Research On The Relationship Between Network Characteristics And Innovation Performance Of Cluster Enterprises

With economic globalization,innovation has become an inexhaustible motive force for the survival and sustainable development of enterprises.Based on professional division of labor or capacity complementarity,Enterprises,research institutes,agencies,and standardization organizations within a cluster develop business linkages,so that industrial clusters exhibit the “network” essential characteristics.Meanwhile,the frequent interactions among cluster enterprises also make innovative resources(information,knowledge,etc.)spread across the cluster network rapidly.At present,the development level of industrial clusters in China is still at the lower level of enterprise network,and most cluster enterprises still tend to imitate the leading enterprises.So it is becoming increasingly important for cluster enterprises to improve their innovation performance by establishing and optimizing network linkages with local enterprises,identifying,acquiring,accepting,and applying diversified information and knowledge within the network.The cluster enterprises network and absorptive capability are important pre-variables of innovation performance.The previous research has basically confirmed that the knowledge absorptive capability is the key path for the cluster enterprises network to affect the enterprise's innovation performance,but still lacks more in-depth exploration and more extensive empirical verification about the process mechanism.Based on the division of cluster enterprises network characteristics from the dual perspective of relationship embedding and structure embedding in authoritative literature,this paper uses the absorptive capability as intermediary variable,analyzes the role of characteristics' dimensions on the company's innovation performance,deduces 16 hypotheses and constructs the hypothesis relation model.With questionnaires for 198 effective sample enterprises in five different industrial clusters in Shandong Province,it uses statistical analysis method(correlation analysis,hierarchical analysis,etc.)to verify the relationship among variables one by one.The empirical results show that: first,the characteristics of cluster enterprises network(including tie strength,tie content,network size,network intensity,intermediary centrality)have positive influence on firm's knowledge absorptive capability and innovation performance;second,the knowledge absorptive capability of cluster enterprises has positive influence on innovation performance;third,the knowledge absorptive capability wholly mediates the relationship between the two dimensions(including tie content,network size)and innovation performance,partly mediates the relationship between the three dimensions(including tie strength,network intensity,intermediary centrality)and innovation performance.Combined with related research results on cluster enterprises network characteristics,knowledge absorptive capacity,and innovation performance,this study examines the mediating role of knowledge absorptive capacity on the network relational embeddedness of cluster enterprises(including tie strength,tie content)and innovation performance,which extends the empirical evidence of this research conclusion.In addition,the empirical results confirm the mediating role of knowledge absorptive capacity on network structural embeddedness of cluster enterprises(including network size,network intensity,intermediary centrality)and innovation performance,which enriches previous research.The conclusions of this paper has four aspects of enlightenment for improving the innovation performance of cluster enterprises: first,expanding the external relationship network;second,strengthening the network relationship management capability;third,actively participating in the construction of industry-university-research alliance;four,continuously enhancing the knowledge absorptive capability Therefore,this study is not only is a further enrichment of the three theory,such as network embedding,knowledge management,and cluster innovation,but also has important guiding significance for for cluster enterprises' innovation and development.