Institutional Factors For The Development Of Industrial Clusters

Industrial clusters have become an important impetus for regional economic development. From the evolution of theory of industrial clusters, the research perspective varies from the location, resources, technology and other factors to institutional factors. The development of regional industrial clusters in the background of our country's institutional transformation provides rich material for the research from the perspective of institutional economics perspective. Taking institutional factors of industrial clusters' development as the research object from the perspective of institutional economics, this thesis combines pertinent knowledge from regional economics, industrial economics, economic sociology to analyze the mechanism of institutional factors on the development of industrial clusters based on the Chinese industrial clusters' development by an integrated method of institutional analysis, game analysis, quantitative analysis, case and comparison analysis, trying to set up an institutional analysis framework to industrial clusters for exploring the institutional means of the sustainable development of industrial clusters. This thesis is helpful in that it expands the analysis perspective of industrial clusters, enriches the content of regional economics and industrial economics. In practice, it will help to improve the competitiveness of industrial clusters, and help maintain a sustainable development of regional industrial clusters.This thesis mainly contains the following four parts: First, the theoretical research framework of this paper, including the assumption of human behavior, the definition of the immanence essence and characteristics of industrial clusters and the content of the theoretical framework; Second, analysis of the formal and informal institutional factors on the development of industrial clusters from the perspective of institutional structure, analysis of the mechanism of institutional factors on industrial clusters' development; a dialectical and dynamic analysis of path dependence of institutional change leading to a institutional lock, which makes institutional factors incompatible with the development of industrial clusters, resulting in negative effects in the development of industrial clusters; Third, a regional comparative analysis of institutional factors on industrial clusters' development. Last, proposals of institutional innovation to promote sustainable development of industrial clusters in China.The major conclusions of this thesis are: First, industrial clusters should be defined from the perspective of institutional economics to be a kind of intermediate organization and social network, rather than an economy of scale or a pure technical concept. The enterprises in the industrial clusters are a community of common interests, emphasizing cooperation as well as efficiency. Institutions provide a fundamental framework for people to cooperate in a wide range of social labor division and are of great significance in the development of industrial clusters. Second, formal institutional factors influencing the development of industrial clusters include local government behaviors and industry association, both of which are dominant coordination mechanism. The local government demonstrates independent goals and behavior patterns, provides public goods, regulates competition by changing the game rules, and makes policy for the development of industrial clusters. From the dynamic perspective, the government should provide different institutional arrangements at different stages to better serve the development of industrial clusters. Industry associations are an important governance mechanism, with their qualities of information mechanism, coordination mechanism and the mechanism for collective action guaranteed their dominance in coordinating corporate relations and enhancing competitiveness of clusters. Third, informal institutions are the hidden coordination mechanism of industrial clusters' development. Through its trust mechanism, reputation mechanism and mechanism of collective punishment, which help to reduce complexity and uncertainty of the industrial cluster organizations, social capital is able to reduce market transaction costs and improve resource allocation performance and innovation performance of industrial clusters by effectively preventing the opportunism and promoting cooperation between clusters. As a cultural concept, entrepreneurship has obvious external economy. Through its demonstration effect, competitive effect, entrepreneurs' local networks as well as cooperation between entrepreneurs of social alliance, the entrepreneurial spirit tends to form innovation and cooperation culture in clusters. Entrepreneurship is the micro-foundation of the development of industrial clusters and industry clusters are deeply rooted in the local culture. A common regional culture and value will help to set up inter-enterprise cooperation and trust-based social network, effectively reducing transaction costs, promoting technological innovation and proliferation. As a matter of fact, regional culture has become the underlying social causes of clusters' development. Fourth, path-dependence and lock of institutional change will lead to recession in industrial clusters. The locks which include social capital lock, cognitive lock and policies lock make institutions incompatible with industrial cluster development, which is an institutional barrier for industrial clusters' development. Fifth, institutional difference well explains the differences of industrial clusters' development between regions. The status quo of industrial clusters in Zhejiang province and Shaanxi province is a typical example. Last, we should build an institution structure compatible with industrial clusters to guarantee the smooth growth and sustainable development of industrial clusters due to the fact that clusters' development is closely related to institutional innovation.The innovations of this paper include: First, this thesis chooses the perspective of institutional structure to study the development of industrial clusters, to analyze the mechanism of formal and informal institutions on the development of industrial clusters, which, instead of one mere institution, is an important expansion of the research perspective, avoiding the one-sidedness of a single system. Second, from a dialectic, comprehensive and dynamic perspective, this thesis analyzes not only positive effect but negative effect of institutional factors, path-dependence and lock of institutional change, which reveals the institutional-changeable function's ability to phase the development of industrial clusters, making the study of industrial clusters' development more comprehensive and objective. Third, this thesis considers whether the institutions can promote the development of industrial clusters depends on the compatibility between institutional change and industrial clusters. Last, By a comparison of the institutional factors between Zhejiang province and Shaanxi province, this thesis draws the conclusion that different institutions lead to different performance of industrial clusters in different regions.