A Study On Patterns Of Agricultural Cluster Brand Construction In Shandong Province

In the wake of the Reform and Opening up policy, there has been a rapid growthamong a large number of regional agricultural clusters in China as well as a newcompetitive trend that different clusters are competing with one another, with thedevelopment of agricultural economy and the transformation of the agricultural growthmode. Developing agricultural groups, building agricultural cluster brands are inexorablerequirements for China’s agriculture development in the new period, as well as a strategicchoice for China to expand the scale of agriculture and improve China’s agriculturalcompetitiveness.In recent years, agricultural industry clusters have been flourishing, which hasbecome an important tool to accelerate the economic development of Shandong Province.Despite this, Shandong agricultural clusters confronted bottlenecks in the past few years:due to low scientific and technological innovation capability, relatively backwardagricultural base construction as well as low scientific and cultural qualities of theagricultural workers and many other factors, there was a decline or even shrinking of thecompetitiveness of many clusters. Under this circumstance, it is imperative that we buildagricultural cluster brands on the basis of industrial clusters, which is essential tomaintain the continuous development of the agricultural clusters in Shandong Province.Building cluster brands relies on industrial clusters, thus a combination of industrialcluster organization and development theory with brand theory will bring us lots ofbeneficial enlightenments. With a brand-new standpoint, this thesis will studyagricultural clusters from the perspective of brand. Based on the practical needs toimprove the competitiveness of agricultural clusters of Shandong Province, the thesisaims to provide ideas and measures for building agricultural cluster brands in variousareas in Shandong Province.The thesis is divided into five chapters with the first chapter as an introduction ofthe background and meaning of this study, an overview of the theoretical studies uponthis topic, and finally a general statement of the research methods, research ideas and thecreativeness of the thesis. Chapter two is a theoretical analysis of agricultural cluster brand construction, and an illustration of the concepts, features and relative theories ofagricultural and industrial clusters and agricultural cluster brand, as well as analysis ofthe interactive relationship between agricultural clusters and cluster brands. Chapter threeis an analysis on the mechanism of agricultural cluster brand construction. It analyses theformation mechanism of agricultural cluster brands and factors that influencesagricultural cluster brand construction, and explains the coordinative mechanism in theprocess of building cluster brands, followed by a summary of general patterns ofagricultural cluster brand construction. Chapter four provides an analysis of the patternsof agricultural cluster brand construction in Shandong Province. It analysessystematically the current conditions of agricultural clusters and agricultural clusterbrands in Shandong Province, and has a comparative analysis of the construction patternsby choosing four representative agricultural cluster brands in Shandong—JinxiangGarlic, Laiwu Green Onion and Ginger, Yantai Apple and Pingyi Honeysuckle. Chapterfive covers the strategies for agricultural cluster brand construction in Shandong province.Based on a practical analysis and relating to the reality of agricultural development inShandong Province, this chapter puts forward strategies for agricultural cluster brandconstruction.The thesis made innovative achievements through exploratory research: the authorhad a systematic analysis of cluster brands in Shandong Province, and summed up fourtypes of agricultural cluster brand construction patterns, that is, industry-relating pattern,history-inheriting pattern, natural resource pattern and development chain extensionpattern; with cooperative theory as theoretical analysis foundation, the competitive andcooperative relationships between different subjects in the process of agricultural clusterbrand construction were revealed, proving that it is scientific and reasonable forgovernments and enterprises to compete and cooperate with each other.