The Research On The Cambridge Phenomenon And Its Formation Mechanism

Since the 1970s, the world economy has entered a new era - knowledge-based economy. In the era of knowledge economy, foster innovative clusters have become an important means for a country or region to enhance competitiveness. Previous studies on innovation cluster only is a observation based on mature cluster, this analysis often overlooked all of the experience inspection in the formation of innovation clusters, there is no practical significance on innovation Clusters policy. This article supported that through application a detailed test on the formation process of innovative clusters to guide the analysis on Pre-conditions and start mechanism. This paper takes "Cambridge phenomenon" case as a typical example, in-depth study of the formation mechanism of innovation clusters.This paper argues that research the formation of innovation clusters should be divided into different stages; this is because the early stages and the development stage are completely different, the development conditions they faced are also different. In the early stage of innovation clusters, conditions are very unfavorable, not only lack a variety of supporting institutions but also lack supportive policies. Under such conditions, the high-tech enterprise established mainly through the "soft start"model. "Soft start" not only can reduce the risk of creating new enterprises but also solve the problem of new enterprises financing in the case of lacking risk capital in early stage. Because the "soft start"model can minimize the demand for capital, and entrepreneurs also can obtain income through their own wages, or the provision of advisory services to support the company's initial development. At this point, the government should encourage universities, research institutions; even enterprises adopt a "low-threshold policy", because it is a premise to implement "soft start"model. In addition, the most important thing on how to promote the formation of a regional innovation clusters is to create conducive environment for the creation of high-tech enterprises, rather than establishing the agency. This is because the enabling environment can be more effectively mobilize the enthusiasm of entrepreneurs inherent, but the bodies are passive, it can only play a supplementary role, if the entrepreneur has no wishes to start a new business, it is meaningless to establish supporting institutions.When innovation cluster has an initial outline, forming a certain degree of influence, the innovative cluster began to enter the development stage. At this time, cluster will attract venture capital to enter, at the same time also began to emerge a series of supportive institutions. At this stage, innovation cluster should focus on the establishment of three mechanisms: entrepreneurship mechanism, innovation Network mechanism, collective learning mechanism.Entrepreneurship mechanism mainly includes three parts: Venture Capital mechanism, business incubators mechanism and entrepreneurship education mechanism. When create a venture capital mechanism, we must pay attention to the level of venture capital, in addition to emphasis on the formal venture capital, must also pay attention to the informal venture capital, angel capital in particular. In mature innovation clusters, the amount of angel investment, even more than the formal venture capital. We need know that the role of venture capital is definitely not just as simple as financing, in addition to funding, a mature venture capital also offer a lot of other help. For example, to help companies rapidly set up formal financial and management systems; to help companies to find the management talents who have with international marketing experience; to provide advice about the enterprise development strategies and so on. In addition, the best can have multiple outside investors for a venture so that they can monitor each other.Business incubator is another very effective tool; the critical success factor is that there must be a fair income distribution policy. Take Cambridge university "enterprise" as example, the principle of distribution is that: the people who create new technologies are most worthy of reward, the organization which provides innovative environment is the second should be rewarded, the Cambridge University who provides services and capital is the third should be rewarded. Such income distribution policy is reasonable; it fully affirmed the important value of inventions. If there is no inventor's innovation, there would not be commercialized. We must build a good commercialization system of science and technology; must be fair and equitable balance the interests of all parties, especially the interests of inventors; must be in good faith based, format a virtuous cycle of technology commercialization system. This is the only way to emerging scientific and technological innovation, the only way to continue to create social value, the only way to guarantee the success of high technology commercialization.The last part of entrepreneurship mechanism is entrepreneurship education mechanism. In fact, the scarcest and the most valuable resources of the innovative cluster are entrepreneurs. Because the entrepreneurs are not "natural endowment", therefore, the education for entrepreneurs produced - "entrepreneurship education" is vital. In entrepreneurship education, one of the main values of Cambridge entrepreneurship Learning Center is: for the individual to enact their entrepreneurial ambitions and that appropriate skills and understanding are learnt, not taught. The core of entrepreneurship education is reflected in the improvement of the self-efficacy. High and low levels of self-efficacy have serious consequences for an individual's belief in their ability to perform in a range of situations, for example with entrepreneurial processes. High levels of self-efficacy have been linked to various behaviors such as innovation and opportunity recognition in entrepreneurship and career persistence. The confidence and self-belief that people have in their ability to undertake actions and sub-actions is hugely important to whether or not people will embark on the entrepreneurial journey. The other factor is that enhanced self-efficacy may also raise the sense of achievement motivation.The second development mechanism of Cambridge innovation cluster is innovative network mechanism. It has been suggested that one of the reasons underpinning the success of Cambridge is not so much what the individual organizations do, but the way in which they do it, and this way of doing things is the basis for Cambridge Innovation Network to be efficient operation. In Cambridge there is a sense of being part of something significant and special that is making a real impact on the world. Because of the sense of community, organizations and individuals are typically very willing to help each other. This is reflected in the high level of engagement of the business community in enterprise education activities throughout Cambridge. Furthermore, there is no one group that'organizes'Cambridge. New initiatives are continuously springing up– some succeed