| The theory of industry clusters could mainly be divided into three levels. The macro level researched the influence of industry clusters on regional economic development. The meso level focused on the internal structure and the evolution of industry clusters. The micro level paid attention to the growth of cluster firms. In the micro level, past researches revealed that network-based firm growth was the typical character of cluster firm growth. Based on the review of literatures, this paper divided past researches of cluster firms' network-based growth mechanic into cost deduction-based framework, knowledge spill-based framework, collective learning-based framework, and inter-regional resource integrating-based framework. These researches from different perspective revealed the special rules of cluster firms' growth, and promoted the development of cluster firms' network-based growth mechanic research.Those four types of frameworks all assumed that cluster firms had the uniform external circumstance and homogenous internal capability, and argued that cluster firms' network models were all same and exogenous of the firms' internal decision, which could provide cluster-sharing resources. So, this paper named those researches homogenous assumption-based cluster firms' network-based growth mechanic researches. In fact, with the power of evolution, different cluster firms growed with various niche markets, heterogeneous internal capability, and various network models. Based on fit perspective, some researchers began to analyze the influence of the diversity of external circumstance and heterogeneity of internal capability on the cluster firms' network-based growth, and start to research of heterogeneous assumption-based cluster firms' network-based growth mechanic. Till now, this type of researches was still in the initial stage.Based on the literatures of network-based firm growth mechanic, with fit perspective, this paper analyzed the influence of external circumstance uncertainty and state of internal capability on the network-based growth of cluster firms, and argued that external circumstance uncertainty was the contingency factor of cluster firms' network-based growth; while the state of internal capability was the motivating factor of cluster firms' network-based growth. And then the"external circumstance characters - firm network models - internal capability states" integrated fitting mechanic model was constructed. In order to perfect the concept model and optimize the survey questionnaire, the author had interviewed cluster firms three times separately in Zhejiang. 300 cluster firms had been investigated in the tanning industrial cluster in Haining, small appliances industrial cluster in Cixi, low voltage electric apparatus industrial cluster in Liushi, textile industrial cluster in Shaoxing and metal fittings industrial cluster in Yongkang, and 196 valid samples had been finally gathered for the empirical research. Based on the survey data, factor analysis, correlation analysis, variance analysis and regression analysis were used to verify the integrated fitting mechanic model, and four conclusions in this paper were summed up as follows.(1) External circumstance uncertainty had contingency effect on the cluster firms' network-based growth. With the power of evolution, cluster firms would choose different external circumstance. And in different external circumstance, cluster firms would choice different network models to get different network resources for the growth of firm. Through correlation analysis, variance analysis and regression analysis, the empirical research confirmed that external circumstance uncertainty had moderating effect on the relationship between cluster firms' network features and firm growth. In detail, in the sample group of low uncertainty, relational strength, network range and geographical openness all had positive effect on the firm growth. But in the sample group of high uncertainty, relational strength had positive effect on the firm growth, and network range had negative effect on the firm growth. This result indicated that the internal capability was still weak of cluster firms in Zhejiang.(2) Internal capability state has motivating effect on the cluster firms' network-based growth. With the power of evolution, cluster firms would form heterogeneous internal capability. Specific network could provide specific network resources, and only when cluster firms were equipped with specific internal capability state, could the specific network resources be motivated. This paper divided cluster firms' internal capability into absorptive capability and manufacturing capability. Through variance analysis and interactive items-based regression analysis, the empirical research confirmed that the fit between internal capability states and network models promoted the growth of cluster firms. In detail, in the sample group of low uncertainty, the interactive item between manufacturing capability and relational strength and the interactive item between manufacturing capability and network range both had negative effect on cluster firms' growth. In the sample group of high uncertainty, interactive item between absorptive capability and network range had positive effect on cluster firms' growth. The result indicated that specific state of internal capability was the inside qualification of motivating specific network model. (3) "External circumstance characters - firm network models - internal capability states" integrated fitting mechanic was the core