of exhibitors outside Shanghai grew rapidly. China International Industry Fair grew to a national important exhibition for the first time. The information exchange and cooperation by temporary clusters of Shanghai has emerged. Vertical linkages further enhanced and horizontal linkages are established. Associations began to participate in the organization and operation of trade fairs. Market management has positive effect on Shanghai temporary cluster. With the lead of professional intermediary organizations, maturity stage of temporary clusters becomes more internationalization. The international influence of China International Industry Fair rose as the number of overseas attendees increased. Relying on Shanghai Expo, the information flow is more targeted, and reflects the characteristics of bi-directional. Shanghai, the economic center and transport hubs of China, has a good location advantage on promoting the forming of temporary clusters. However, from the perspective of long time scale, Shanghai temporary cluster will eventually entered a decay stage. Other exhibition cities' status will rise, as the importance of Shanghai trade fairs declining. Shanghai temporary clusters'leadership position based on trade fairs could be surpassed by other ones.