The Impact Of Social Network On Industrial Integration

Industrial clusters, as an important force of regional economic development, have become a source of competitive advantage of nations. In recent years, China has made great industrial cluster development. However, compared with foreign mature industrial clusters, domestic industrial clusters do still have some disadvantage, such as the lack of core competence, the imperfection of industrial chain, and the underdevelopment of social network collaboration. In a word, all domestic industrial clusters have not reached their advanced stage - industrial integration. Therefore, it is very important and urgent to study the formatting and growing path of industrial integration. As all economic action is embedded in the social structure, industrial integration is also embedded in social network, which are the base of the competitiveness of industrial clusters. Thus, it is meaningful to study why some industrial clusters grow to decline or death while some others grow to success, meaning what impact of social network is it on industrial integration.First, base on the literature reviewing, this paper defines the conception and summarizes the character of industrial integration by comparing industrial integration and industrial clusters, since they have so close relationships. Then, this paper, by using the method of systematical analysis, from three-dimensional features, identifies the actors of integration in the social network, analyzes the interaction among these actors, describes the structural features of social network, and thus builds a corresponding structural model of social network of industrial integration. After that, by using the method of comparative analysis, from both the positive and negative aspects of, this paper does an in-depth study of the impact of the whole social network on the formation and development of industrial integration, which results in three conclusions. For one thing, social network can come to the promotion of a relationship of trust and the spread of knowledge among actors in the industrial network. But for another, it can also bring risk of structural lock and relationship dependence to the industrial integration. Finally, this paper builds the model of the impact mechanism of social network on industrial integration.