mechanic of cluster firms' network-based growth. The empirical research of integrated fitting mechanic model indicated on one hand that the contingency effect of external circumstance uncertainty on cluster firms' network-based growth was depend on the state of internal capability. For example, in the sample group of low uncertainty, with the ascending of internal manufacturing capability, the influencing direction of cluster firms' relational strength on firm growth turned from positive to negative; while in the sample group of high uncertainty, with the ascending of internal absorptive capability, the influencing direction of cluster firms' network range on firm growth would turn from negative to positive. And on the other hand, the motivating effect of internal capability on cluster firms' network-based growth was depend on the character of external circumstance uncertainty. For example, in low uncertainty circumstance, the interactive items of cluster firms' manufacturing capability and network characters had notable influence on firm growth; while in the sample group of high uncertainty, the interactive items of cluster firms' absorptive capability and network characters had notable influence on firm growth. These two points meant that "external circumstance characters - firm network models - internal capability states" integrated fitting mechanic was the core mechanic of cluster firms' network-based growth.(4) The theoretic and empirical research of integrated fitting mechanic indicated that there were four cluster firms' network-based growth models in Zhejiang industry clusters. In detail, in low uncertainty circumstance, because of the weakness of inside manufacturing capability, cluster firms would depend on network modelâ… characterized by high relational strength, high network range, and high geographical openness to promote the quantity based growth of firm. But with the strengthen of internal manufacturing capability, cluster firms would depend on network modelâ…¡to promote the growth of firm characterized by low relational strength and low network range, which meant that cluster firms began to be embedded into a higher level of network by way of reciprocity, and perform quality based growth of firm. In high uncertainty circumstance, because of the weakness of inside absorptive capability, cluster firms would depend on network modelâ…¢characterized by high relational strength and low network range to promote the growth of firm, which reflected the imitation based follower strategy adopted by cluster firms to cope with external high circumstance uncertainty. But with the strengthen of inside absorptive capability, cluster firms would depend on network modelâ…£characterized by high network range to promote the growth of firm, which meant that cluster firms began to turn from imitation based follower strategy to innovation based advancer strategy.Compared with former studies on the cluster firms' network-based growth, the main innovations of the thesis concentrated on the following three aspects.(1) This study constructed the integrated fitting mechanic model of cluster firms' network-based growth. Though many researches had recognized the importance of heterogeneity of cluster firms on the cluster firms' growth, the relative systemic researches were still few. With the review of the literatures of network-based firm growth, this paper argued that the contingency factor and motivation factor must be both considered in order to reveal the mechanic of firms' network based growth. And based on the heterogeneous assumption of cluster firms, with the deep investigation of cluster firms' growth experiences in Zhejiang, this paper theoretically constructed "external circumstance characters - firm network models - internal capability states" integrated fitting mechanic model, which promoted the research of the mechanic of cluster firms' network-based growth.(2) This study revealed the integrated fitting mechanic of Zhejiang cluster firms' network-based growth. Based on the date of 196 Zhejiang cluster firms, this paper empirically tested the integrated fitting mechanic model. The result indicated that the external circumstance characters and internal capability states decided the fitting network models of cluster firms. And two important characteristics of Zhejiang cluster firms can be concluded from the detail fiting mechanic. One was that a lot of cluster firms in Zhejiang were still weak, and the other was that social network were still important dependence of cluster firms in Zhejiang. This empirical research promoted the research of cluster firms' network-based growth mechanic in our country.(3) This study identified four important models of Zhejiang cluster firms' network-based growth. Theoretical researches and empirical experiences both indicated that there was no one optimal network model for all circumstances. Based on the empirical research of cluster firms' integrated fitting mechanic, this paper identifies four cluster firms' network-based growth models in Zhejiang. And the modelâ… and modelâ…¢were traditional network based firms growth models, and modelâ…¡and modelâ…£were two important network based firms growth models to promote the upgrading of cluster firms. So these results can be used to direct the network construction of cluster firms in dirfferernt external circumstance characters and internal capability states, which enriched the research of cluster firms' network-based growth model in our country.
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