Research On The Collaboration Network Of The Industrial Design Industry In Shanghai

Industrial design, which was part of manufacturing companies initially, came along with manufacturing. With social division of labor increasingly refined and manufacturing development in high-end, it developed itself into a relatively independent advanced manufacturing service industry, industrial design industry. Industrial design industry was born from manufacturing and has natural connections to manufacturing. From specific industry category perspective, industrial design industry, which belongs to creative industry as well, heavily relies on creative talents and creative knowledge, and is in the high-end segments of the industry value chain. Just like technology and marketing, design is a vital drive to enterprise innovation and plays critical roles in manufacturing industry and industrial upgrading development. Due to the nature of creative industry and manufacturing service industry where industrial design industry inherits from, industrial design industry needs to integrate various resources hence it relies much more on multiple network relationships comparing to regular manufacturing industry. The practice shows that industrial design industry prefers to develop in clusters and acquires knowledge spillover effect through official and unofficial communications in local networks; meantime constrained by inadequate local spaces and resources, industrial design industry also cooperates and communicates externally outside of the region.With increasing demands from industrial restructuring and upgrading, Shanghai pays more and more attention to the role of industrial design industry. Innovation and creation are becoming important power sources for Shanghai city development, and are important driving forces for the transformation from "Made in Shanghai" to "Created in Shanghai". So taking Shanghai as a case study for industrial design industry will bring us typical and realistic significance. Shanghai industrial design industry started late and scale is small, still belongs to the category of small and micro businesses. Due to financing and resources difficulties, it is difficult for small and micro businesses to develop technological innovation independently, hence it is essential to establish multiple-dimension of connections to various organizations and develop collaboration networks, so promotion of technology spillover and knowledge sharing can be achieved.In this paper, based on the project funded by the Chinese Ministry of Education:"the network power, the spatial bahavior of enterprise, and the innovation of enterprise" (08JA790044),the project funded by the Shanghai Culture and Creative Center:"the investigation on the ability of innovative designing of Shanghai’s enterprises", theories like economic geography industrial clusters, collaboration network and knowledge spillover are used to perform interview and on-the-spot investigation with Shanghai industrial design enterprises, Shanghai Industrial Design Association, multiple Shanghai creative industry parks and relevant experts to obtain first-hand information and research systemically on the collaboration network of Shanghai industrial design industry.Firstly, this paper explores the features, the influencing factors, and network infrastructure of industrial design industry; secondly, combined with theoretical literatures and field survey datas, this paper analyses the development environment and geography distribution characteristics of industrial design industry; then, it focuses on Shanghai industrial design industry collaboration network characteristics and influencing factors; finally, attempt is made to correlate network relationships with innovation capabilities to discover the connections between them. Based on the above, the paper concludes the following:Shanghai industrial design industry geography distribution shows spatial agglomeration trend, mainly disturbed in the inner city region where single center evolved into dual centers then eventually multiple centers. Spread to new districts is accompanied with inner city aggregation, meanwhile inner city aggregation is enhancing. Industrial design enterprises distribution overlaps a lot with current Shanghai creative industry parks, which presents the trend to gather around creative industry parks.Shanghai industrial design industry is leading the development of industrial design industry in China, however it is still in the early stage compared with the international. If focuses on areas like home design, home appliance design and electronic product design which are in the low-end segments of global design value chain, design imitation is major practice, no complete industrial chain is formed yet. Based on either survey data or interview result, we can tell that Shanghai industrial design collaboration network is on low level of development, collaboration network is in premature stage.Vertical connection is the major characteristic in current collaboration network. Manufacturing enterprises (clients) are the most important nodes in the network, while the requirements and funding from them are the major drive to the development of industrial design industry, which presents its attribute of manufacturing service industry. Cooperation with clients means acceptance of contractual design commission and establishment of formal collaboration network, input and output is the driving force to such collaboration network. Research institutions are the second important nodes in the network, where formal and informal networks co-exist, implicit and explicit knowledge flow and cross over. Research institutions and industry associations play the roles of knowledge and information sources, which are in the leading-end of industrial design industry chain. They carry the communication and cooperation in forms like knowledge acquisition, joint development and talent interaction, the flow of knowledge and cost reduction are the driving forces to the collaboration network development. In horizontal connections, industry peers play critical roles. Cooperation with peers includes formal communications through subcontracting, personal relationships between designers, informal communications like workshops and seminars. Cost reduction, knowledge sharing and acquisition of explicit knowledge are the driving forces to such collaboration.There is no complete industrial chain formed yet. The core of industrial design, which is creative design, has few communication and interaction with forward-linkage or backward-linkage service industry, no close industrial chain linkages are established yet.Industrial design industry has few communication with supporting nodes like financial institutions, agencies and govements.The pattern of collaboration network space scale. Different space scales lead to different network connection strength, breadth and and different driving forces.Cluster scale. Vertical and horizontal connections are very limited, connection strength and breadth are very weak, which are related to the nature of indusrial design industry, cluster space constraint, inadequate main body and limited development time. On this scale, industrial design enteripises have more communications with peers but most of them are informal ones which rely on mutual observations, collaboration on campus actitivities, etc. to acquire explicit knowledge. Cluster space is limited and located in the central old district of the city, unlikely co-exist in the same cluster with clients-manufacturing enterprises, so communication with clients on this scale is close to none. In short, official cluster network connections are weak, major drive for agglomeration is to acquire externalities (knowledge spillover, public benefit, creative atmosphere, brand value, etc.). Explict knowledge transfer caused by adjacencty is the major dirve for agglomeration.City scale. City is the most important collaboration network space sacle. On this scale, vertical connections to clients, research institutions, horizontal connections to peers, industry associations, govement and financial organizations are extensive. The solid foundation of Shanghai manufacturing industry and national/international enterprises agglomeration provide industrial deisgn industry the market foundation for development; relatively advanced industrial design education provides Shanghai industrial design industry intelligence sources as well; relatively early settle down of national and international design enterprises creates better design atmosphere and introduces opportunities for mutual learning. Adjacency, industry chain and knowledge flow are the most important dirving forces for the network development.Country scale. On country scale, majority of Shanghai industry design enterprises’ cooperation partners from other provinces and cities are manufacture companies in Jiangsu or Zhejiang provinces, focus on vertical cooperation based on industry chain; geographic adjacency plays critical role in cooperation network construction.Global scale. On global scale, Shanghai industry design enterprises don’t have many oversea connections, focus on tracking and imitating foreign peers for design development; form of connections include visiting, attending workshops and exhibitions; most network connections are horizontal ones.Shanghai industry design industry innovation design capability is highly correlated to the width of enterprise network connections, not relevant to the frequency of such connections. The result of the empirical research completed within this paper shows that on cluster, city and global scales, enterprise innovation design capability has positive correlation to the connections width with customers, peers and research institutions. But on country scale the correlation is not strong. On cluster, city, country and global scales, enterprise innovation design capability is not relevant to the frequency of the cooperation network connections.