Cluster Embedded In The Innovation Performance Of Enterprises,

In the current context of the times,it is an inevitable choice of the enterprise to increase its international competitiveness by cultivating unique intellectual resources so as to build core competencies.However,the boundary between the enterprise and its external environment becomes more and more ambiguous.No one enterprise can develop knowledge completely by itself and to cultivate knowledge within the organization.The enterprise can acquire and apply knowledge efficiently by cooperating extensively with external action subjects and by strengthening communications with departments within the organization,thus to increase the performance of the enterprise.As a special form of industrial organization,industrial cluster embodies the big power for the promotion and the enhancement of social wealth and plays an important role in promoting regional and national economic development.Industrial cluster plays a vital role in enhancing the enterprise's internal competitiveness and performance.The theory integration on the study of industrial clusters by economics,geography,sociology and management science becomes more and more distinct.Study on the embeddedness of cluster enterprises becomes increasingly important subject of theoretical research.However,there are still problems on the study for the integration of embeddedness,cluster and cooperative innovation theories.(1) Embeddedness is gradually introduced in the study of industrial cluster, but it is still at a new stage.Restricted by theoretical and research tools, embeddedness in cluster study is still limited to theory deduction.The deduction also regards embeddedness as the entire concept,but the meaning of embededness of industrial clusters is not explained well.Those studies show that cluster enterprises are embedded in the 'cluster environment',but the features,structures and levels of the embeddedness as well as the impact of the embeddedness on cluster development and the performance of enterprises within the cluster are unclear and have not been studied intensively.(2) The theory of the embeddedness has been made great advances since the end of the 1900's.Many analytical frameworks have been addressed and the concept of the embeddedness has been specified gradually since then.Empirical study is an important trend for the development of the embeddedness theory. Hagedoorn(2006) addressed the hierarchy of the embeddedness.This means of classification on the embeddedness has crucial importance for the study of inter-enterprise cooperation,nevertheless,the results applied to empirical study is very rare.(3)The relationship between cluster enterprises embeddedness and cooperative innovation performance,and the impact of the embeddedness on cluster enterprise cooperative innovation performance is the requirement for the development of the theory.However,results of current theory and empirical study reveal that the study on the influence of the embeddedness at different levels and of different types on the behavior and the performance of cluster enterprises is not intensive yet.This dissertation focuses on the above-mentioned three main problems.The effect of cluster enterprise embeddedness on cooperative innovation is the study object.Based on current study on the embeddedness,the dissertation analyses the phenomenon,concept and existing study framework of the embeddedness of cluster enterprises.It studies intensively the forming mechanism of cluster enterprise embeddedness and addresses three layers of analytical frameworks of the embeddedness,that of environmental,network and dyadic embeddedness.It attempts to expand the existing theory of the embeddedness.It further studies the influence mechanism of cluster enterprise embeddedness on cooperative innovation performance tested by 147 manufacturing enterprises in the industrial cluster of the Zhejiang Province.The dissertation applies a series of research approaches such as literature review,theory deduction,on-site investigation, model construction and statistical verification,as well as a combination of mathematical statistical tools such as SPSS and AMOS.It makes clear the influence mechanism of cluster enterprise embeddedness on cooperative innovation.Moreover,it analyses the expansion of the existing study on cluster enterprise embeddedness and its guiding significance to practice on the basis of the influence mechanism.The whole study borrows and applies existing relevant theories and approaches.Meanwhile,it makes tentative innovative study contained in the following three innovative points:(1) Forming mechanism and 1 of cluster enterprise embeddedness addressed.Study on the cluster embeddedness has become an important theme of cluster theory study with the integration of economics,geography,sociology and management science theories.However,the concept of cluster embeddedness in the existing studies is very theoretical and abstract,and covers a wide rang of areas and very flexible,so as to lead to the difficulty of theory development and practical application.This dissertation intensively analyses the forming mechanism of the embeddedness of cluster enterprises.It points out that the embeddedness is not only reflected in the bilateral relations of partners,but also the interdependent networks of input-output based transactions among regional economy subjects and of non-transactions like regional cultures,acts and practices.Affected by regional institutional environment,the embeddedness of cluster enterprises forms unique levels and influences enterprises' strategy selection,execution and operation.The forming mechanism of the cluster enterprise embeddedness outlines clearly the inside mechanism of the cooperating behavior of industrial cluster enterprises.It clarifies the concept of cluster enterprise embeddedness.The classification of the three levels of the embeddedness is an interpretation tool with theoretical significance.(2) Influence mechanism of cross-level embeddedness on cluster enterprise cooperative innovation performance addressedAiming at the fact that the study of cluster embeddednedd is still at the periphery of the enterprise behavior,and has not linked effectively with individual behavior within clusters.This dissertation follows academic frontiers and addresses that there is interaction effect among cross-level embeddedness of cluster enterprises.The interaction effect influences the cooperation, communications and interactions between enterprises and outside economic subjects.At the same time,interorganizational interaction mechanism is the direct triggers of enterprise cooperative innovation,and key influencing factor of cooperative innovation performance.Therefore,the dissertation has constructed the model reflecting the impact of the cross-level embeddedness of cluster enterprises on enterprise cooperative innovation performance,i.e.the conceptual model of cluster enterprise cross-level embeddedness - interorganizational interaction - cooperative innovation performance,based on the interrelationship among cluster enterprise cross-level embeddedness,interorganizational interaction and cooperative innovation performance,and in combination with the literature reviews and on-site investigations.Interorganizational interaction plays the role of intermediate for the influence of cross-level embeddedness on cooperative innovation performance.Linkage between clusters and enterprises' strategies and behaviors is established by this model.The influence mechanism of cluster enterprise cross-level embeddedness on cooperative innovation performance is the expanded application of the embeddedness theory in the study of the industrial cluster theory.It has certain interpretation power in many aspects of industrial cluster study.(3) Empirical study by structural equation model and the model for the influence mechanism of cross-level embeddedness on cluster enterprise cooperative innovation performance testedThe existing study on cluster embeddedness focuses on qualitative study. Many assumptions for the influence mechanism of cluster embeddedness on enterprises' cooperative behavior,economic performance and market competitive advantages still lack adequate demonstrations,especially large sample qualitative analysis.Domestically,study on cluster embeddedness starts late.Currently it is still at the preliminary stage.It is mostly limited to simple integration of foreign study results and very short of empirical analysis targeting on Chinese enterprise practices.There is almost no empirical study on the relations between the embeddedness and enterprise cooperative innovation performance.This dissertation applies structural equation model to test theoretical model on the basis of big sample questionnaire.It is of considerable importance in further study and application of cluster embeddedness.