A Study On The Influencing Factors Of The Intention Of Cluster Small Firms’Relocation

With the development of the globalization and the integration of the world economy, this phenomenon of more and more firms relocates themselves in some clusters becomes a hot topic among the researchers. And Porter(1990) called it the industrial cluster. In the meantime, the cluster is changing all the time since it forms. New firms are immigrating into the cluster and some are immigrating outward. This phenomenon of firm immigration first appeared in the1990s in our country and entered into an active period after entering the21st century. And the researchers find the most of these firms are in some clusters.Based on different hypothesis, the researchers abroad can be divided into three different schools:the neoclassical school, the behavioral school and the institutional school. The neoclassical school consider all the firms as "rational economic person" and the only goal of the firms is the profit maximization. The behavioral school’s hypothesis is that firms are partly rational and the information a firm could achieve is limited. The institutional school emphasis that all the firms are combined to each other and social network and the social system could influence firms’immigration behavior a lot.Based on the two factors of the traditional three-factor model, which are the location(regional) features and the enterprises features, we take into account the network features and divide it into two individual aspects:the firm’s business network and institution network. Besides, we add another feature which is named " the entrepreneur’s entrepreneurial orientation" because all the sample enterprises in the research are small ones and therefore the entrepreneur’s personal orientation is very important in the decision-making of relocation. Now we have got the four-factor model which consists of the location(regional) feature, the enterprises features, the network features and the entrepreneur’s personal orientation features. And we take the enterprise size and enterprise age as two control variables. Based on the data collected from thesis survey, there are some main conclusions summarized from the empirical analysis of this thesis:firstly, the regional institution environment has an notable effect on the intention of the cluster small firms. With the growing of the satisfaction of the regional institution, the intention of cluster small firms’reduces. But the regional credit environment doesn’t have an notable effect on the intention of cluster small firms’ relocation.Secondly, the business network embeddedness doesn’t have an notable effect on the intention of cluster small firms’relocation, but the institution network embeddedness has an notable effect on the intention of cluster small firms’relocation. With the growing of the institution network embeddedness, the intention of medium and small cluster firms’reduces.Thirdly, the two aspects which are the ability to capture knowledge and the ability to use and protect the knowledge, have an notable effect on the intention of medium and small cluster firms’relocation. With the growing of ability of both aspects, the intention of medium and small cluster firms’becomes stronger. But the business operating ability doesn’t have an notable effect on the intention of medium and small cluster firms’relocation.Fourthly, the entrepreneur’s personal orientation has an notable effect on the intention of medium and small cluster firms’relocation. With the growing of the entrepreneur’s personal orientation, the intention of medium and small cluster firms’ becomes stronger.Fifthly, the control variables have n notable effect on the intention of medium and small cluster firms’relocation. With the growing of the medium and small cluster firms’age and size, the intention of medium and small cluster firms’becomes weaker.