and some fail. This may be perceived as inefficient, but does result in a highly entrepreneurial environment. It also must be noted that, in a rapid technological change, and the highly uncertain global economic environment, the local impact is necessarily limited. Therefore, in order to make regional innovation capabilities continue to be improved and economic vitality and to avoid "technology lock-in" because of closed regional network, it must require the regional innovation network is an open network system.Namely, when the various actors within the region coordination and interaction with each other, they also continued to build innovation networks outside the region, and connect with the main innovation body outside the region, particularly connect with the broader global and national innovation network.Finally, a very important reason for an innovation cluster can more easily produce a lot of innovation, entrepreneurship is because the formation of collective learning mechanism. The collective learning mechanism and the innovative network mechanism are linked but different. Innovation network emphasizes the importance of non-business institutions and organizations .but collective learning mechanism emphasizes the strength and networks between enterprises. The enterprises need to develop shared knowledge in the following three areas for the establishment of collective learning mechanisms: first, in terms of preconditions for learning, there is the need to establish a common language for talking about technological and organizational problems. This is closed related to the need for common standards of honesty and information sharing. Secondly there is a need for a shared knowledge of a more strictly technological or engineering sort, which allows different firms to effectively collaborate in a technological project. The third kind of shared knowledge is organizational, examples suggested by Lorenz being how to manage hierarchical relations, how to divide responsibilities among different occupations or services, or what procedures are needed to assure the consistency of collective decision making. The development of a collective learning capability in the Cambridge region is likely to reflect three key mechanisms or processes of collective learning, namely the degree of local movement and spin-off of embodied technological and managerial expertise in the form of entrepreneurs, the frequency and importance of inter-firm networking and interaction, and the importance of flows of research and professional staff between local firms. It should be noted that the collective learning mechanism also be open, not only access to useful resources from the local, but also obtain useful knowledge at the national level and global levels.Throughout the whole process of Cambridge phenomenon's emergence and development, this paper argues, the innovation cluster's development model is essentially an entrepreneurial-based economic model; a very important factor in the entrepreneurial economy is an entrepreneurial culture. Entrepreneurial culture is important, because the entrepreneurial culture directly relevant to the generation of entrepreneurial motivation. The most widely held and persistent misconception caused by the early research into the entrepreneurial motivations was the belief that entrepreneurs are somehow"different". In fact, a more realistic approach to the study of entrepreneurial behavior is to look at entrepreneurship as a personal choice that is based on expectations of success, perceptions of social desirability, and on an individual's personal preferences. This approach recognized the fact that entrepreneurship is essentially a matter of personal choice. In choosing this option, an individual may be required to forego other career alternatives. As there are such opportunities costs associated with the entrepreneurship choice, the choice is bound to be based on calculations regarding the net present value of this choice. Therefore, if the local culture is a kind of entrepreneurial culture at this time, has a strong entrepreneurial environment, and has a large support from the outside, then individuals are more likely to make entrepreneurship choice, namely, if the background is an entrepreneurial supportive, then the potential entrepreneurs are more likely to become a true entrepreneur. In addition, in the formation and development process of innovative cluster, social capital has been plays a central role. Cognitive social capital is the basis of Cambridge cluster's innovation and entrepreneurial culture; it is the core for the establishment of a "common purpose of community". We can say that it is the premise for the other two social capitals to play a role. Structural social capital and relational social capital are very important driving force for Cambridge cluster's development, but in different areas. Structural social capital is critical for the efficient functioning of the cluster. Formal links between companies increase awareness of opportunities for strategic alliances (that take advantage of complementary expertise) and for outsourcing activities for greater efficiency. They also provide a channel for information on industry trends, government initiatives and grants, laboratory space and new business opportunities. Relational social capital, however, is leveraged extensively in the formation of new ventures for evaluating promising business opportunities, for forming connections between investors and entrepreneurs, and for staffing new enterprises with experienced management teams. In this area the social capital of entrepreneurs is invaluable and they play a pivotal role in reducing barriers to entry for new companies. The present study has therefore shown that individuals and their networks of relationships are important to the functioning of a vibrant and dynamic cluster.Through the comparison between the Cambridge phenomenon and Beijing Zhongguancun, we found that there are some errors in Zhongguancun's development strategies. For example, he main characters of Zhongguancun are not those grass-roots enterprise but those large enterprises; Zhongguancun's investment mainly focus on foreign multinational companies, rather than develop local entrepreneurship; the higher levels of government departments are more emphasis on the industrial scale, rather than technological innovation; the measure of Zhongguancun's performance is not the quality but the quantity; the main driving force for the development is market-driven rather than government-driven and so on. According to these problems, this paper gives a few suggestions for the Zhongguancun's future development: go out of the government-led mistakes ,actively transform government functions, and regulate government behavior; attention and support innovative development of SMEs to change the wrong development strategy; changes the role of Zhongguancun area's University ,developing entrepreneurial university; perfect Venture capital mechanism and establish a multi-level venture capital funds; and actively create the social capital of the Zhongguancun area, build efficient, open innovation networks, as well as collective learning mechanisms.