The Effectiveness Of Social Capital On The Industrial Clusters

The industrial cluster has the non-Substitutable effect on the development and improvement of the region where the cluster locates. Fuzhou Economic Development Zone has made great contributions to the development of Fuzhou area. Especially Mawei IT cluster with the annual production value of 10 billion RMB which is situated in Fuzhou Economic Development Zone is the important part of the four IT bases in China. The cluster as the entity embedded in the social structure has made the economist comprehend that the economic activities are not as simple as they have perceived. The economic activities as one of the complex social activities should be researched more from the sociology aspect. Putting the Fuzhou Economic Development Zone as the research case, and on the basis of introduction of the social capital theory and economic cluster theory, the thesis that combines the economic cluster and social capital conceptions, applies the related theories of the economics and sociology to the research of Fuzhou Economic Development Zone IT cluster which is led by several multinational corporations to show the effectiveness of the social capital on the industrial clusters. With the combination of Quantitative investigation and Qualitative investigation, the thesis proves that the social capital is the source of the core competitiveness of industrial cluster and on all phases of the cluster, the social capital improves the speed and level of the agglomeration, and Fuzhou Economic Development Zone is lack of social capital. On the other hand the thesis also indicates that though the embedded ness of the cluster makes the cluster competitive, the embedded ness may make the cluster locked in and show negative effectiveness, so that the innovative ability of the clusters is contained. In the end the thesis presents some ideas and countermeasures as to how to improve the social capital of the Fuzhou Economic Development Zone. The government and related departments should take proper measures to improve the social capital and exert the positive effect to facilitate the persisting development of the industrial clusters.