Study On The Knowledge Network And Innovation Performance Of Agricultural Industry Clusters

At present, the competitiveness of China's agricultural industry cluster is poor, innovation is weak, and knowledge network is undeveloped. In the context of the new economy, knowledge and innovation are becoming the important factors in economic growth, while the network is precisely the effective way to innovate and spread knowledge. In order to solve problems in agricultural industry clusters, scholars carried out a lot of research from the characteristics, formation mechanism, development of model, and many other aspects of agricultural industry clusters, and made many useful insights. However, the researches on internal structure, network and innovation of the agriculture industry clusters are still very rare. Therefore, this paper based on the network perspective, taking the flowers and plants industry in Yanling County, Henan Province for example, makes a detailed investigation on the development overview of the whole industrial clusters, the cluster network characteristics, and the enterprise's innovation within the cluster. Then, this paper takes the data obtained from personal interviews and field survey as the main data. From two dimensions (network structure and network relations) and three levels (technology network, market network and collaborative network), this paper using descriptive statistics, social network analysis, principal component analysis, regression analysis, etc., deeply explores the structural characteristics and relationship characteristics of the agriculture industry clusters, and explores the knowledge network's effects on the cluster enterprise's innovation performance. The following is a summary of the conclusions.(1) Three types of knowledge networks present in three different structural forms. In the technology network which presents core– periphery structure, core nodes have more network relationships than any other nodes, and they can search external knowledge extensively, while the peripheral nodes loosely link with other members. In the market network which presents group separated structure, large group has a strong cohesion and the internal members have a close relationship, while the small group has a loose cohesion. This network which is not stable enough should be taken to avoid separation of factions. Cooperation network can be viewed as a closed whole network. There are rare isolated nodes in the network and each node deeply embedded in knowledge network.(2) In the three kinds of knowledge networks, members in cooperation network link most frequent. The cooperation network's density is maximal, market network is next, and technology network's density is minimal. Complementarities among farmers to complete the order and together form the market make the cooperation network most dense. The explicitness of growing technology makes members of the network without much interaction. In addition, core enterprises in the three knowledge networks have more knowledge associations. These enterprises are the important knowledge gatekeeper in the cluster, while the farmers and some small enterprises are often isolated in the network. All of these lead to the asymmetry of knowledge spillovers. Except the core enterprises, a number of intermediary organizations and service agencies for knowledge diffusion play a very important role.(3) In the three kinds of knowledge networks, core enterprises have stronger relationship strength and relationship quality than other types of organizations. It proves that frequent and high-quality knowledge flows tend to concentrate at a high level group, but does not flow in the whole cluster. Knowledge tends to around the strong core which has more knowledge endowment. Farmers in the three networks have the weakest relationship strength and relationship quality.(4) Core enterprises'technology network relationship strength is lower than their own market network relationship strength and cooperation network relationship strength, which is contrary to the normal enterprises, quasi enterprises and farmers. This may be due to these core enterprises in the cluster are often the technology development center. Their own technology knowledge storage is more adequate than market knowledge storage and cooperation knowledge storage, so the technology knowledge network relationship strength will be lower correspondingly. In general, core enterprises'technology network relationship strength is still stronger than the other organizations. Furthermore, the market network relationship quality is higher than the technology network relationship quality and the cooperation network relationship quality in the whole flowers and plants industry cluster.(5) Innovation performance of enterprise in the cluster varies widely. Innovation performance of the general-driven enterprise is highest. General-driven enterprises are mainly by the composition of the core enterprises and informal enterprises. They are the main innovative members and have the strongest comprehensive strength in the cluster. Innovation performance of the capital driven enterprise is second, which lacks the practical ability of innovation. Innovation performance of the general non-optimal enterprise is lowest. General non-optimal enterprises are mainly by the composition of the associate companies, which are not yet mature and perfect in all aspects.(6) Through regression analysis between the character indexes of the network structure and network relationship and the indexes of the enterprise's innovation performance, the following results have been obtained.○1 Degree centrality of enterprise in the market knowledge network and the cooperation network has a significant positive influence on innovation performance. Diversity and non-repetitive knowledge contacts are in favor of knowledge flows and innovation diffusion, which could promote innovation.○2 Out-degree centrality of enterprise in the technology knowledge network has a significant negative effect on innovation performance. Small and medium enterprises in the agricultural cluster too much depend on external technology. They have more technical redundancy and the homogenization of information is very serious. These would not conducive to the independent innovation of enterprises.○3 The technology network relationship strength and the market network relationship strength of enterprise have significant negative influence and significant positive influence on innovation performance respectively. Endogenous of the technical knowledge makes enterprise need more weak ties in the technology network, while exogenous of the market knowledge makes enterprise need more strong ties in the market network.○4 Technology network relationship quality and cooperation network relationship quality of enterprises have significant positive influence on innovation performance, while market network relationship quality of enterprises have significant negative influence on innovation performance. In the market network relations, different members have asymmetrical information, which prone to opportunistic behavior, and affect each other's innovation behavior.○5 Firm size and absorptive capacity of enterprise have significant positive effect on innovation performance, while entrepreneurial experience has significant negative effect on innovation performance. Entrepreneurial experience easily leads to cognitive locked, which is not conducive to innovation.