Critical Influencing Factors To The Formation Of Start-up Firms’Cooperative R&D Networks In Cluster Context

Today entrepreneurial activities are growing vigorously and facilitating the economic development in China. Lacking knowledge and key resources always restrict the growth of start-up firms. Industrial clusters may influence regional and national economic growth positively on many aspects; the development of innovative industrial clusters is an important way to promote regional innovation. It has becoming one of the most active regions on entrepreneurship activities. Effective cooperation between enterprises in clusters could improve the overall competitiveness of the industry; improve the innovation capability of enterprises and promote the growth of start-up firms. Start-up firms can obtain resources and capabilities needed in their early period through learning and innovation effect the industrial clusters have. Cooperative R&D network is the effective way for start-up firms to obtain technology and key resources. Start-up firms, embedding into specific industrial clusters can effectively reduce the R&D cost, spread the R&D risk, and improve the success rate of R&D by building cooperative R&D networks.The study aims to explore the key factors that influence the formation of start-up firms’cooperative R&D networks in cluster context. This paper reviews the relevant literatures of cooperative R&D networks and innovative networks from four aspects respectively. Basing on the grounded theory, we adopt case studies of three start-up firms embedded in the industrial cluster in yangtze river delta region, then build up the key factor model, and choose some factors to explain the influencing mechanism. The research results we concluded are as follows:R&D resources and capabilities, R&D mode and strategy are the internal driving factors. R&D network embedding and cluster R&D context are the external driving factors. The four main categories corresponding to the four sub categories respectively, reflecting that the key factors of each main category contains. Taking the main category R&D resources and capabilities for example, four sub categories it contains are:R&D team, technical factors, resource acquisition and resource integration. There are obvious causal relationships between sub categories, such as network position to resource acquisition, network governance to resource integration.In the end, according to the study results, two enlightenments from the literature research and management practice are given respectively to promote the formation of start-up firms’cooperative R&D networks.