Production Services At Different Stages Of Competitiveness Of Industrial Clusters

With the process of economic globalization, industrial cluster development is a global economic phenomenon. Since the 1990s, China's Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta and Bohai Bay grew up in priority, while the most significant feature of these three central major metropolitan areas is taking industrial cluster as its major regional economic organization form; Zhejiang Province's high-speed economic growth lies in the rapid development of industrial cluster, too. But in the face of globalization, the internet popularization and strengthening of labor division, the extensive development can not be sustainable any more, industrial cluster needs to establish new development models and support factors. While producer service has a direct promoting effect to the efficiency of economic growth, its positive role to the industrial cluster attracts general concern and attention both in theory and practice at home and abroad. The establishment and improvement of modern producer service system for the industrial cluster has become a major strategic measure of industrial cluster's upgrading or its competitiveness enhancing.However, the system-depth theoretical study of producer service's impacts on the competitiveness of industrial cluster is rare. It is the lack of in-depth theoretical guidance system that will certainly affect the effectiveness of practice. Through the angle of dynamic view, combining theoretical analysis and empirical research, and basing on the life circle of industrial cluster, an advanced multi-phases model of produce service's impacts on industrial cluster competitiveness is proposed innovatively, and the model also reveals the rules of the dynamic impact. Thus the systematic and dynamic study of producer service's impacts on industrial cluster competitiveness is realized.Main contents:(1) Introduce the background and problems need to be solved. Industrial cluster, as an effective industrial organization form and regional development model has been generally recognized. Promoting the formation and evolvement of industrial cluster is a strategic choice of regional economic development. While in the process, one of many challenges is the continuing upgrade of its competitiveness. Moreover, the positive impact of service industry on economic development attracts growing concern on its active role to the evolvement of industrial cluster, especially which of the producer service. However, the static and general theory is insufficient to guide how to use producer service to promote the evolvement of industrial cluster and enhance its competitiveness. Based on the life-cycle theory of industrial cluster, this paper develops different concept of industrial cluster competitiveness at different phases. It conducted dynamic analysis of producer service system elements, meaning of industrial cluster's competitiveness, as well as producer service's impact to industrial cluster to make up the shortcomings in the existing research. (2) Review the relevant theoretical research. This paper focuses on the differentiating the concept of industrial cluster's competitiveness, industrial cluster basic theory, industrial cluster's competitiveness source mechanisms and its enhancing measures to expound on theories related to the competitiveness of industrial cluster. While at the same time, it recalled the producer service connotation, basic theory and the role research such producer service related theory. Although the study of industrial cluster and its competitiveness is more and more in-depth and extensive, there are still many different points of view; as for producer service, foreign countries' research is also divergent and the domestic study focused more on absorbing and using abroad study. Thus, the study of producer service's impact to industrial cluster's competitiveness desiderates a new contribution both in theory and method.(3) Bring forward and study industrial cluster competitiveness at different phases and elements of producer service system. Analyze the relationship between producer service elements and industrial cluster at different phases, as well as build its theory model. Based on the cluster's life cycle theory, expanding out the industrial cluster's competitiveness of the formative phase, the growth phase, and the maturity phase and makes a brief analysis. Through the theory traceability, objective basis and the related analysis between producer service and industrial cluster, it brings forward the producer service elements system based on the views of producing factor to financial services, technical services, business services and logistics services, so as to establish a theoretical foundation. And then from a dynamic and longitudinal study perspective, build the theoretical model of producer service's impact to industrial cluster competitiveness at different phases. In addition, it constructed industrial cluster's competitiveness composed by apparent advantages, such as human resource advantage, networks advantage, production advantage, marketing advantage, innovation advantage and business incubators advantage. After differentiating basic element's theory, bring forward a reasonable deconstruction to the producer service's basic elements.(4) Construct industrial cluster's competitiveness and producer service element's measurement. Design questionnaire and collect data. After summarizing certain documents of related measurement variables' measurement methods, combining study characteristics and practical research, establishing various variables and design questionnaire used for investigation. Then collect data, describe and analyze samples available.(5) Process empirical analysis. On the basis of theoretical analysis and research data, conduct a brief description on the empirical analysis. Through pre-test, factor analysis, reliability analysis and validity analysis of basis variables, after ensuring that the survey data satisfied the analysis requirements, conduct a SEM analysis and study the model's fitting effect. In order to reveal the producer service's impact to industrial cluster competitiveness at different phases, this paper also analyzes the relationship between basic variables and its factors and discusses the test results. Main conclusions:(1) All of different elements of producer service have a significant positive impact on the industrial cluster competitiveness at different phases, and meanwhile, the order/degree of impacts of producer service's elements on the industrial cluster competitiveness at different phase and its dominant factor shows a characteristic of dynamic change. And more, with the evolvement of industrial cluster, the trend of the impact of financial services shows increasing stably and its service factor emerges as expanding trend; the trend of the impact of technical services shows increasing rapidly and its service factor emerges as advancing trend; the trend of the impact of business services shows increasing relatively stably and its service factor emerges as advancing trend; and the trend of the impact of logistics services shows increasing from slowly to quickly and its service factor emerges as expanding trend. In addition, the impacts of different service elements on industrial cluster competitiveness at different phases are provided with diversity and emerged as dynamic.( 2 ) This paper also reveals that the main factors of industrial cluster competitiveness are production advantage and business incubators advantage at the formative phase, as the evolvement of industrial cluster, the main factors are innovation advantage and networks advantage at the maturity phase.Main innovations:(1) Based on the different phases of industrial cluster's life circle and the study angle of view of produce service dynamic impacts on industrial cluster, it is expanded the span of study, which is a breakthrough of the static perspective. Combining theoretical analysis and empirical research, revealing producer service's static and dynamic role to competitiveness of industrial cluster in the formative, growth and maturity phases, thus the study of producer service's impacts on industrial cluster competitiveness is more systematic and dynamic.(2) Based on constructing a system of producer service and the life circle of industrial cluster, it is advanced innovatively in this paper a multi-phases model of produce service's impacts on industrial cluster competitiveness and measured the relationship of its variability quantitatively, which reveals producer service's impact on industrial cluster competitiveness more scientifically and both of the study's correlated conclusions have values of theoretical and practicing.(3) Through the empirical study of the differences, this paper reveals producer service's role mechanism to industrial clusters' competitiveness more in-depth. And based on factor analysis, this paper also reveals the features and dynamic evolution rules of the industrial clusters competitiveness clearly, which is an effective complement of correlation study and has greater practical value.